Scott Cheshire - High as the Horses' Bridles

They were laughing and saying, “What took you so long?”

We walked over, and how did our hairdos look by now? More ridiculous? Less ridiculous?

The girls were playing cards.

“You want to play UNO?” one of them asked us, the same one who had asked my name. We sat down on the ground and joined them.

I don’t know what I’d expected to happen, or what Issy had expected to happen, or for that matter what the girls had expected to happen. But whatever it may have been, no matter how grossly exaggerated, or poorly informed, no matter what kinds of kissing I’d dreamed could ever happen on a girl’s mouth and cheek, it would have paled. And yet all we did was play cards. I saw their skirts, they were there, right there! The miracle of their knees. We played cards on a roof above the world.

Later that summer we pondered things other than love. We pondered big things like death, but in the same way we had mulled over love on the roof with those girls, wondering how it might feel. We got up close, and we looked, as close as we could without actually touching. Issy and I did what boys do. We secretly watched horror movies, and pretended to be unafraid. We imagined we were at war, in my backyard, and shot each other dead with rifle-shaped branches. We creatively killed a large insect we found under a stone. We looked at its carcass, amazed that it was here, still here, but also how it wasn’t really here in the world anymore. Death had a hard shell, then, black and metallic. And then, one day — did we go too close? — my friend Issy disappeared.

Something hit me softly on the back. I turned and saw the small wedge of wood, and saw that Dad was now standing in the doorway. He was wearing pants — no shirt, but the pants were clean and white.

“What? You think I’d lock you out?” He laughed. “Get in here.”

“So you’re ready to see me, sir?”

He laughed again. “I was tired!”

“I was on the phone.”

“With the pretty wife?”

“Not my wife.”

“Baaah.” He turned back into the house.

“Hold on.” I followed him inside, glad to see him acting more alive. He looked better. I jogged after him, past the bags, past the bathroom door, past the red light, and back into the dining room. Again we sat at the table. The white cat jumped to his lap.

He took the last sip from his beer and said, “So, I should be gone pretty soon now.”

Something caught in my throat, I coughed. “Stop. Don’t talk like that.”

“Tell me now what’s new. I feel rested.”

I said, “Well. I’m here. That’s new.”

“Ha!” He slapped my knee. “Isn’t it?”

I said, “Are you in any pain? At all? You’re too skinny, Dad.”

“Every day I’m here is pain, Junior.”

I looked at his side where the ribs were prominent. “Where?”

“Everywhere.” He looked around the room.

So I looked around the room. I said, “You’ve got to take better care of yourself.”

“I’m fine.” He lifted the cat to his face and kissed the neck, his face in the fur. “I’m done taking care of things,” he said. “Since your mother left, I’m tired.”

“I know.”

“What do you know?” he said.

“That she left. And you’re tired.”

“You don’t know a thing hiding out there in Hollywood.” He pressed his face against the cat’s back. “Good kitty.”

I put my hand on his knee and the cat swiped at my arm. It ran and hid beneath the table.

“Be careful with the cats.” He made kiss noises, rubbing his fingertips below the table where the cat was.

“You were in the bathroom for a long time.”

He waved it away. “Not what you think.”

“What am I thinking?”

“That your old man is constipated.”

I laughed.

“I’m fine. I think in there. It’s comfortable.”

“You’re napping on the john and it’s comfortable.”

“You don’t get to come here and tell me what’s what.”

“You’re right.” He was right. “Does anyone come over anymore? Friends from church?”

“Bah. Your mother had friends.”

“So no church. Ever?”

“My dream last night.” He rubbed at his mouth, smacked his lips. “Clouds opening up over church. This is not a church I’ve been to, but it was church, you know what I mean?”

I nodded.

“The clouds open up and there are these two big feet. You follow?”

“I follow.”

“Tremendous feet, big as Cadillacs. And His robes are swaying there and He’s facing me. But I can’t see His face. He’s way too tall. His head’s up in Heaven. And He lowers himself just enough.”

“Okay.”

“He’s hunkered there above the church.”

“Okay.”

“And He takes a king-size shit. Right through the roof.” He looked at me, like what do you think of that? He said, “I’ve had that one before. Different, but the same. I don’t go to church anymore.” He peeled at the label on his bottle, looking not especially interested in our conversation. Then he looked at me like, you and I, we get each other now?

I laughed. “No, I guess you don’t.”

“It’s all right here,” he said, touching his chest.

I nodded again. Nodding seemed safe.

“There are so many things we got wrong.” He leaned in closer. “You have to read it right.” He lifted himself from his chair.

“Sit down. Please. I just got here and you’re walking away from me again.”

“I wanna show you something.”

“You should sit.”

He walked over to the book on the far end of the table.

I said, “You hungry? I can make us something to eat.”

“Sonny boy, food is for the living.”

I tried not to sound too worried. “You’re ugly, I promise. But very much alive.”

“You always were funny.” He looked at me like he’d just remembered something, or maybe like he’d forgotten himself and he found it again. “Made your mother laugh all the time. You were a real stinker.” He pointed at me.

I noticed his pants were painter’s pants, hooks on the hips for hanging tools. He’d painted houses for a few years, and I’d completely forgotten.

“I saw your mother this morning.” He flipped the pages of the book, looked up. “You still think I’m crazy.”

“I think you’ve had a very hard year.”

“Longer than a year.”

“Mom’s gone a year.”

“I’m not talking about your mother.”

I nodded. “Of course not.”

“You know, she figured things out before she left.”

What little daylight there was dimmed along the edges of the window shades.

I said, “I can get us a pizza.”

“She’s finally gone home, Josiah. Right where she should be. It’s where she always was going. It’s where she belongs.”

I kept my mouth shut. “You should eat something.”

“And I’m going home to see her.”

Bite your lip.

What I wanted to say was, Dad, you got it all wrong. Death is not a home. Cancer is not a reward. When it comes knocking on your door, you should run. And if you don’t run because for some reason you don’t know any better, you should be taken up and protected. You should be lifted by your son, and slung over the shoulder if necessary, and hurried away to a hospital. Like it or not.

He made like he was coming toward me, but then he held fast to the chair.

“Don’t you see, Junior? I’m on your side!” He pointed his finger again and it shook, a slight palsy. “We’re finally talking here.” Then he poked at the book with his finger. “It’s all right here, but you have to wrestle with it. I’m in the Lord because He is in me, you see? Always has been. You see?”

I stood and walked toward the book, which looked sort of like a Bible, the fragmentary prosy-poem look of scripture, chapter and verse, but it was different. I didn’t recognize the names of the books. No Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. No Genesis. “What is this?”