When Dad finally died, we all went into some private mental recess and thought to ourselves, Thank God, the prick is dead. Maybe I shouldn’t speak for the rest of them, but I’m sure their thoughts were damned close to my own and if they weren’t, well I wouldn’t be the only one raising my eyebrows. Like my uncle had said a thousand times, to no expressed dissent, let the rotten egg rot.
    You’re gonna die in that moldy bed, you smelly bastard, Mom often said. It was part of the morning litany, something of a reverse eulogy, maybe. And of course, she was right; the bed was moldy, or at least the blanket, which had been handed down for Christ knew how long and which had undoubtedly served as meager comfort for many a four-legged, hooved animal, was riddled with patches of mildew along the edge nearest to the floor at the foot of the bed. Every time one of the dozen or so cats that had taken up residence in the old house walked into the room, they would sniff at the spots as though they didn’t remember the previous offense to the nose, shake their heads, sneeze and walk away in disgust. Much in the same hurry Mom did, now that I think about it. They just couldn’t wait to leave.
    If Dad was awake, he’d answer with a grunt and demand a meal. Not some humble, rational affair either; he’d want a triple layer ham and cheese sandwich, a box of saltines, any amount of chocolate, fried eggs, potato chips, sausage, ham, and a couple beers to wash it all down. Rarely did we have all, or even few, of these items but you might as well tell a dog not to shit. Dad would open one eye—quite a feat, just seeing the one stretch and peel open; watching him roll up that near quarter inch of fat off both eyes would have been a damned miracle—stare stupidly for several seconds as though he couldn’t remember where he’d fallen asleep, and in a voice damaged by disease and years of smoking and thus distorted to that of a 46-year-old troll dying of lung cancer in his own filth, he’d rumble his morning sustenance wishlist.
    The reason he lived so long was pure bad luck, the family opinion went (unheard, supposedly, by us stupid and mischievous and generally inferior kids). Not only had the sonofabitch survived two wars—as a stubborn, insolent private in what he dismissed as the Gook Wars, first in Korea and then in Vietnam before anyone knew what Viet Cong were—without so much as a scratch, but he had also lived through any number of diseases that would have taken out a dozen other people: measles, pneumonia, countless crotch maladies, bronchitis, pneumonia, you name it. He was Superman’s asshole brother, except without any kryptonite counterpart to stifle his powers.
    Mom wasn’t particularly surprised, she said, each time he came home from the service in one piece. Bad pennies turn up all the time, and if Dad was a penny, he’d be one of those nasty green and white ones that look as though they’d been soaked in every chemical substance known to man. Mom never said why she married him, of all people; the photographs of her high school days show a girl who never stopped laughing or hugging or moving, a blur of affection and cheer. She was tough too, but not in the intimidating, loathsome way Dad was; you’d think such a gal would find a man more like herself, someone who would fit around her edges, but she happened to meet the likes of Jay Quincy Binkerford before that could happen and then she became something of an asshole herself. I think she took Dad’s swaggering bullshit as a challenge (she’d admitted once that her friends were so appalled by him that she took him up on his offers just to spite their joking dares), but she didn’t know how badly she would lose. She only ever told me it happened after a football game their senior year in high school and I can pretty much fill in the blanks myself: with some graceless, possibly forceful suggestion of getting her into his car, I’m sure they fucked and had me and then got fucked with each other till death did them part.
    All of which is fine and good for a stupid young couple, to get married for the sake of their unborn kid, but they didn’t learn. My two brothers came within a year of each other when I was in grammar school. We were like measurements of detachment between my parents; with each kid, the half-assed affection as prescribed by some empty social standard—the dry hugs and kisses of greetings and love and shit—were almost extinct by the time I was old enough to notice. I don’t think I saw my parents talk in less than insults or accusations or unconvincing threats. Mom hung onto the standard bullshit reasons for not leaving Dad: she had obligations to her family, she didn’t want to work full time with three kids, she wanted us to have a father figure, whatever. Sometimes I’d think she was still living out that dare she’d taken years ago and would see it to its finish, no matter what. Either that, or she just didn’t fucking care.
    It wasn’t hard, I don’t think. Me and my brothers went to school, got in plenty of trouble and learned as little as most other kids. Dad had a job at the elementary school a couple towns east of us as a janitor, cleaning up other people’s messes and never letting us forget it. He wasn’t your ideal worker—he’d called in sick from the couch as he caught the morning sports review shows, beer in one hand, cigarette in the other, more times than not—but he knew the school’s principal from his Army days, so they got along fine. Mom worked as cashier at the market in town for a couple months after Davey, my first brother, was born but never convinced herself that leaving so many males alone was a good idea. And despite having both parents in the house—one constantly milling about like a parole officer on the trail of an imminent offense, the other plastered on the ratty, yard sale-bought sofa watching sports on the tube like the changing seasons—we were neither the apple pie nuclear family society deemed suitable for young children nor the dysfunctional, clawing unit of interrelated people whose exploits keep us entertained on all the morning talk shows. We were more like the Route 3 bus, chugging and farting its way from the sticks where we lived to the bustling, industrial heart of downtown—all four blocks of it—but nevertheless making the round, ten times a day, six days a week. It wasn’t pretty or pleasant, just kind of true.

    I’d gotten Kelly to take off her shirt. It had only taken four dates, half a dozen roses, endless praises of her dimpled face, pudge nose, crooked teeth, stiff boyish hands, flat ass, flabby stomach, and damn near all my energy to convince her that we were destined to be together forever, baby, forever, but there they were at last, tits twice the size of my fist, barely reigned in by the too small, ragged cotton C-cup bra she wore. I could see a small patch where the material had ripped; the dull, almost glaring white skin beneath sent a wave of testosterone racing from my balls to my back and neck. I had jacked off dozens of times to the imagined moment of this reality, so convinced of its inevitability that I could look past the fact that I was horribly unsure as to why she was even letting me date her. This helped me avoid taking notice of the other two assholes who were “dating” her at the same time, the object of the game being to see who could get in her pants first.
    But now all that was over with and my hands were everywhere. Well, not everywhere, really, mostly in one of two places, her left or right tit. I sat on my bed while she straddled me. My wife-beater had long been on the floor, and now it was joined by her oversized white men’s shirt flung next to it, making a perfect couple. I soon forgot about couples and shirts as she speared my throat with her tongue and jerked me towards her. I responded smartly, sliding my hands over her toneless legs, acne-splotched back, that flab-congested belly, and of course her glorious boobs, pressed into my chest as she arched her back, finding a rhythm, the pressure rising and ebbing. My hands met at her back for a quick conference and the agreement was reached that the bra was coming off, and the operation began, discreetly at first, then painfully obvious minutes later when no progress had occurred. She leaned back, rolling her eyes, but then like a magician pulling a rabbit from his hat, her bra snapped open and its captives spilled out, tumbling everywhere, the floodgates broken and the one coherent thought in my head—I’ve been chosen—rippled into indistinct waves as my fingers brushed the pink outcroppings of her nipples. It took me a few seconds to fully believe this was happening and when the connection between fantasy and reality locked, my hands tensed and pounced for the gold, savage lust driving all thoughts of smoothness or cool from my plans, and she didn’t stop me, leaning her head back to give me full access and I was there, groping and feeling everything, my mouth lapping at her pale skin and sucking her nipples loudly, and I knew this was finally it—til Dad casually opened my bedroom door and casually inquired if I had taken the car for another ride earlier that day, casually noticing his son and half-naked female companion with casual interest. Kelly screamed in surprise and jerked on my lap so violently she fell to one side, bouncing off the edge of my lumpy mattress and smacking hard onto the floor. What the fuck are you doing, I yelled, can’t you see I’m busy, and he said Yeah I sure can, how’s she working out? to which I replied Not too fuckin’ good now, right? and he went back to his original question, ignoring my rants and shouts, all the while looking at Kelly as she struggled into her shirt, amusement and lechery stamped on his brown eyes, and left only after I’d thrown the keys at him and told him to get the hell out. Kelly followed him, shirt rumpled, short blonde hair mussed, silent, as though they were both punishing me for being a man.
    I was fifteen, and much too young for such disappointment.

    We’ve lived with the term “white trash” for a while now. As I’d mentioned, Dad worked every once in a while and aside from the short time as a cashier, Mom not at all. This meant skimping on some of the luxuries, like gasoline, insurance, food, the like. We had our share of nights when we would go to bed, our stomachs rumbling unpleasantly, thinking dark thoughts about the need for money in the acquisition of food. Not that it meant anything to us when we did have a meal on the table: we would throw away chicken legs after two bites or leave vegetables untouched or feed liver to one of the cats that would be stalking around the table, waiting for the inevitable scrap of meat. Maybe if we’d been starving, we’d be more appreciative but I guess we were still a few pounds shy of that state.
    And food wasn’t the only thing in short supply. Dozens of times, maybe every few months, we’d go days or even weeks without phone, electricity, or gas. This was mere inconvenience; we always had matches and something to burn if we really wanted to see once it got dark out. I know I never minded the absence of light; it just meant I could avoid doing homework and dealing with anyone in my house. Can’t argue with people if you can’t see them.
    Mom rarely complained directly to Dad; she knew as well as anyone, probably better I suppose, how pointless it was to try and convince him of anything outside his limited range of opinion or knowledge. But when Davey came home, bawling, his hand stuck on the dripping side of his head, injured while monkeying around a swing set, she had her say.
    We are taking this boy to a hospital, Jay, she said. Right now.
    He glanced over, grunted something like, He’ll be fine, which was his translation for, I don’t want to waste time and money on a trip to the hospital. My youngest brother, Scott, and I stood together in the doorway to the living room, the dull, mushy smells from a mostly canned dinner still drifting in from the kitchen. Mom stood in front of the television, alternately caring for Davey’s tacky head and speaking icily to Dad, while the lad under observation paid little attention to the breaking argument; like his father, he watched as the Cardinals walked one batter after the other, so immersed in the game he’d already stopped his squawking.
    No, he will not be fine, Mom said, her voice rising.
    Yeah, he will. Wrap some goddamn bandages around his head and don’t mess with it.
    We don’t have any goddamn bandages. We don’t even have milk right now, or enough gas to drive to—
    And so the argument began, clumsy and dim-witted, like rednecks assembling a nuclear reactor. Dad yelled at Mom for wanting to live a life of luxury just like the rest of all the shitting pigs, but this was only after a commercial had come on; mostly he tried to get her away from the television. Mom yelled right back, calling him a useless sack of shit. This, like any other fact of life, bounced off Dad: he told her to shut the fuck up. Davey and Scott watched the television from their respective places, until they got tired of standing and went to sit down next to Dad. Davey’s bleeding had pretty much stopped (Dad was right about that, amazingly; it was a bloody but shallow head wound that a few days’ scabbing would erase), leaving little to argue about. I went to my room and thought about what it would be like to go to a hospital if I got really sick or injured. I imagined dozens of ladies in starched, white uniforms, bustling about me like angels of healing, taking care of me and my hurts, one prod and poke and pill at a time, before seeing a kindly old doctor who would tell me that I had nothing a few days, or weeks, or months in the hospital couldn’t fix, who would then show me to a big, clean bed. I curled up on my own cramped bed and, wrapping a thin sheet that had often doubled as a towel for one of us kids, thought up fantastic injuries that would get me into a hospital.

    I used to think it was weird when people asked you when your birthday was. Especially when they first met you: Hi, what’s your name, where you from, you like Zeppelin, when’s your birthday, oh you’re a Virgo, yeah me too, wanna hit it off? I was always taken off guard as a kid when someone asked, because it wasn’t till I was nearly a teenager that I realized birthdays are a big deal to most people, enough so that they ask you about it right after they ask you about your music tastes, and usually just before they ask you if you like to smoke pot. See, we never celebrated birthdays in our house, not even for us kids. And it wasn’t for lack of effort. I remember our one attempt to observe Dad’s birthday; this was before Davey or Scott, so I couldn’t have been more than six. Dad had been at work that day (and that would be just like him too, not working a regular day but going in and clocking in some overtime on his birthday—Jesus, what an asshole) and didn’t get home till nearly eight o’clock. Mom was quite enthusiastic about the cake she had made as well as the Chiefs raincoat she had bought on sale the week prior. I was pretty keyed up too, since I had no idea what a birthday party was all about and it sounded like fun. Even then, though, I remember it was weird, that we were actually going to do something fun together. It made me wonder why we hadn’t done something like this before, a little random celebration, but later when I could really think about the question, I tossed it aside and let it gather dust, like I didn’t care.
    So Dad finally shambled through the front door, lighting up a cigarette before the previous butt had hit the front walk and we started singing, just like Mom had taught me, Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to y—He cut us off and asked what we thought we were doing. Mom explained, plaintive, like a teacher explaining a simple math problem to a retard. Dad nodded, as though he’d only heard half of what she said, then bent over to the kitchen table to smell the cake, all the while puffing away on his Doral, staining the scent of baked cake with tobacco. He sniffed around, like a cat smelling out a rodent, then stood up, his rumpled collared shirt hanging loosely about his soft body, and said he didn’t like chocolate cake. Mom’s face fell the tiniest bit, before regaining that faint smile of hers that I didn’t see too often after I started school: it was a slight tug of the mouth to each corner, just enough to know what she was doing but so subtle that you could tell she’d already given up. But it’s your favorite, she said, her voice again measured and reasoning. You had some just—Well I don’t like it now, he responded, his voice curt and bored with its own finality. Coulda bought me some beer, or some wine, now that woulda been a present. He took off his shirt, opened the fridge (Beer sure woulda been nice for this empty goddamn fridge) and pulled out a pop can before ambling into the living room to watch a ball game. I stood there, dressed in the nice shirt I’d gotten for my aunt’s wedding and stiff blue jeans, holding the newspaper-wrapped box in which we’d packed the coat, watching Mom, her smile gone, take two short steps to the table in what seemed like a long time. She picked up the cake and dabbed a smidge of frosting from the middle of the cake (Happy 28th Jay, Love, Your Family) with her pinky and sucked it off. Her mouth twisted slightly as she swallowed. Then she turned around and dropped the cake in the trash can before telling me to clear the table for supper.
    The next year and after, Mom got Dad some white wine, usually the kind that comes in a box. He seemed to enjoy these for the hours they lasted.

    I turned twenty-five earlier this year. A quarter of a goddamn century. It sounds impressive, especially if you’re a kid, Wow mister you’re old, but I just feel tired. I figure I look as tired as my parents.
    By the time that particular, unnoted milestone passed, Dad had been bedridden for nearly nine months. I remember the day I found out about his illness because I’d been fucking around at some lady’s trailer. The small construction company I worked for had been assigned to do some odd jobs at a trailer park; we set up outdoor bathrooms and tiny, useless platforms of wood that, attached to real houses, might have been sarcastic back porches; here they were just incomprehensible. I didn’t ask questions; as long as my thirteen and a half dollars kept coming, I’d build chimneys for submarines, if that made them happy. Anyway, this lady came out of her trailer at one point and asked me if I could fix something in her bathroom. I said I’d be glad to. We didn’t make it to the bathroom before she grabbed me and started licking my ears. Doesn’t seem like anything’s wrong here, I commented. She didn’t bother answering; she unzipped my pants, pulled the rest of my clothes off and proceeded to suck my cock. She didn’t have the tits Kelly did—no one’s have matched up to those monstrosities, I’m finally willing to admit without disappointment—but I was single and horny, the usual state of affairs. I spent the night on her floor. Well, mostly just on her, if you want the truth.
    I walked into the house the next morning, my balls and other parts of me proudly sore; we’d fucked in just about every position all night long, and I hadn’t even gotten her name—a victory in my book. Mom was sitting on the couch, watching the news. I sat down next to her with a slight grunt in greeting. She told me I smelled like pussy. I shrugged, duly appalled—not surprised—at the vulgarity. I sat down and watched the forecast for the following week. She asked me if I’d found anything in my apartment hunting; I told her no, there wasn’t anything good around here. I should have felt bad, well over twenty and still living with my parents, but they claimed me as a dependent and I got a free room, so what the hell. She pulled out a cigarette and started to puff, suggesting I stop freeloading and get my own life. When she got up, it dawned on me that Dad wasn’t on the couch; it was a Saturday in October and there was plenty of football to watch. I asked her if he was home and got a dry look that told me I was dumber than I looked if I thought otherwise.
    When it got to be around two in the afternoon, we both mutually agreed to see if he’d stopped breathing; there was no other way he’d miss Iowa State against the Nitanny Lions. Davey and Scott had returned from wherever they’d been and were itching to see what the deal with Dad was. We sneaked our way to the bedroom, a group of spies flushing out the mole, perhaps to confront him or perhaps to eliminate him. Either way, I’m sure we hoped someone had removed our target and saved us the trouble, but no such luck; Dad was snoring and twitching in his sleep as always. Mom snapped on the shadeless lamp at their dresser and loudly suggested that he get the hell up. Dad jerked and mumbled. He started wheezing and gasping, nothing we hadn’t heard before, but after nearly five minutes of this, we became slightly expectant. He tried to sit up, but a rash of coughs laid him flat again. Several tries later, he said he couldn’t get up. When it was apparent that he was actually telling the truth, indicated mostly by his question of who was winning the game (Goddamn Iowa hicks, he said when we told him, Don’t know the fucking ball from their helmets), we called a doctor and managed to convince him to come see our poor, ailing Paw.
    The doctor was a skinny bastard with thick eyeglasses and a very old Cadillac. He made his way to the bedroom without asking questions. I saw his eyes narrow the slightest bit when he saw the wheezing, cursing, overweight abomination that was our Dad (he’d gained plenty of weight over the last few years, and probably hovered around the 270 mark). Mom was busy cleaning up the kitchen and the other two were outside excitedly looking for the spare key to the car, so I was the only one left to attend the doctor in his brief examination. He frowned as he put the stethoscope on Dad’s chest; his eyebrows came together in an almost accusing scowl and said, This man needs some serious medical attention. Dad scoffed at this and told him to prescribe some medicine. You don’t need medicine, the doctor replied, you probably need a new pair of lungs. Still unimpressed, Dad agreed to go. Probably so he could get closer to a TV.
    At St. Christopher’s, we all milled about the waiting room while the quacks ran test after test. Mom paced about the room, murmuring over and over, we can’t afford this, we’re not rich goddamnit. Finally the same skinny doctor came out, like the world’s most emaciated messenger of doom, and told us the news: Dad had lung cancer and would die within the year. His thin, official voice sounded like a recording, bored and endless, telling you this number has been disconnected so bug off, Jack. He told us we could come in to see Dad, and although we were dutifully shocked by the pronouncement, none of us hurried into the patient’s wing.
    Dad looked up at us when we came in and chuckled, his voice thickened with disease, his cigarette—impatiently lit while he’d waited for the doctor to bring us back—bobbing up and down slowly, like a flag on a windy day, his eyes merry with life. He said, Better hope I put you in my will, eh? and began to laugh amidst the snorts and coughs and phlegm.

    We took him back home. Lugging him to bed felt like carrying the most poorly designed suitcase ever; it took me and my brothers ten minutes just to get him to his bedroom. When we finally reached it, we let him collapse half on, half off the sagging, squeaking mattress and let him fend for himself. He heaved and squirmed and pushed himself under the covers, reminding me of a film I’d watched in science class years ago about sea turtles.
    It’s a good thing the folks had been able to buy the shitty house because we would have been kicked out if we’d had to pay rent after Dad stopped working, “officially.” Of course, the utilities blinked out more frequently—my paycheck was nowhere near enough to pay all of them—but we had no problem surviving, as we often had, without them.
    The day after my Dad became “officially” bedridden, we received one last phone call before the phone company cut the line for us. It was the elementary school, one of the other janitors, asking if Jay would be showing up to work on Monday. I gave him the situation and there was a silence, not very long, but long enough for me to figure out that this guy actually gave a shit about Dad’s cancer. Then the voice said, That’s a damned shame, a damned shame. . .don’t know if we’ll be able to replace Jay, he’s a great guy…and no one will say he didn’t try, you know, that guy’s always had balls like a bull, that’s integrity boy, you just remember your Pop has integrity and maybe you should—But I didn’t want to listen to this moron celebrate my wonderful father anymore, so I hung up. I thought later that maybe he would have liked to come visit, but then figured he could damn well make that decision on his own; I wasn’t going to invite the prick so fuck it. If Dad wanted visitors, he’d have to count on someone other than me to get any.

    Dad convulsed and spit up blood every once in awhile. After the second time, the doctor said he couldn’t do anything unless he had better equipment, i.e. a hospital, so don’t bother calling back unless you’re checking him in. A few days after Dad stopped talking or moving at all, we called and said that we thought he was dying, the convulsions are really bad, yes yes we’ll check him in, just get over here and get him, would you? And they did come, much to our relief; they packed Dad into a flashing ambulance and hustled him off, advising us to meet them at the hospital in half an hour—it was a ten minute ride, so I guess they didn’t want us driving off and wrecking ourselves on a utility pole or something, being that we would be oh so worried and frantic we wouldn’t have the sense to drive safely. Mom wandered about the house, grabbing this and that and setting it back down, the picture of the agonized, bewildered wife preparing for a trip to the hospital, while I stood around and tried to look shell shocked. Davey and Scott were out when Dad disappeared in the shrieking ambulance, but they got back in time to hear Mom as she answered the call informing us about his passing, and we all had our moment before going our separate ways.
    Mom stopped fumbling about and sat down in front of the TV to watch the TBS Saturday Night Movie (I think it was something with Clint Eastwood, Dirty Harry maybe), telling me as she flicked on the set, those bastards better keep him when he dies cause I’m sure as hell not gonna pay for him in death. She said to me, Goddamn, can’t be upset even though he’s dead. Always thought I’d want to die first, then I wouldn’t be so upset but look at this. Then, we didn’t even have a wedding you know that? (I knew that just fine.) We just got me pregnant and off we went to the courthouse. Signed some papers and we were married but it didn’t mean anything. No pictures or friends or vows. No promise to God you’ll be together till you die. Even though we didn’t really say anything and of course we didn’t mean to either, we both held up the bargain. She sighed, pulling out a rag and honking her nose a few times. I don’t really know why, she continued, I just meant to see it through, right to one end or another. She looked at me and smiled, her teeth yellowed with tobacco and food and age. I guess you don’t get it really, but get this: Your father did not deserve me, or you or your brothers, and he sure as hell didn’t deserve what we had here. And you know what else? She looked at me hard, one eye half shut, the other bright, sharp. We didn’t either. See? She turned back to Eastwood and cranked up the shooting. Good thing I didn’t have any questions.

    It was a headache, I’ll say that much, but we did come out winners. Well, at least in our own eyes; anyone who knew about our complete lack of filial respect would surely request a few extra eons in the bowels of hell for us. Shit, I know they’re right, we had no respect for him or anything else, but that doesn’t mean I think we should have done anything different.
    There was no funeral or ceremony of any sort, apparently. Mom said that a couple of drinking and football cronies of Dad’s had stopped by to pay their respects at the hospital, but all they could manage were some rueful nods and slurred stories; they were already well on their way to being hammered and it wasn’t quite noon. Mom left them rambling, glad the bastard hadn’t left anyone worth leaving. She filled out some paperwork, letting the state hand over his remains to the university, where they’d cut him up and throw him away. We got a couple hundred bucks, surely to alleviate our financial and emotional woes. I was at work that day, but Mom told me I didn’t miss much; first the drunks and then a guy in green hospital duds speaking legalese and waving forms in her face. She didn’t mention seeing the body and I didn’t ask.
    Something she said years ago came to my mind as she quickly went through the story from the hospital. She was talking to my aunt, telling her that nothing worth having ever accumulated in our house. Not the people, not the objects, and certainly not the money. She’d laughed, her cigarette flaking ash like tainted snow on the bare floor and shuddering slightly at her stiff mirth. I wasn’t really paying attention (I was, in fact, looking at cut-out photos of Brigitte somethingorother, the French chick that someone at school had discovered in his mother’s fashion magazine, much to the uncertain delight of the other boys in the sixth grade class) but I clearly heard the bit about nothing accumulating. Now, as she shook her head, walked to the kitchen and said it was lucky for us that we owned the house, I thought of her comment and how it seemed like there really was nothing worth shit around here. I stood outside the kitchen, listening to the clink and splash as she cleaned last night’s dishes, realizing how in maybe less than two minutes she would be done because there were so few to wash. It seemed wrong somehow, that there now would be less to do, less to clean, less to worry about. It seemed like a global problem, starvation or sweatshops or oil; a dilemma someone else would have to fix.
    I went to watch the game by myself, the sofa empty, the volume muted. It was the Raiders at Chicago. 26-3, Bears.

    I got fired from my construction job. Irresponsible and dangerous behavior around those in the workplace, they told me. I don’t really know what they were talking about, considering that I was the one who lost a pinky finger, and without endangering the lives of any of my fellow workers, I might add. Maybe I was drinking too much or yelling too loudly or waving the ball-peen hammer in a less than comforting manner but I didn’t intend to really hurt anyone, certainly not me; I was trying to get a laugh, really. I thought it was kind of funny, me screaming about my dead dad (I think I said something about how I wish I’d killed him myself so at least I could have shown him some affection) and threatening all this other shit, but maybe I’m the only one who thought so.
    The boss fired me, despite my misfortune. Can’t say I blame him. I could have smashed someone in the eye with that hammer instead of my own finger and then we would have had a real party on our hands. But now there was no money coming into our humble home. I didn’t let Mom work; her suggestion to do so was pretty half-hearted—as though she were volunteering for a painful, probably useless and certainly low-paying medical experiment. That pissed me off but I didn’t say anything; I didn’t think she’d get any kind of work anyway, not with her stiffening joints and bitchy attitude. Instead, I went to town to apply for unemployment but there were too many people waiting that day. As I walked out, I told myself I’d do better to get a job instead of falling down the chute of apathy and free government money. What I was really thinking was to come back on Friday; it didn’t seem likely for people to wait in line when they could start hitting the bars.
    I went home and tried not to think about money, a job, whether I should tell Mom to work, a dead dad. I wondered what was for dinner; left over baked beans, no doubt. Then my mind jumped to Dad’s car, which had sat on the bald ground next to our house since he died: Mom never left the house and I could afford twenty-cent bus rides much more easily than I could keep that gas-guzzling piece of shit hulk filled. As I walked around the front of the house, I paused and looked at the car, thinking of taking it for a ride. I sauntered in the house, found the keys and crept back out, without Mom noticing. I shivered in the stiff, dry wind; it was late October, when you really start noticing the windchill. A couple of white cats watched me from the side of the house, phantoms unaffected by me or the cold. The car’s engine turned over and over but I kept grinding it, determined to either start it or kill it completely; I didn’t feel like dealing with any possibilities other than leaving or staying. Finally, it caught. I looked at the gauges and saw the gas needle well past E. I cursed and went back into town, where I pulled an empty bottle of pop from a garbage bin and then made my way to a gas station to buy two liters of unleaded, which seemed both ridiculous and suspicious, as though the purchase of a metric quantity of fuel was an indication of some criminal intent. When I got back, I poured the gasoline into the tank, went through another grinding marathon and finally got the engine rolling. I’d made it just past town, where the sticks take over again, when a rather bulky piece of automotive innard clunked out onto the street below the car. I could see it on the ground in the rearview mirror after it had hitched and coughed to a shuddery stop twenty feet after the expulsion. I got out of the car, intending to pick it up and walk it to Ritchie’s Auto Repair a few blocks down Fourth Street. Under the rust, it looked like a fan belt pulley, about the size of my hand, and it felt extremely heavy although it probably weighed only a couple pounds. I held it in my right hand, hefting it, looking at its rusty edges and thinking about the timing of machinery, both in operation and in failure. Design didn’t matter, Japanese, German, American; all the cars on the road would eventually fall apart, and if I was lucky, they would do so in spectacular fashion, right in front of me, or maybe even right on me. Wouldn’t that be something, to get pulped by a couple thousand pounds of steel? Wouldn’t have to go back to the goddamn unemployment line again, that’s sure. The odds were against me, though, just like the lottery, so I started walking back to the car, intending to put it in the trunk while I made my way to the service station. Instead, I chucked the rusty, not-so-heavy car part into a gutter in front of me. I looked at it, lying in a puddle of black sewer water, helpless and alone, a discarded baby. It would be just our luck, I started musing, to have lost a part that would have to be reordered, on top of having no car for however long it took to get repaired. Yet again, we were fucked. Imagine that. I slid back behind the wheel and turned the hazards and radio on—apparently the battery still worked, The Who were coming through just fine. I started humming while waiting for some Good Samaritan schmuck to come by and give me a ride back to town.