Mostly Dead Things Read online

  “Take a real good look,” I said. “Get it out of your system before I take everything down.” My casual morning of stripping skins and sipping black coffee faded into the distance, replaced by the aggravation of refurbishing injured fur and staining new mounts. The panther would likely take days to fix.

  The sun was already burning off the morning humidity and warming the pavement. I’d seen Travis Pritchard’s pickup pull into the Dollar General parking lot across the street. This part of town was all older family businesses and single-family homes, dirty, flat places with sprawling yards. Pitted streets intersected at odd angles without the benefit of stop signs, stucco ranches in myriad shades of tan squeezed between a coin laundry, a Goodwill, and a shoe repair shop. A used car lot took up most of the real estate two streets over, near a diner where I ate most of my meals, convenience stores dotting the perimeter. It was Wednesday—BOGO value day for the retirement set from the Towers, a gated community comprised of local grandparents and snowbirds. Soon a crowd would gather to view Libby Morton’s latest unholy rendering. The thought of fending off scandalized seventysomethings this early in the morning did bad things to my stomach.

  I took the cigarette from her hand and got one good drag off it before stubbing it out under my boot. The goat stood placid, assessing me with its slitted yellow eyes. I turned away so I wouldn’t have to see it in its indignity. “Can we go back inside now?”

  “I’d prefer to sit here.”

  “I really wish you wouldn’t.”

  My mother shook her head, free of the waist-length hair she’d had since my brother was born. When questioned about the decision to lop it all off, she mentioned a magazine article she’d read when she took my father to one of his doctor’s appointments. Something about hair holding grief: how dead cells left on a living body might make pain last longer. Her shorn head took some getting used to. When the light caught her just right, it was like looking at a miniaturized version of my brother. They both had the same strong jaw and sallow skin, a long, narrow nose framed by deep grooves that almost resembled parentheses. Her remaining hair was still mostly dark, but now there were sprigs of white along with bits of bare scalp that poked through in patches where she’d gotten a little overzealous with the razor.

  “Please?” I said, looking at the Dollar General. Travis stuck his head through the front door and waved.

  She sighed heavily and propped her chin in her hand. “I’m gonna sit here for a minute. You go on ahead.”

  A morning jogger in bright purple spandex ran past, moving down onto the street to avoid us on the sidewalk, almost stumbling to a collision as she took in the window display.

  “What is that?” she asked, mouth dropped so far open I could almost count her molars.

  My mother placed one hand over her heart. “It’s my work.”

  “I’m gonna go make some coffee.” I scrubbed a hand over my face and wished it were late enough in the day to crack open a beer. At least the place next door was vacant. For a while it’d been barely surviving as a subpar kitschy vintage restaurant, but no one had rented it for the last year and a half. My father always said he’d rather eat something I cooked than spend money on a place that couldn’t even manage to make a grilled cheese.

  “Coffee? Mom?” I repeated.

  She nodded and waved me off, pointing out various areas of interest in the display. I heard her mention something about the panther’s naturally high sex drive as the door snicked closed behind me.

  “Good fucking grief.”

  The mess was even worse up close. Bits of fur and leaves littered the floor, as if the animals had taken chunks from each other’s hides. There was a big slash by the boar’s tail that nearly brought me to tears. I turned away, disgusted with my mother and with myself for not handling things sooner. Imagining what my father would say if he could see the wreck she’d made of his work, I swallowed hard. He’d be so disappointed.

  This kind of shit was getting to be a regular occurrence. The original lewd display had been constructed less than a month after we’d buried my father. That morning the shop was pitch-black and I ran directly into the bear—except I didn’t know it was a bear; I thought I’d caught an intruder. When he built it, my father had reinforced its broad torso with two-by-fours. The punch I laid on it almost broke my hand.

  I’d tried to wrap my mind around the scene as the overhead fluorescents flickered spastically to life. The futon from the spare bedroom wedged next to the glass, covered in my grandmother’s linens. A raccoon I’d mounted the week prior gowned in a satin negligee, bridal veil hanging delicately over its face. Its uplifted hand gestured sweetly at the bear, standing beside the bed in a roomy pair of custom boxer shorts made from two pillowcases. I’d immediately recognized the print; they were from Milo’s old Spider-Man bedroom set.

  There’d been other incidents too: a parade of animals decked out in lingerie and posed in front of boudoir mirrors, alligator skulls with panties stuffed in their open mouths and dangling from their teeth. I knew my father would mind someone dripping lube on his prized mountain lion. He’d definitely mind the ripped fur. But he wasn’t there to say anything about it and my mother was my mother. I had only so much control over what she did. I couldn’t help but feel I was letting him down, again. His letter, sitting beside my bed, stayed in my head.

  I trust you to handle things. I need you to do this now.

  “Do better,” I muttered, shaking my head. “You gotta do better than this.”

  Our tiny kitchenette was at the rear of the store, close to the entrance to the workshop, but still in sight line of the register and the assorted candy bars that kids liked to pocket. I searched through the cupboard for coffee filters and found none, remembering too late that we’d been out for a week. I settled on a wadded paper towel.

  My mother used to clean the store, but aside from her new window-dressing duties, she’d stopped coming in completely. Dust coated the sale items, coasting along the backs of baby alligators and the lacquered fish until they looked like they’d grown fur. The neon-hued rabbits’ feet were grimy, as if the rabbits had run through mud puddles before losing their paws.

  Outside, my mother was still yapping about her pornography. Aside from the runner, she’d managed to snag Travis, who stood looking at the scene like a kid in front of a mall Santa Claus. My mother’s pink nightgown turned luminous in the sunlight, silhouetting her legs and torso. I wasn’t totally sure she was wearing underwear.

  I rinsed out a dirty mug and scrubbed the stains with a rag I found next to the sink. Then I poured coffee and took a scalding sip, settling back behind the register. My mother gestured to Travis and to the runner, who’d pulled out a cell phone and was taking pictures.

  The beginning of a tension headache boiled behind my forehead.

  Travis was still standing outside when my mother came back into the shop. The bell chimed fretfully as she pushed open the door, the metal folding chair jammed under her armpit. She was in the fuzzy slippers my father got her for Christmas a couple of years earlier. Leaves and mud slopped onto the sides and back of the little bunny faces. It had rained the night before, which meant she’d walked over from the house at God only knew what hour of the night.

  “Thanks,” she said, taking my coffee and handing me the mug full of cigarette ash. She took a sip and grimaced. “That’s awful.”

  “We’re out of coffee filters.”

  “Somebody should buy some more. Tastes like dirt.”

  “Sorry about that,” I replied, deciding not to bring up the fact that she usually bought the coffee, the filters, and the garbage bags. My father would’ve taped the grocery list to the steering wheel of her car. He would’ve said her name in that exasperated way that showed he loved her even though she drove him crazy.

  “God, I’m tired.”

  She leaned back against the counter and her ribs moved visibly beneath the ruffled bodice of her nightgown. She was smoking again, which she hadn’t done since
we were little. The bags under her eyes were deep-set and very dark, like someone had pressed their thumbs into her flesh. I wanted to shake her and ask why she had to make things harder than they already were, why she couldn’t just act normal so we could move forward the way Dad would want us to, but instead I went to the back and called my brother.

  He picked up on the fourth ring, voice still thick with sleep. I wondered if there was anyone there with him, but my gut told me he was alone. He hadn’t seen anyone seriously since Brynn had left him and the kids. Both of us forever in mourning of her, even though she’d been gone for years. Still, it was late. I’d anticipated he’d be at work or at least on the road. Milo, the guy who could never figure out what he wanted to do with his life. He called in sick every other Monday. His daughter was about to go into high school and she was the one who had to do the grocery shopping because he always forgot things like milk and bread. You have no work ethic, our father told him once, and Milo smiled as if it were a compliment.

  “Come get your mother, she’s done it again,” I said, watching her in the pale light that filtered through the window. She’d turned to face the scene at the front of the shop, rubbing a dusty pink rabbit’s foot between her fingers.

  “Christ. Lemme get some pants on.”

  “Don’t worry about it, she’s not wearing any.”

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t let her leave.”

  I hung up and wondered how I’d get through the rest of the day, much less the rest of the week. Our father had been dead for a year and I was expected to take over everything; manning the store alone, figuring out what to do with my mother’s burgeoning creative talents. It was exhausting.

  “One thing at a time,” I said, pulling out a pad of old scratch paper. “That’s all there is to it.”

  It was easier to work that way: moving forward piecemeal, performing each small task with the entirety of my focus. One done, then another. Letting them all pile up until there was no room to think about anything else.

  Bunch of deer mounts. Bud Killson’s bass needed fresh shellac and a couple of new eyes. There was endless fleshing, piles of stuff backed up in the freezer. Pelts to scrape and tan. Flushing out the acid baths and refilling them. Scrubbing down all the countertops in the back, bleaching the floors. There was always something to do.

  I’d seen my father work that way all my life. Lists, routines. No time for stress when you’ve got a schedule to keep. Remembering that made my limbs loosen and my jaw unclench.

  I could do it. I just needed to be Dad.

  “Your brother’s here,” my mother called, setting down her coffee cup. “Maybe he can give me a ride home.”

  Milo climbed out of the truck and left the motor running. He looked like he’d slept in his clothes, and he was sporting a couple of days’ worth of patchy beard. Waving off my offer of coffee from the doorway, he took my mother’s arm and put her into the truck. She didn’t argue, just yawned and shuffled her nightgown so it covered her bare legs. They looked too thin; the veins ran blue along her ankles.

  “Come for dinner tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll make enough for everyone.”

  Dinner at my mother’s meant feeling everything. It wasn’t like the shop, with its tools and disinfectants and work. There was so much of Dad alive in the house: his recliner with the saggy, loose stuffing in the armrests, paperback crime novels parked facedown on the floor, his buttonless shirts piled haphazardly beside my mother’s sewing machine. The green bottle of the aftershave he always wore still sat next to the bathroom sink, its top placed upside down beside the faucet.

  “I’ve gotta get stuff done around here,” I said. “Got a customer coming by.”

  “I’ll see you at six.”

  I didn’t argue, just waved as they pulled out of the lot. When I turned around, Travis Pritchard was standing in front of the window again. He had his cap in one hand and was rubbing the other very gently along his buzzed salt-and-pepper scalp. His shirtsleeves were too short, revealing slips of his skin nearly up to the elbow every time he raised his arm.

  “Don’t you need to get back to work?” I hooked my thumbs through my belt loops and yanked up my sagging jeans. Unlike my mother, I’d gained weight in the past year. I drank in excess, sleeping most nights in the shop. My belly sat over my pants and pushed them down my hips. Nothing fit right. Everything I owned felt uncomfortable.

  “Marleen’s got the counter.”

  Our reflections meshed into the scene in the glass: his weathered skin and dark, sunken eyes, my squat frame in the usual gear—old jeans that needed washing, linty flannel, and a round face so full of freckles that I still got carded at bars. We hovered ghostlike over the animals, more voyeur than even the wild boar.

  Behind us, a bus pulled into the parking lot, transporting a load of retirees. “Looks like the Towers decided to come in a little early today,” I said.

  Travis grunted and reluctantly turned to stare across the parking lot, where the bus was letting down the first of the elderly wheelchair occupants. “Your mother’s got a real talent, you know that?”

  That’s not the way I would’ve described taxidermy propped to resemble fucking, but I let him have his say. My mother had always had a penchant for crafting. Domestic arts, my father called them. She embroidered, made her own clothes, threw pottery, scrapbooked. It was flower-arranging shit, the kind of stuff moms did because they needed activities to pass the time. I knew she liked art because my father mentioned something about it once while we were stuffing Canada geese. He mentioned how she’d wanted to sculpt, then shook his head and showed me the best way to place the birds’ wings so they didn’t look lopsided. It was just stuff she did. Nothing important. Nothing to take away from our time together.

  Travis walked back over to the Dollar General and I went inside to assess the damage. The panther was easy to move, but I knew that I’d have to spend a while on its paws. Aside from facial reconstruction, feet were always the hardest to render. It looked as if my mother had actually yanked the cat straight from the branch. Bits of its fur were still adhered to the wood.

  The mount was smoothed with a lathe to make a flat surface. When I turned it over, there they were, carved into the bottom: PTM. My finger followed the groove of my father’s initials, from the delicate swoop of the P to the tight peaks of the M. He’d pulled the branch from a larger limb that fell in our backyard after a thunderstorm. My father had an eye for scene and setting. He could make props out of anything: discarded pieces of furniture, wooden pallets, old window frames. He’d looked in that tangle of downed limbs and seen the perfect match, a mount so well suited that it made the cat look ready to pounce onto unsuspecting prey.

  I brought him an abandoned sled the week before he died. It was ancient, the crackling red paint sloughing off in hunks, dangling runners spotted with rust. We had ducks in that week. Pristine white mallards with bright orange beaks and feet. I put the sled up on the metal countertop beside their bodies and asked if he thought it was a good match—that out-of-place pairing.

  Perfect, he said. Exactly what I would’ve picked out.

  Remembering how he’d left himself laid out on that same counter ruined the memory for me. I threw the branch off into the corner and knocked down a rack of miniature lacquered alligator skulls. They rattled around on the floor, spinning and knocking against each other. A few of them broke, dislodging teeth that scattered across the floor like uncooked rice.

  I ignored that mess and focused on carefully removing the condoms from the ficus. My hands were coated in spermicidal lubricant. It took three strong washes to remove the gunk. I was nervous to look at the Bagot’s coat, sure my mother hadn’t been nearly as cautious. I left it propped in the window. The light threw pastel highlights on the work I’d done to its face and ears, making it look inquisitive and alert. It was the only good feeling I’d had all morning, staring at that goat and knowing that at least I hadn’t fucked that up.

  In the interes
t of my back, I left the ficus where it stood. “Come on, buddy.” I tugged at the boar’s rump until it scraped backward toward me across the linoleum. “Let’s take a look at you.”

  When I removed the binoculars from the boar’s tusks, the right end chipped off, sending white dust pillowing onto the floor.

  We hadn’t had any new business in weeks, aside from assorted small fry and the occasional regular who dropped off a pity kill, but that wouldn’t pay the bills. Money problems were another legacy left to me by my father. I’d always thought he was so capable, that he’d handled everything with money to spare for things like groceries and car insurance. What I’d discovered was a black hole of debt. I’m sorry, he’d written, his pen digging wounds into the paper. I’m so sorry. I looked around at the mess piled up around the shop: the fly-ridden garbage, stacks of bills and trade magazines slipping over the counters and falling to the floor, mingled dust and hair dotting everything.

  The bell clanged as the front door opened.

  A woman stood in the doorway. Morning sun poured through the gap and shrouded her figure in shadow, but based on the nice clothes and shoes she wore, I didn’t think it was anyone I knew.

  “What happened to the display?” She pointed at the window. The boar still sat there awkwardly with its broken tusk, like an uncomfortable patient in a dentist’s office.

  “The what?”

  She molded the air with her hands, as if trying to sculpt the image. “You know, the window scene. My friend Denise sent me a picture. She caught it on her jogging route this morning.”

  “That wasn’t supposed to be up.”

  “Why not?” She stepped precisely around the clutter on the floor. She wore patent leather pumps that made her legs look great and a professional business skirt with a pleat cut in the back. I wiped my hands on my jeans and assessed my work boots, which were stained with an accumulation of varnish and tanning preservatives.