In the Boy's Grasp

The boy's corduroys were muddy from the knee down and his sweaty hair flat against his forehead. He ran past branches and bushes with the urgency one feels simultaneously and exclusively with triumph, as though nothing—not the actions of friend or foe or God—might distract him from returning to his front porch, prize in hand. He bit is lower lip as he leapt over the creek and continued to where the expanse of his family's front yard began beyond the trees. His shirt tucked into his dirty pants and buttoned to the top button, it was tight around his throat as his heart pumped blood into his head. He knew what fire the prize of his first solo hunt would spark; his brothers would be envious, his father proud. He tripped over a bug-covered log and landed face first into a pile of dead leaves and dirt. Without wiping the mud from his eyes, he got up and continued his pace, out of the trees and into the field; his home was in sight.

“What in the hell...” whispered the boy's father through the pool of tobacco in his mouth. He sit way back in a small wooden chair, his mud-less boots resting on the porch's side rail.

“What's your damn brother runnin' from?”

The boy's brothers and father watched and spat their tobacco as he ran towards the house. George, the second-youngest, attempted the first response to their father.

“Looks to be he's got hisself a rabbit.”

“Ain't no rabbit,” said the father.

“But sure it is. Ain't nothin' else that color grey 'round here.”

“Ain't no rabbit,” said the father.

The faint sounds of the running boy's cries sounded like distant sirens, a constant repetitive flow of the word “Daaaad! Daaaad! Daaaad!” He held his prize up into the air as he ran, a dead and grey thing flopping jerkily with each stride.

“Daaaaad!” he yelled.

“Well sure thing is he damn well needs you to see whatever it is he got hisself,” said George, spitting off the porch onto the yellow and dry grass with a smirk.

The father watched coolly, expressionless. None of those boys had ever seen him surprised or shaken up. Every last one of them figured God himself could show up on their front doorstep and their father would just stare at God blankly, with that churning tobacco mouth and those slanted, squinted eyes. His eyes slanted down as they moved outward on his face, giving him a tragic appearance unless he squinted them sharply, as he always did. And sure enough, as though he'd been expecting his youngest son to run up out of the woods with a carcass in hand, the father explained flatly,

“He got hisself a duck.”

Cheers and hoots from across the porch followed. All three of the boy's siblings slapped their knees and began yelling to their ten year old boy brother. The father simply continued his expressionless recline. George, William, and Howard Jr. stood up, beckoning their boy brother to hurry up and show them the prize, though surely the boy was already running as fast he could.

“He got hisself a duck.”

“Damn right, he did, look at them orange feet!” cheered Howard Jr. His father's eyes still hadn't moved, his body not so much as shifted. He spat some tobacco spit into the spit bucket and swallowed what juice remained in his mouth. Then, as his youngest boy neared the front porch, he spoke:

“So where in shit's sake you find a dead duck layin' around? Somebody shoot it n leave it lost in the bushes?”

“Dad!” he yelled as he ran up the steps and stood next to his father. “Isn't she beautiful?”

“How do you know that there's a she?” asked George, excitedly. George's fat face grew fatter with excitement.

“'Cause it ain't colored like a boy duck is, dumbass.” replied the father. “Give that here, let me take a look at her.”

The boy handed his father the dead duck. The father turned it around in his hands, pulling at different parts, lifting other parts up for a better view.

“Ain't got none bulletholes... where'd you find this thing, boy?”

“I killed it, Dad!”

The father temporarily halted the churning of tobacco and looked his son in the face. He saw in this ten year old boy's eyes a man's pride. “How ye kill it?” the father said, his words seeping out of him as filthy water exits a compressed sponge.

“Yeah,” Howard Jr. beamed through his glasses, “how'd ye kill it?! Boy guess what and this lil' man did it hisself!” He patted his brother on the head and grinned.

The boy kicked his shoes off and folded his arms one over the other, still gripping the duck.

“I was down by the pond, and I saw her by the water, and I snuck up on her real quiet, and I walked up behind her and just grabbed her neck and I squeezed it harder n anything I ever squeezed.”

There was a quick but humid silence among the men on the porch. William's mouth was hanging wide open, for he'd never killed a duck like that. In fact, he'd never been so close to a live duck to be able to strangle it. None of those boys had. A whiteness grew over the father's face.

“That's my boy!” said Howard Jr.

“Alright!” said George.

“Well I'll be!” said William.

“I'll deliver it to your ma. She'll cook it up for dinner.” said the father. And with a last spit, the man left his boys on the porch and moved through the house with duck in hand, past the kitchen, to the back door. He stood there for a second, breathing heavily through his large nostrils, his eyes glued to the floor. Marianne had spotted him and followed him into the hallway. She found him standing by the closed back door to their house.

“What's that ya' got there, mister?” she delivered with a hand on her hip and a very toothy grin. “Got me a bird to cook up, did ya'?” He turned and looked at her, and then back to the duck. “Well?” she said. He smiled very quickly at her. And then, unable to break eye contact with her, his mouth turned downwards and into a drooping frown that matched his drooping eyes. “Boy killed it,” he said.
“Howard Jr.? I didn't see him take any guns out of the house.”
“The boy.”

“What do you mean, the boy? He find it dead on the ground somewhere?” She chuckled disbelievingly.

“Says he was down by the pond...” he began. She knew from his expression that whatever was about to follow was hurting him. She took a few drawn and slow steps towards her husband. “Says he was down by the pond, walked up behind it, grabbed its neck with one hand and strangled it 'til it dead.” He looked at her gravely, deeply.
“Say he just walked up and grabbed it? Sure he can't move that fast, he's just ten years old. He couldn't get twenty feet into the woods without trippin' over something.”
“I believe him.” the man whispered, moving his eyes away from his wife.

“Well,” she said, “give it here and Ill clean it up.” Her husband ignored this and opened the back door abruptly.
“Howard? Where you goin' with that?” But he was out. Moving like a deer, he was already twenty feet out into the back pasture as she repeated, “Howard?”
“Some creature'll come and get it and eat it up, no worry.” He said this to assuage something in him, to prove something to somebody inside of him. He gripped the duck's feet vice-like as he looked out to the setting sun behind the house, giving this isolated home a last hour of day before the tree line swallowed its remaining light. He reached back like a football quarterback and threw that duck into the dusk air. It wriggled as it flew, feathers and feet dragging back as the fat body pushed skyward. The father elicited a slight squeek from his wife in launching the bird, and the two of them watched as it soon plummeted back to the grass not twenty feet from the man.

“What on Earth...” began Marianne.

“Nothin' about it, Marianne. I's born in this house. Some creature'll come by in the night and take the carcass away to eat it. Better them eat on it than any of us,” he said, wiping his hands off on one another.

“Well Howard,” his wife, confused, replied, “Howard now why can't... we... eat it, again?”
Howard Sr. just smiled to her with squinty eyes as he returned to the back door of the house: “I's born in this house.” Grabbing his tin of tobacco off the chest in the main hallway, he made his way through to the front where his boys were making too much noise. He passed a photo mounted in the hallway of his own father. The man in the photo wore a white t shirt and wrinkled khaki pants. A lit cigarette in his mouth, he was posing, arms folded, next to the first deer he ever killed. The carcass lay awkwardly, tragically, on the hood of the truck. It wasn't the shell of a life so much as a pile of death, and beside it the man grinned.

Plopping a wad of fresh tobacco in his lower lip, the father thrust open the screen door to the front porch. His three older sons were in hysterics, overcome with the joyous news of their baby brother's newfound manhood. The boy was explaining how the duck's neck felt as he squeezed, how feeling the animal struggle for its life in his hands made his blood hot, how when he knew it was dead his eyes widened to wider than they'd ever open again.

“Boys,” interrupted the man, followed by a great spit into the spit bucket. The laughter continued, and the man shot his shiny right boot into the wooden porch, and the vibrations felt by the boys indicated to them well enough they ought to hush up. “Boys.”

Eight eyes directed right at him. He in the middle, and the boys looking in. The older boys still had their same dry tobacco wads in their dry mouths from before. “Which one of y'all,” began the father with one raised eyebrow, “is responsible for lettin' Daisy loose so'n I had to go 'n fetch her this mornin'?” All four of them hardened, statue-like. “Go on, now. I know one of you forgot to hitch her and close her up right last night. I found her out about a mile away this mornin' and when I'm through with a horse I hitch her up right. And I figure one of you is responsible, 'cause it sure wasn't me. And Lord knows it wasn't your ma.”

They knew it had been Howard Jr. But none of them moved. They would not squeal. And to this bond their father may have nodded appreciatively, if only it hadn't been for that duck. The youngest boy still had his arms folded with pride. The father shot towards the boy like a full on locomotive and violently pulled his arms apart, a face of terror growing over the young one. Then the father turned and looked at Howard Jr. Not averting his gaze, he spat directly into the spit bucket, and moved towards the son of his name. He cleaned up his part by running his right hand through his sweaty hair. “You little shit, goin' after that Robertson girl in town, weren't you?”

“No, no I wasn't, I promise...” began Howard Jr., but it was too late: his father knew. The man grabbed Howard Jr. by the nape of his neck and lifted him up out of his chair. “You goin' pay for that horse next time you leave her out. Mark my words. Them animals cost money to us, and they still mean money to us.”

The youngest boy was crying. The father threw Howard Jr. down to the floor of the porch with such force that Marianne heard the body's thud from the kitchen. Then the father looked straight and squinting into his youngest son's eyes, and he said: “You can make death happen. But death's coming anyways. I be a horse's ass if you can keep four boys in line, let alone alive. I's born in this house.” With this, he took the wad out of his lower lip, dropped it into the spit bucket, and marched back inside. Howard Jr. lay on the ground grabbing his neck and squinting his eyes in pain.

-

The next morning the four sons and their mother sat at the dining room table eating fresh laid eggs, sweet ham, and salty potatoes Marianne had made for breakfast. The youth at the table, the abandon with which her sons ate their food, made Marianne happy. She hadn't touched her plate. She'd only watched her sons shovel their food into their mouths.

Howard Sr. was out front chopping wood in his red and black flannel shirt and his blue jeans. He moved slowly but powerfully, his thick hands controlling the axe into the hunks of wood with precision. He sweat profusely, soaking his hair and his shirt. From inside, his family heard every chop he made. And with each chop, his grunting grew louder, more agonizing. He felt the pain of decades in his knees, in his back, in his shoulders. His job as a father was becoming, with each passing year, more of a pain, more of a stress, more of a weight upon his aging self. After a hefty chop, he rested the axe against his left shin and wiped his brow of sweat. Glancing to the driveway, he saw the spot where his father's Ford had rested in that hallway photograph, his old father resting against the old Ford. His eyes, only very quickly, relaxed from their squint and into their drooping natural state. Then he returned, picking up axe and thrusting it into wood.

Inside, his wife said to the boys, “Well I don't know what it's gonna take me to pry that man away from his workin'... I just don't know. I swear the only reason he ever does a job is so he can eventually move hisself onto another one.” Her boys continued shoveling food into their mouths. She picked up her fork and lightly jabbed at a piece of potato before moving it gingerly to her tongue. She loved the salty sensation and closed her eyes and sighed before moving her fork to a new piece. The youngest boy watched her.

“Your daddy got you pretty good yesterday, didn't he?” the wife said coolly to Howard Jr. “I told you sneakin' out to see that girl—Sally, Sue? What is her name, again?” The youngest boy perked up.

“That Robertson girl!” he said immediately, accidentally spitting remnants of potato back onto his plate through laughter.

“You shut it, boy,” replied Howard Jr. The other boys were chuckling, too.. “Her name is Sally. But that wadn't what he got mad about, Ma.”
“Oh, no?”

“Naw,” he brought a napkin up to his greasy mouth and continued, “he was just mad that I'd forgotten to hitch Daisy back up proper.” His mother's eyebrows raised with understanding.

“I see.”

Howard Jr. continued: “Whole thing was stupid, 'cause he knows I never left Daisy unsettled before and I sho' ain't goin' to do it again.”
“And sho', you knows that's not what your father was really mad about, don't ya?” she said with a satisfied smile. There was a pause. All in the room looked at expectantly at Howard Jr.

“Yeah well n what was he really mad about, Ma?” he retorted. To this their mother wiped her mouth with her napkin and prepared to explain. And she sat there looking at her plate for a few moments in silence, searching for something in her mind she thought she knew. The silence was broken by the father's last chop and grunt from out front.

Moments later, at the sound of their father hobbling up the porch steps, they all shot up to attention. They heard the steps coming down the hall, and the typical tinny sound of him dropping his tobacco canister onto the hallway chest. He carried the axe in his hand, and made his way past the kitchen and towards the back door. “Dad...” said the bright eyed youngest boy at the sight of his passing father, egg yolk dripping down his little chin. The father passed to the door and made his way out back.

He'd thought of the duck all the previous night and all morning. He'd seen the image in his head of his son making that final clamp with his fist, that final movement that was sure to kill. This vision would not leave him, nor could he shake the feeling that the carcass was still laying there, sensing him as he sensed it... And though he'd made it through the early hours of dawn without going to face it, he could no longer wait.

He turned the back doorknob and opened the door to find the duck. It was mangled to indistinguishable pieces, ripped open. And hovering over it, the ripper, a large and vulture-like bird, was moving hunks of duck into its beak and down its long, narrow throat. The father's eyes, seeing this bird eating this dead bird, widened to an unmistakable resemblance of shock. He stood motionless, staring at this vulture's feast.

Then the vulture-like bird, pieces of old blood and dirty feathers wedged in its beak, lifted its gaze to the father. Its eyes were narrow, and its beak and neck had stopped moving, the dark blood dripping quietly from the duck carcass and staining the yellow grass.

The father gripped his axe as tightly as he ever gripped anything, his strong hands almost cracking the wood. After a long breath in and out, he began running towards the vulture-like bird. He ran with a look on his face that he'd never worn; he was aiming to kill. His mouth open, his teeth grinding, his hair wild, and his eyes pushed open by sheer rage, he sprinted towards that bird, axe raised up in the air with his left hand. The bird fled, gathering a last bit of bloody meat and feathers before taking to lazy flight and safety. The father reached back and threw his axe into the air towards the flying bird, but it had already risen too high; his axe twirled in the air for a bit before falling quickly to the ground and thrusting itself into the dried grass of the back lawn.

Panting, practically hissing through his teeth, he rested his palms on his kneecaps as he attempted to decide whether or not he'd been like his father, like his son. His teeth were still grinding harshly. This adrenaline he'd never felt, this instinct he'd tried so hard to find, the actions of his father and now his youngest boy he'd tried to emulate... he was still himself, his old and disoriented self, powerless, fatherless, son-less... he began to cry through his heaves for breath, hands still on his knees. He saw the remains of the duck, ripped to shreds upon his lawn by something that found the carcass already killed. Then he turned to look towards his house, the house in which his father and he and all of his sons were born.

And he found his wife, hand on her hip, standing in the back doorway. He tried to squint his eyes towards her, but he couldn't. He tried to squeeze intelligible words out of his mouth, but he couldn't. So he looked down to the yellow grass and felt the pain in his knees. He wished he'd brought his tin of tobacco outside with him. Marianne, from the porch, shook her head side-to-side one time and found a spot in the sky. It was the scavenger bird off in the distance, flying away to scavenge somewhere else, for it had found her house and had its prize, and now it was continuing on to find some other carcass, some other shell to rip open and consume.