by Will Walton
I go to the window—Pal’s house sits empty and dark—His garage door is up—
I spot a mirror-me in there—Faceup on the floor, and what aches in my right knee aches in his left—What’s in the front of my brain is in the back of his—He thinks less about Pal dying—But if I add some weight and age—60 years—I see, it’s Pal there—lying.
How’s my meter? How’s my—
rhymin’?—God, nauseated—from the dull orange—I stagger over—
to the sink—catch water in my hands—swivel it around—Keurig shoots black coffee straight onto the countertop—forgot to put the mug down—I crutch in—
to the bathroom—slide into the tub—burn my eyes with Mom’s face wash—decide I can stand without crutch, so then slide up, out the tub—along, to the gaping rim—
—oblong, oyster—
and fall in—
to the bowl—I forgot to put the seat down.
I’m losing it again.
The phone rings.
Susannah gets it.
37. “Hey, Ave, it’s Luca. I know you’re probably getting ready now”
38. “I’m so sorry about this. I—”
39. “If you want to call me or just come on over when you get this”
40. “I’ve got the car. I’m good to drive you.”
—”
Pal’s neighbor Mrs. Shivens stands by the gutter—with her dog, Banjo—Banjo wears a black bandana—Mrs. Shivens’s husband passed away this March—story goes, Banjo barked as they interred the body—I wave at them and smile—
I’m a little paranoid I still seem drunk—“Going to be a hot one!” she calls over—I pretend I don’t hear—Hard to do passing conversation with a party on crutches—Takes too long to pass—so I stall.
“Going to be a hot one”—Two beats—“Pardon?”—again. “Oh, yes!” I agree finally—close enough.
When I crutch with long strides—I do it to the chorus of
“Chandelier”—hold it in my head while—
“iiiiiiiiii” marks one stretch—“want to
swiiiiiiiiing” marks two—
“from the chandliiiiiiiiier” marks three—“from
the chandeliiiiiiiiier,” four—
—”
41. A spare key is in the clay pot
42. On the front porch
43. Beneath a bed of soil with a leafless wooden stem.
44. You have to grab the stem to release the soil,
45. All compacted in a grainy, soggy block.
46. Then there’s the trick of the lock. Since the dead bolt jams.
47. Harder to do when it’s muggier out, when the wood frame expands.
48. In the foyer now
49. Where he fell.
50. To my left hanging from a metal wire hook is
51. The one hanging planter she left behind.
(what happened is
she left, and
he fell, and
what happened is,
against the corner of the coatrack
my Pal
—”
fell)
“Be present. You have to hurry.”
52. Pal’s shop key hangs from a peg on the wall near the hanging dead fern—
53. I grab it.
73. He is on the respirator
74. But soon he’ll be off it.
75. —,” is precisely the sound it makes.
76. —,” —,” —,” —,” —,” —”; it’s constant.
77. When they turn it off, will it go silent?
78. The staff is kind. Two nurses do the work.
79. Mom stacks the books in her lap, in order of importance.
80. “This is the one,” she says, setting it on top.
81. And then removing it.
82. And then setting it on the bedside table.
54. The blueberry bush out back has a spanworm
55. Infestation, so no blueberries will grow this July.
56. Paint chipped above the doorknob
57. And the floodlights to his little shop on, like
58. I left them; too sad to leave dark.
59. I unlock and stumble, send the green ottoman
60. On wheels, sailing. Catch myself
61. Against his workbench, the jig molds
62. The shape of little bugs, bodies curved in-
63. To a point, but no sting.
83. Now is the time.
84. The sound of the respirator,
85. When they turn it off,
86. Does quit.
87. He sits up.
88. His eyes open
89. And mouth.
90. “Oh my—” Mom says.
91. Hands go to her face.
92. A nurse holds her shoulders.
93. “A reflex, a reflex,” she says. She is nodding, “That’s”
94. “all it is.”
95. Mom keeps her head turned.
96. His eyes close again.
97. He settles back down now.
98. “Oh my—” Mom repeats.
64. Pinned to the corkboard, a paper sign I made:
65. Pal-Made Lures! They’re one of a kind!
66. Nearby, an article, “Local Organization Protests ‘Blind Eye’ to Global Warming.”
67. The sun is warming the water everywhere. It’s a problem.
68. There are warmwater fish and coolwater fish, and
69. The coolwater fish are getting confused, their water
70. No longer cool enough, and so they keep moving upward
71. Into the thermocline
72. And dying.
99. There are tubes and things
100. and one of those plastic bags that collects pee hanging off the side.
101. Alibaba brand, of course.
102. Mom slides a chair up next to it.
103. “Okay,” she says. She takes a deep breath.
104. Opens to page one.
105. “In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.”
106. Mom closes the book.
107. She turns to me, red-eyed, and shakes her head.
108. “I’m going to need to take a minute, Avery. I have to—”
109. She gets up and crosses the room.
110. I don’t know if I should go after her.
111. I don’t want to leave him alone.
73. On the floor is an ashtray
74. Filled with plastic jigs he tossed, something wrong with them.
75. This batch brighter colored, for coolwater fish.
76. I stoop to pick it up and drop my crutch.
77. Nudge the cabinet door
78. Open, inside it,
79. A slender blue-neck bottle
80. He squirreled. He drank it.
81. Empty now.
82. Did he simply not want to beat it?
83. I’m oversimplifying, I know.
112. The bathroom door swings shut, down the hall.
113. I pick up the book.
114. “In our family, there was no clear line …”
115. I interrupt myself to swallow.
116. “In our family, there was no clear line …”
117. Pal’s ragged breath interrupts.
118. “In our family, there was no cle
ar line …”
119. I pause again.
120. The breathing is really like his snoring, but
121. Strained, rubbed raw-sounding.
122. It sounds like it hurts.
123. Occasionally, speeds up,
124. Gets louder,
125. So loud it’s difficult to believe
126. He can hear me.
127. I can look at him.
128. He once said, “Sometimes it feels like you been around my whole life, partner,”
129. “and sometimes it feels like you was just born yesterday.”
84. I take the books from the bookshelf.
85. I un-pin a copy of the poem.
86. It is stuck to a paper fishing guide
87. Pal wrote, actually. A little manual with a stapled spine.
88. It slides to the floor.
89. I scoop it up.
130. I can tell by the sounds of his breathing, though he is off the respirator,
131. Though his brain activity is zero, that he is my Pal.
132. There are still the things you don’t normally see in other people, unless
133. You’re like me right now,
134. Sitting across a gray room from them
135. While they’re dying,
136. Such as
137. The way the skin looks smoother, more aired out, against the face,
138. The way the hand sometimes flutters, as though discarding pocket lint,
139. The way the chest and throat and mouth
140. Work to give and give, everything
141. Saying, “I am giving up.” It doesn’t
142. Look effortless, by a stretch.
143. It looks brave.
144. Which I can qualify,
145. Saying he is brave.
146. Someone who raised me,
147. Who loved me.
from “The Angler’s Guide to Fishing with Heart” by Paul Avery “Pal” Fowell
THE BASICS:
CASTING
1. Hold hold the line with index finger to prevent line from flowing off the spool, with the bail open
2. Bring the rod will “load”
3. Stroke release the line midway through toss
4. Feather stop the line with index finger when it hits target,
then flip the bail over the spool
148. Two feet on the floor
149. Board.
150. Pal flicks the blinker up.
151. Old wooden fence posts
152. Turned gray.
153. We ride by.
154. I choose the pop song every time.
from “The Angler’s Guide to Fishing with Heart” by Paul Avery “Pal” Fowell
THE BASICS:
LANDING
1. Land the fish quickly, and keep the handling of the fish to a minimum.
2. Remove the hook from its mouth before taking it from the water, or use wet hands.
3. To remove the hook, use pliers or another hook with the barb pinched down.
4. If the fish swallows the hook, just cut the line. Fish possess strong digestive enzymes, which will dissolve the hook in time.
5. If you need to revive a fish, rock it gently back and forth in the water. It will swim away when ready.
6. When its gills begin to move again, you may then release it.
155. “When you were born, and I went down the hallway, to the room where you were,”
156. “with that big glass window, and all those babies are crying,”
157. “and there you were, and you were perfect.”
158. “And I just cried and cried, because from that point on”
159. “I had a new friend”
160. “only just been born. And he’d hung the moon already.”
***
Back home from the hospital, Mom goes straight to bed. I think about how this bodes.
Straight to bed—is that how it goes? Mom would know, I reckon, having already lost one parent.
Get home and it’s straight to bed, or it’s straight to booze, straight to church, whatever—and since the seal got broken, and someone has slipped out—all things go whirring by. (Yet you remain—and I.)
I knock on your door. I say, “I love you, Mom, I’ll see you in the morning”—and we’ll begin to wait it out, you—and I, we’ll wait it out.
Luca and I go on walks and chart the rotting of the station wagon in the lot by the corner of the block. Blue grass knotting in its tires, hubcaps vamoose.
It’s been a good walking summer. This summer. I’ve been carrying a camera—that’s what Ginsberg did. The station wagon is Luca’s favorite thing, and we chart the degradation of it; at the same time, his growth. He always poses beside it. He promises not to cut his hair, the whole summer. So we’ll document the progress: the process.
It’s been a good cat summer too. We counted eleven cats one evening, while walking. Today so far, four.
Right behind the station wagon, a modern home is getting built. A tall cuboid with long windows and wood-paneled walls. “I want to go inside there,” Luca says. “Do you?”
I do. It’s so at odds with everything on our street. “I don’t know why we haven’t done this before. The door isn’t locked.” He turns the knob. “And there’s nothing in here yet, so we’re obviously not trying to steal.”
I agree with Luca. If they were worried about trespassers, they would keep the door locked.
It’s three floors, including a basement. We stare out the windows of the main floor, the middle. It’s dusk, so the sky is pink. Luca says, “Hey, let me get a picture of you.” I stand at the window, and he takes one. I look at it. I’m a ghost backed by purple light in it
dead, true. But it’s been a good cat summer.
“I like it,” I say. I was a ghost backed by purple light. “It’s weird,” I say, “you know, like there’s no soul here yet.”
“Exactly.”
“People have to live in it first.”
“We could do them a favor.”
“What are you thinking?” I ask.
“Add some soul.”
He smiles.
The basement. Loose tiles on the floor, and so much white dust. It looks like where chalk dust goes to die, along with wood shavings. We’re stripped so our moms won’t know. The clothes on the stairs leading down.
There’s a bizarro Krystal to-go coffee cup buried in dust. Unidentifiable foam chops, of insulation, white & pink fluff. The dust is really something severe. Mounds against wood frame like leaves to dive in.
We won’t. But maybe. His ass is what you call “bubble.” Everything else is even better than what you call that.
He kisses me. “It’s unlocked,” I say.
“Not,” he says, bounding up the stairs, “—for long!” I keep my underwear on. I snap a picture of him when he gets back.
“Confidential!” he demands. And we kiss. And where do we lie? Right on the floor. We push ourselves through dust. Ass scratches. Knees, scratches. My teeth graze the bone of his hip. We deem it
worthy. Took the year to get here. I’ll kiss you. I’ll kiss your neck, kiss your thigh. Get the camera out: of here:
it’s been a good cat summer: cats on car roofs, in windows, in beds of straw: and in fact, in this last year, something miraculous happened.
Luca happened upon a small cat, barely a kitten but still, like the last to leave the nest, whose mother had died. Luca knew because the kitten was at the mother’s side. I wrote a “threnody” in honor of her. I dedicated it to Luca. A “threnody” is a song or a poem for someone who has died. And I like the word, how it looks like “nobody.”
I haven’t shown it to him yet, still need to revise:
�
��Threnody to a Mother Cat”
for Luca
When I asked Mother was she afraid, she said she was not. “My only fear is that it will be a vegetarian feast,” she said. She laughed and licked the sore spot where it had grown.
Some nights ago I’d asked her if she believed in the man who kept coming around. He would always be stirring my tail, and I would wake up and hiss, and then he would stop and beam; he was smug and an annoyance, and by the light of his head, I never got to sleep.
“My dear, hrrrr,” Mother said, “of course I do. That is Saint Francis, my sweet. He has to come around.”
“Why does he have to come around?”
“Because one of us,” she said, “is getting very old.”
I am, I thought. Getting very old. I will be seven months soon.
Saint Francis came the next night. He stirred his finger next to my tail. I decided every time the tail flicks and it is not my intent, then it is him. Mother said he could go invisible if he wanted.
“Like we might do hunting or do climbing or do knowing, Saint Francis might go invisible.”
She yawned.
“He might also be a good hunter, if he chose to be,” she added, “but he chooses not.”
“Why does he choose not?”
“Because, hrrr,” Mother said, “Saint Francis loves all the animals.”
I woke Mother when I woke one night fidgeting, and felt bad.
Saint Francis was there. “Only in dreams,” he said knowingly, “from now on.”
Mother gave two hurt, quiet hiccups. “Hrrrr,” she said.
I lay my head high near her shoulders. There were divots on her body, into which pain pooled.
She tried more to sleep. “You tell me, sweetheart.”
“Tell you what?”
“I can, I can,” she said.
“She doesn’t want to do it now,” I said to Saint Francis. “She can’t.”
