News in Spanish, then nothing. Garbled evangelical rant broke through the silence, yet Clay still spun the dial, moving the needle through walls of eerie static and blips of fleeting, scrambled voices. Tri-state… cancer research…corn prices… He stopped somewhere around preset six when he finally picked up a solid signal. It was symphony, which was better than the sound of a rattling F-150 over corduroy gravel, but he soon remembered that all Yuppie music sounds alike. He turned the volume knob to overpower the hissing blast of the heater.
The world outside was no more than layered gray and black. The snow and sky, mailboxes and trees, all melted together until momentarily reassembled when struck by his passing headlights. He cracked his window and lit a cigarette. He inhaled quickly, exhaled slowly. Schubert streamed through the cab.
He passed a set of twin silos and turned into a gated drive, coming to a rest in his tracks from the previous morning. With a twist of a key the headlights died, almost symbolically with the silencing of the music. Save the tinking from under the hood, all returned to silence. He finished his cigarette in the dark, grabbed his flashlight and stepped into the cold. A trail of trampled brown grass and leaves led to a humble brush pile, under which rested Clay’s Conibear 220 trap. It was baited with fish guts and as he walked closer, he smelled the frozen, oily rot. He twisted his flashlight and grunted as he squatted. The trap was set deep. The dense beam bounced off bark and leaves before falling on a mass of matted, frozen fur, crimped between rust brown iron. It was too small to be a fox, but he still held hope for a coon or mink.
He zipped his Carhartt and wriggled into the blackness, arm extended, fingers searching frosted mud. In a desperate attempt to expedite the process, he swung his arm in small loops until finally landing, with a thud, on furry flesh. It was small-too small for a coon, too coarse for a mink. He sighed. Another damned possum. Cramped breathing was now replaced by muffled groans and curses. He wriggled backwards tugging on the carcass, uprooting the trap and thrashing through impeding twigs. Clumps of snow fell down his collar.
He inched out of the brush and rose to his knees, flinging the animal through the dark toward his truck. It spun for a moment before hitting a post near the gate. Though instead of the familiar, soft thwack he expected, it produced a clear, perceptible jingle – metal on metal. Clay scratched his beard with his meaty hand and dug in his pocket for his cigarettes. He smiled.
“Guess it wasn’t a possum after all.”
He stood over the dead cat, shining a flashlight at the ID tags dangling from the fraying collar.
“Delilah”
314 Rural Route 6
319-555-6311
Someone would be looking for it, and the creased, spiraling torso blatantly suggested the cause of death. He couldn’t leave it. The last thing he needed was another pissed off farmer’s wife flying off the handle about being humane and how we live in a modern world and what’s the point in trapping anyway and you know that was my daughter’s favorite cat. Not today.
He dropped it into his truck bed atop empty cigarette packs, shotgun shells and hamburger wrappers. The sun was a sliver on the horizon, silhouetting the distant tree line against an ashy-orange Midwestern sky. He turned the key and slammed the door.
******
The road curved around a grain elevator and slimmed to one dirt lane flanked by careening ditches. Clay slowed as he dropped off the gravel onto the unplowed path. Wind had filled any existing tracks with snow, leaving a miniature, white desert landscape sprawling before his clamoring truck. He rolled through the dunes blaring Bach. When he got to a solitary mail box he stopped and retrieved two damp envelopes. 10 Free Sunday Issues with 6 month Subscription! and a bill from Fox County Electric Co-op. A red stamp in the corner read FINAL NOTICE. He jammed them in his coat pocket and pulled into the driveway.
The yard was littered with tires and cinder blocks, rusted bicycles and piles of unknown matter covered with blue, vinyl tarps. An archaic tractor rested in a cluster of cedars giving the property an eerie feeling of finality. The Ford stopped directly in front of the porch.
“Dad! Getchyer ass up!” Clay stepped out of the truck, slapping the mail against his thigh. He hopped over a missing step and knocked twice before entering. It smelled of wet carpet and stale beer. Clay opened the fridge and scanned the shelves for something fresh. Stacked Styrofoam take-out boxes teetered. Mustard. Soy sauce. Vodka. He closed the fridge.
“Dad! Come on, I got your mail. They’re ‘bout to shut off your electric.” He listened for the familiar rustling from the bedroom, for the slow, heavy footsteps down the hall to the dingy bathroom. He listened but heard nothing.
“Dad!” Yelling louder now, he rushed down the hallway, shuffling his rubber boots through dirty laundry and empty beer cans. Family pictures hung crooked on the wall. Clay glanced at the 8x10 of his father, 25 years younger, standing on the roof of Aunt Brauer’s house smiling and extending a blurry, waving hand. He liked this one. It reminded him of the Dad of his childhood. The Dad who kept food in the fridge. The Dad who paid his bills on time. His dad used to be a good man, and he appreciated the reminder.
The bedroom door was closed. With a kick, it swung open revealing a thin, weathered mattress stacked on a box spring. The sheets were balled up at the foot, unmoved from the day prior. A poorly anchored ceiling fan thumped above, casting quivering light across floral wallpaper. Outside a dog bayed.
In the kitchen he found a pen in a drawer under the microwave and scribbled a note on a nearby, greasy, paper plate.
Stopped by at seven.
Have to go to work. Call me at the
grain elevator. Give me a list of groceries
you need and I’ll bring them by tonight.
PAY YOUR ELECTRIC BILL!!
CLAY
He set the note on the coffee table next to a soggy, butt covered TV Guide, overdue bill on top. The clutter was smothering. For a moment he considered cleaning, but rejected the idea when he saw a cockroach dart under a wrinkled receipt, taking refuge in the undergrowth of wrinkly magazines and sticky, crushed Dixie cups. He hurried toward the door, away from the squalor.
He pushed the screen and stepped out feeling liberated, like a prisoner of war emerging from a rat infested bamboo cage. The world was thawing and water trickled from icicles making trenches in the snow under the awning of the porch. The freshness of the outside air clashed with the stale thickness seeping from the screen behind him.
He stood on the sagging porch thinking of how long it had taken for this degrading transformation to take place. Ten years? Twenty? Had it always been this way, with layered, aging clutter? A raven hopped around an amputated truck bed behind a distant, sterile cherry tree. Soon, another pair glided from a looming oak, landing with a throaty grunt. They congregated like old women after church, belling and snorting as they circled a lumpy mound in the snow. Clay watched curiously as more birds floated in and intermittent cawing became a chaotic argument, a raucous conflictive dispute. He squinted and his head rolled to one side. His face morphed from childish curiosity to curled confusion. Concern. Disgust. Disbelief. He inched closer, cautious as though approaching an un-tethered, sleeping pit bull. The birds reluctantly scattered in synchronized pairs. He stared, rigid and blank, at what lay beneath.
******
“Brent?”
“Hey listen Clay, I’m swamped right now. Call me back in an hour.”
“No. Brent, I called because – “
“Clay, seriously. I’m about to walk into a conference and everybody’s waiting and – “
“Dad’s dead.” Spoken aloud, the words were abrasive and cold as though read from a police blotter or a morning situation brief. He felt he should say more or reword the delicate situation and present it again, more eloquently, but it was too late. 66 years of life had been concluded with two words. Two syllables. There was silence on the other end. “Brent, you still there?”
“Yeah,” he spoke quieter, with less annoyance and distraction. “I’m still here. What happened?”
“He got tanked last night and passed out in the snow. Froze to death. I found him this morning, by the cherry tree.” Clay turned from the receiver and took a deep breath. He was shaking.
“Well,” said Brent, quicker and less affected than Clay was expecting, “serves him right. We all knew it was comin’ and we told him over and over again. Dad, that shit’s gonna kill you! It’s gonna kill you, Dad! And now look. Now look, Clay! He’s dead and it serves him right and I don’t…” he trailed off, pulling the phone from his cheek. More silence.
“Listen, I haven’t called the Sheriff yet. I just thought you’d want to know first.” He needed to end this conversation and thought it best to use something official.
“Yeah. That’s fine. I’ll leave tonight if the roads are okay. I gotta go. Thanks for calling.” He hung up before Clay could respond, leaving him slouching to a dial tone in a decaying house. Dad’s dead. It jarred his mind once more, and then he dialed 911.
******
Oblong, lumpy tufts of white fell from the turbid sky as Clay slowly turned the dial of his propane stove just inside the barn door. He watched the blue flame grow until it tickled the bottom of the steel, wax-filled vat. The dirt floor was strewn with pots and pans stained with dye, tractor parts, soda bottles and tools. Antlers and dusty furs hung from the walls, linear and organized at one time, but now, crammed and overlapping like pins on a VFW hat. He wore a rubber apron over a torn flannel coat and stained sweatpants. His boots were unlaced. When he saw that the wax was liquefied, but not smoking, he dropped a bundle of traps into the vat. Six at a time, two minutes per bundle. He set his watch.
The smooth whine of an imported engine echoed across a barren bean field. Clay squinted through the mid-day sun to see his brother’s Mercedes rolling toward him, fluorescent-blue running lights gliding above his wet, slushy drive.
Brent stepped out wearing a black suit under a pressed, grey trench coat. He was just tall enough to look like an adult, but a bit too scrawny, Clay thought, to be taken seriously as a lawyer. He hiked his pants up at the thighs and tip-toed through the muck to the dryness of the barn. Once inside, he shook the melting flakes off his head and turned his attention toward his brother.
“Three and a half hours before your father’s funeral, and you’re in your barn playing Jeremiah Johnson. You never stop, do you?”
“You need something?” Clay looked at his watch.
Brent squatted and curiously inspected the vat. His smooth baby face reflected in the steaming liquid. “What is this stuff, oil?” He sniffed with petite nostrils.
“It’s wax. Seals any remaining scent left by previous animals. Come on Brent, you didn’t come here to talk about trapping. What do you want?”
Brent reached in his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “Here, take this.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a eulogy. Pastor Thom wrote it for dad. Said we didn’t have to use his if we had something better, but figured we wouldn’t. He wanted me to read it but I’m not going to. That’s your job.”
“Whoa, wait.” Clay looked up from the printout. “What’s that mean? I’m not reading this- how is it my job?” His watch blipped and he removed his traps, keeping his eyes locked on his brother.
“Oh get real, Clay. We both know Dad would want you to speak at his funeral, not me. Hell, I barely talked to the guy for two years.”
“Damnit! I knew it was gonna turn out this way. DAD WAS A DRUNK! Been that way for the past ten years. All the friends he used to have gave up on him and he gave up on us. He was the town boozer and everyone knew it, but they’ll be singing his praises today! Oh, he was a single father who raised two kids. He was a hard worker. He was a God fearing man.” Clay held his arms to the sky and waved his hands mockingly. “Just because he’s dead doesn’t make him a good person. He’s still worthless to me. I’m not reading a thing.” He turned the knob on the propane tank until the flames extinguished with a quick pop, and grabbed his hat from the nearby welder. He slapped it on his head and walked toward his truck. Brent followed.
“Come on Clay. What’re you doing? You have to start getting ready.”
“I’m not going, Brent.”
“What? No, you have to! It’s our dad’s funeral. You can’t just skip it like high school art class.” Brent stepped in front of his brother, stopping him. “So what now? You’re going trapping instead of your own father’s funeral?”
Clay skirted around him and hoisted himself into his truck. It turned over several times before starting with a gurgling explosion. He rested his elbow out the window and looked at his brother. “That’s exactly what I’m gonna do.”
******
33 traps of various types lay hidden along the river valley of southern Fox County. Snares, foot traps and conibears baited with fish guts, sardines and dog food had been strategically placed over a six mile stretch of frozen farmland and muddy slough banks. Usually, Clay checked and re-baited around ten traps a day, saving the most lucrative ones for the days he felt particularly hapless. Today he would check them all.
He parked on the road and left his truck running. As he trampled through the grass and saplings toward his trap he imagined the funeral home – somber and perfumy . Organs on CD playing over mounted speakers. Strangers signing a guestbook. Quiet comments on beautiful flowers. Closed casket.
It was a nice service, they’ll say. The family seems to be holding up well and I wonder what will happen to his place? and Oh, what a horrible shame.
He got to a bank of a frozen stream and followed it north to a swollen, crumbling stump. He had hollowed out a small cavity angled into the ground, just large enough to fit a trap, and glazed it with salty fish – a hole which was now filled with a fat mass of writhing grey and black fur.
The raccoon had obviously bumped the trap while inspecting the peculiarly unnatural cavern. The iron was clamped diagonally across the shoulder and abdomen, pinching its right arm tight against a hip. Clay lit a cigarette as it struggled in short bursts of energy, pulling and pushing against the relentless, metal captor.
A small sandbar jutted into the shallow stream behind him where he found a smooth, oval stone slightly bigger than a brick. He lifted it above his head several times, gauging its capabilities. The raccoon lay still, recuperating from its futile fight-preparing for its next. Clay returned, stone in hand.
He was a good man they’ll say.
Drank a lot though. The raccoon twisted violently, its skin rumpled and chafed against sinewy muscle. Clay lifted the rock.
You know, he raised those boys all by himself. Worked his ass off for those kids. Hisses surged through yellow teeth. Lips curled and quivered.
It’s a damned shame it ended that way. He used to be such a nice guy. He brought down the stone using both hands. Jaws clenched. Eyes open.
You know, those kids were all he had. It fell with the precision of an awl, punching through and continuing into the earth, through the earth.
He just let himself go is what he did. He was lucky those boys still helped him. Clay fell to his knees in the muffled forest. The animal twitched in the shadow of its executor. Then, all was still.
It’s a damned shame it ended that way. It’s a damned shame.
