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By Root 262 0

case out of his duffel. It was a custom-made case. Tooled leather with ancient patterns, saddle stitched, oiled and polished. It belonged to Old Dad. All of the knives had leather sheaths with names embossed on them. There was Big Girl, and Francine, and Cleoma. There was Margy and Lisa and Baby Sue. All of them custom-made with bone handles that had never seen water. They were cleaned only with oil and sharpened so often a few of the blades were quite narrow. Francine was barely wider than a licorice stick. She was Old Dad’s favorite. A boning knife he’d been devoted to. The first thing the father did was take Francine out, and slam the pull-out ashtray onto her blade and snap it off clean. He said, “There, you bastard.” He threw Francine out the window.

From under the front seat he pulled out a sheath I’d never seen. He said, “You know what this is, Clyde? I about shit when I saw it in the pawnshop. You know what the hell this is?”

I had never seen a knife like it. The handle was black and peanut shaped with diamond grooves cut into it like you see on a gun handle. The blade was five inches long, wide and pointed, with razor edges on both sides. The father is right when he said knives are in my blood. There was an involuntary reaching of my hand toward it.

The father said, “That’s Sheila.”

The father watched me holding her, weighing her in my hand, being fascinated by her balance. Her edges seemed to be sharpened to near transparency. I looked up at him and he nodded. “Ain’t she a bitch and a half? And you know what? She has a goddamn sister.”

He handed me a similar sheath, saying, “This is Little Debbie.”

Little Debbie was even more vicious looking than Sheila. I can’t say why exactly, maybe her compact size. Her fit in my hand was incredible.

“You know what these are, Clyde?”

I shook my head.

“Elite Forces. Fucking Navy Special Issue fucking Elite Forces. A hand-to-hand man’s dream. Her blade is perfect. You drop her? I’ll snap your neck.”

He sheathed Little Debbie and tucked her into the Ace bandage where she would lay flat against my skin and had me practice pulling her out, first with my shirt off and then with my shirt on. He showed me some moves.

“Now, remember.” He flashed Sheila and his arm arced and his wrist flicked. “Smooth. No hesitation. Follow through.” He pointed to the top of his thigh. “The femoral, OK? That’s what you want. Right here. Deep as you can, twist, then rip her down. OK? Just in case, OK?”

I said, “In case of what?”

He hung a fresh cig from his lips. “Believe me, Clyde. You’ll know. I won’t need to tell you. Partners, right? You in? Ready to stir up a world of shit?”

We turned onto a gravel road that exploded clouds of gray dust behind us. The houses were mostly small, all abandoned, none of them had doors at all. The father said, “Freeway coming through. See here? All of this? Take a good look because it ain’t going to be here next week.”

The gravel road ended beside a dead-grass play field. The weeds were high but I could see the chalk lines marking the baseball diamond. The blown-out backstop still stood. Above it was a mostly boarded-up school. Some of the unboarded windows had high scorch marks along the top. Someone had tried to start a fire but failed. Fires can be harder to set than you would think.

The last house on the road had a filthy blue blanket tacked up over the doorway. Parked out in front was a shiny new car with a shiny new trailer attached. The father laughed a high-pitched “Hee-hee!” He slammed the steering wheel with the flat of his hand and said, “We got ’em, Clyde. We got ’em now.” He hit the gas and gunned the car into the yard, right to the doorway and laid on the horn.

From behind the blanket someone yelled “Je-mph CHRIMPH!” A corner lifted, and a bald head stuck itself out, looking disoriented and pissed off. The father stepped out of the car very casual, took a last drag off his cig, and tossed it. He said, “Got your love letter.”

The bald head said, “Lemme pum my meeph im,” and disappeared behind the blanket.

The father flicked his eyes at me