Cruddy - Lynda Barry [54]
The father had Old Dad’s knife case out. Green velvet inside. A blank space where the boning knife Francine used to lay before the father snapped her like stick. He touched the spot with his finger. “That’s a wound that will never heal, Clyde. Old Dad owes me. He owes me. He can never pay me back for what he’s done.”
Glug glug. “Here, Clyde. Drink to the bastard.”
“And to her,” I said.
“Who?”
I pointed to the steaming creature. “Her.”
The father said, “Shit.”
The knife the father chose was Big Girl. A twelve inch that would not hold an edge for long and had no flexibility, but for the time she was sharp she was loyal, insane, very strong. The father petted her edge with the side of his thumb. Then he ran her so wrong against the whetstone the hair rose on the back of my neck. He was dulling her. Big Girl dull could take a man’s thumb off. Dull knives. All butchers fear them.
The father said, “She’s wrong, but that’s the point.” He started hacking. He made some grunt sounds as he took the creature apart. He said, “Why the hell use a twelve inch for anything I’ll never know. All you need to take anything apart is an eight-inch Forsner with a lot of flex. You have a ten inch and a six inch and you got it made. Old Dad said shit on R. H. Forsner but I’m telling you Clyde, to hell with Old Dad. Forsners are the best knives going. First thing I’m going to do when all this is over? I’m getting me a set of Forsners. Complete. Hell yes, I am.”
And he told me to open the trailer door, and he started handing me warm chunks of the creature. He told me to throw them into the trailer. He said, “Throw, Clyde. Hard. Don’t be a pussy. Fire it.” He wanted a mess. Because that was the explanation.
The father’s voice was so sadly speaking. Sadly explaining it again to the imaginary cop. “Shit yes, Officer. I’ve had a few tonight. I’m not apologizing for it. Shoot me. Shoot my boy. She left us. We don’t got no reason to live anymore. We’d thank you to do it. We got a deer back there and a pile of fish but I don’t know shit about what to do with any of it, don’t know shit about gutting, quartering, dressing. I made a mess of things. I’m flying by the seat of my pants here, sir. Jesus God I loved her. She was apeshit half the time but I didn’t mind. Had a bramble up her ass and threw squirrels at me, but I lived for her. I don’t understand it. I can’t pretend to understand it. I miss her, Officer.”
The father was crying. Actual tears were spilling down his face. His voice was hoarse. And real tears spilled from my eyes too. I couldn’t control it. The sadness of the story. His shaking voice when he told it. The booze. All of it had us both crying over the hacked-apart creature in the middle of the dark woods. Both of us taking more glugs just because.
The father was singing, his voice lifting through the black tangle of trees.
The father wiped his face and smeared blood across his cheek. He said, “What song is that, Clyde? You know it. I know you do.” But I didn’t.
Above us the sky lightened. The world had spun us into a new day. I didn’t look often at the face of the father. But I looked then and saw his wet eyes looking back from beneath sagging folds. And I couldn