What Men Do

John sat on the couch drinking a tall cold glass of Coca-Cola. The ice clinked against the glass and the bubbles fizzed and popped over the side. He was reading the May edition of Field and Stream magazine, taking his time reading each article. Soft nameless jazz whispered from the stereo. Mary came out of the bedroom carrying the baby. The baby burped. Mary smiled at him. She wiped the baby’s face and sat next to John on the couch. John put the magazine on the table and tickled the baby. The baby giggled, drool slipping from the side of his mouth again. The doorbell rang. John stood up and opened the door.

            An older woman stood on John’s doorstep. She was wearing dark sunglasses and had a jacket bundled over her shoulders. “Hi Johnny,” she said in a frightened ashamed voice.

“Ma,” John said as he reached out to hold her. Ma looked at the ground as her son swept her into his arms.

John led her inside. She tried to smile at him. She was like a child in his arms, thin and frail. John brought her to the couch, sitting her down while Mary unfolded the blanket that was draped over the back of the couch and placed it over her. John sat next to his mother and held her in his arms, rocking her gently. Mary walked to the freezer and filled a bag with ice.

“Let me see it Ma,” John said. He lifted the dark glasses off her face and placed them on the table. Ma’s eye looked back at him, the black and yellow and blue like terribly botched make-up. The eye was red and mean-looking. John shook his head and looked down as his heart broke. “Oh Ma,” he whispered as he placed the bag of ice over her eye. Mary turned her face to hide her tears.

“Oh Ma,” John repeated, the words drawn out sadly.

“I’m sorry Johnny.” Ma started to sob. “You was right. You was right.” Ma’s eyeliner had run and stained her face with thick black rivers. John took a tissue and wiped his mother’s face.

“I’ll take care of this Ma. Don’t you worry Ma I’ll take care of this.” John held his mother against his chest. He was careful not to let the hard ice cubes hurt her eye.

“I’m sorry Johnny, I’m sorry. You was right.”       

Mary stood in the bedroom, holding the sleeping baby to her chest and crying silently. When Ma fell asleep on the couch John joined Mary in their bed.

“You know what I have to do tomorrow?” he asked her.

“I do. I’m sorry John.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

The streetlights shone all along the street. The crickets played their violins in the night air as the owls swooped noiselessly towards the terrified mice hiding in the fields. Teenage boys and girls found each other in dark basements and the backseats of their parents’ cars, taking their awkward stabs at romance, living and dying with their successes and rejections as the dawn broke.

John woke early the next morning. He slipped into his running shoes and stepped out the front door, stretching his legs as he made his way down the stone walkway. As he ran through his neighborhood he stopped periodically to pick up the beer cans strewn along the streets. When his bag was full he jogged to his friend’s bar and threw the bag into the dumpster behind the building. By the time he got home Mary had woken up with the baby. She was standing in the kitchen feeding him from his bottle. Ma was still sleeping on the couch. She was curled into a ball under the blanket.

John took a cold shower. He stepped out, dried off, and got dressed. He pulled on a pair of jeans, a white Henley shirt, and his old work boots. His three inch Buck knife hung in its usual place in the sheath on his belt. He adjusted the tattered mesh cap on his head. Mary was sitting on the couch. The baby was asleep in her arms. Ma was asleep next to her. John stooped down. He kissed his mother on the forehead. He kissed the baby’s forehead. He looked into Mary’s wet eyes. “Honey, I’ll be back. Watch Ma for me while I’m gone. I love you,” before kissing her trembling lips. He grabbed his light jacket from the hook and walked out the door.

Outside the morning sun shone brightly. The air was warm and full of the sounds of spring, birds and young children chirping to their friends and building homes of straw and sticks and mud. The dew on the grass glistened like silver in the sun. Flowers had started peeking out of the tips of tree branches and bushes. Squirrels and chipmunks ran through the trees, chasing each other with the energy of a long hibernation.

In the truck John thought back to what his father told him one Thanksgiving when John was ten. John was trying to help Ma and his aunts prepare dinner in the kitchen when his father called him into the family room.

“Son, men don’t bother with the cooking on Thanksgiving. Men sit and watch football and drink beers.” Pop stared at the TV for a minute. “You know what else men do Johnny?” he said with the most serious drunk face John had ever seen on him. “Men take care of their mothers.” Pop burped and blinked and turned his attention back to the game. John stood bewildered for a moment before sitting between his uncle and the dog.

John stopped the truck in the gravel driveway of a familiar house. The dogs in the yard barked and ran out to greet him. John crouched and patted the dogs. They jumped around him and licked his face. He played with the dogs for a minute. He stood up and made his way to the back of the house. Behind the house was a kidney shaped pond the size of two football fields. The sun reflected brilliantly off the murky water. John could see the rises of several fish in each section of the pond. A man with a ratty baseball cap stood fishing at the end of the pond. The man was bare-chested. He was smoking a fat smelly home-rolled cigar. His casting motion was the smoothest John had seen. John walked around the pond to where the man stood.

“Hey Johnny,” the man said when John reached him.

“Hey Pop.”

“Knew where to find me?”

“Figured you’d be out here.”

“Always said fishing’s the best cure for a hangover.”

“I remember Pop.”

John’s father reeled in his line and made another long, arcing cast. John and his father stood not looking at one another. They watched the line disappear into the water.

“How you been son? How’s Mary and the kid?”
“They’re fine Pop. Mary’s an angel and the baby gets bigger every day.”

“Yessir, that’s how it goes with kids. They grow and grow til you can hardly recognize them they’re so big and old. Then they come back trying to teach you how a man should act.” Pop paused and casted again with a flick of his wrist. He spit into the water, his mouth stained a dirty brown by his cigar. “Been a long time I haven’t seen you,” he said with a sideways look.

“You know why that is Pop. You know why I’m here now.”

“I do. Gave me quite the beating last time,” Pop said to the pond.

John gritted his teeth. “Pop, you know that won’t cut it this time.”

“Yeah, I know, son. Fish with me for a bit. You’re not in any rush are you?”

“I can stay for a little while Pop, just a little while.”

“That’s good. I’d like that John.”

In the front yard the dogs had tired themselves out chasing squirrels and each other’s tails and were lying on the grass in the warm sun.  A red-tailed hawk circled high above them, its screech piercing the lonely sky.  Bullfrogs sat along the banks of the pond, bellowing to their rivals and mates as their tadpoles hid clustered among the reeds in the shallow water. Circles of light sand stood out against the dark silt bottom of the pond, betraying the locations of the bluegills’ carefully constructed nests.

John and his father fished together until the sun was directly above them. John had a similar casting motion as his father, though Pop’s had been honed to perfection through the years and countless casts he had made. John looked at the sun, reeled in his line, and hooked his lure to the cork handle of the rod. He laid the rod on the ground behind him and turned to his father.

“Time to go Pop.”

“Okay son.” Pop stared at the water where his lure had just broken the surface, avoiding John’s eyes. “Tell your mother I’m sorry.”
            John sighed. “Pop. You know that won’t cut it.”

“I know Johnny, I know.”

“You know what I have to do Pop.”

“I know son. I’m the one who taught you. I’m sorry you have to do this.”

Pop reeled his line in. He hooked his lure to the cork handle like his son had. He laid the rod behind him. He turned to face the water again. “I’m proud of you John,” he said in a low voice.

John unbuckled the knife handle from the sheath. He pulled it out with his right hand. In his left he held a towel. He stepped behind his father and reached around him with both arms. He kept the blade of the knife pressed flat against his wrist. He held his father for a moment.

John turned the handle of the knife. He plunged it deep into his father’s chest with the towel held around the blade. He felt Pop’s body stiffen and heard the sharp intake of breath. John held him until the body went slack in his arms. He laid the body gently on the ground next to the rods. He wiped the knife blade. He placed it in the sheath again as he sat on the stones that lined the bank of the pond. His body heaved as he lurched forward and vomited suddenly into the pond. The dogs had come from the front yard and were investigating the crying man and the dead body next to him. Two of the sat on their haunches and howled while the third nuzzled its face into the man’s chest. The howls of the dogs mixed with the man’s sobs to create a symphony of grief.

John stopped crying after some time. He washed his hands in the pond. He wiped the vomit and the tears from his face and stood up. He leaned over his father’s body and kissed him on the forehead. He whispered, “I’m sorry Pop. Men take care of their mothers,” before standing up and turning away from his father’s body. The cigar had fallen from the cold lips. It had gone out in the grass next to the body.

John walked back to the truck and told the dogs to pile in with him. He wasn’t going to leave them without someone to take care of them. The dogs were quiet in the backseat. John took careful, measured breaths on the ride home. He pulled the truck into his driveway. He stepped out of the truck and let the dogs jump out and sniff around their new yard. They explored tentatively, staying close to John as he stood next to the truck looking at his home. He walked up the steps and opened the door. Mary was sitting on the couch with the baby in her arms. She jumped up and ran over to John. She threw her arms around him with the baby held gently between them. “Oh John,” she whispered. John felt suddenly weaker than he ever had. He let her take him to the couch and sit him down. Mary sat next to John and put the baby into his arms. She held him tightly. Ma came out of the bathroom.

“Hey Johnny,” she said with a faint smile.

“Hey Ma,” John said weakly as she walked over to the couch. The swelling around her eye had gone down. The coloring was less violent than it had been the night before. “It’s okay now Ma.” “It’s done.”

“He raised you well Johnny,” Ma said. She held her son. “I’m sorry you had to do this.”

The baby stared up with bright eyes at his father and smiled.