Wildcat (Fiction)

A sophomore effort. This story originally appeared as "Blemish" in the anthology

Alms on the Highway (Myrtle Press, 2011).

My dad's got some kinda blemish on the side his face. I can't see it in the truck, cause he's driving, but I seen it when he picked me up from the bus stop. I'm out for Christmas from this boarding school they gots me going to. Mom says he's

shacked up with some chink out here in the mountains near Ashe, but I ain't sure I trust that as I ain't never seen this chink.

And I ain't real sure about that thing on his cheek, not sure it's a zit, but it's something. Not like he ain't got other marks on him. He got this big ugly scar outa some business in Somalia. Shit runs from the crown his head down to that cauliflower ear. It was a long time ago, now. He never told me how, but I remember before and he didn't have it. He was gone a long time and when he come back, it'd already healed mostly. A little purple. His head was shaved to the skin back then, and shiny. Now, he let's his hair grow a bit and he's got a beard, but you can still see the scar. It divides his head from past to present, like them power lines what cut through the trees in the mountains at points.

Mom said he was a murderer, but Dad always said he was in Supply and I knew he was a Marine and I'd never no reason to doubt him. Mom said a lot of things. They split after he come back that time. I guess it was the end of a long time of troubles. But I never saw it. Heard nothing. They's private folk, even with me. I think I only heard them fight once, and about groceries at that.

He'd come back from Iraq the first, nothing wrong with him, just thinner. Mom didn't hang no yellow ribbons, but we both hugged him when he come home. He never seemed in bad spirits about what he'd done or seen. Said he knew it was for oil and it was probably for folks richer'n us, but said that don't matter cause we're better than them. Not sure who was them. He'd a hard time with guys what come back from war all torn up and ruined. Said it was something near to a act. Said people did it for sympathy and he thought it was just fucking weak. He called it malingering. Ain't sure about all that neither, but again he never gave me no reason to doubt.

He was a good dad, to his credit. He never brought his work home, never worked on me like some my buddies' dads did. When they split I's pretty sure it had nothing to do with me. He didn't tell me so, just let me make up my own mind. Which I did, and was grateful he let me do it.

Mom, while she talks shit on Dad times, she ain't a bad mom. She's just looking at herself and she's getting old and maybe she blames Dad a bit for that. I keep thinking about that pimple thing on his cheekbone. It's got a little bruise around it. I'm staring out into the wilds. They move past quicker'n I can focus and it's kinda hypnotic.

How's your mother?

The truck's old and the heat's on and blowing pretty good, what with the air outside being under freezing. He's gripping the wheel and not looking at me. Which is fine. I think.

She says hi.

I's lying and he musta knew it. He smiles and his scar don't move. I can see sky through the trees past him, and he's framed in this flashing thicket. Gray.

She didn't say hi, Kid, and you know it.

He pulls a flask of whiskey from his coat pocket, turns the cap off with his hands still on the wheel. Takes a pull and offers. I take it. Swallow big. Don't grimace or nothing, don't cry. I give him back the bottle. And he tucks it away and glances me a little smile.

And I guess, I should ask you about school.

Okay.

What are you learning in school?

Nothin'.

This school's teaching you nothing? It's a wonder we're paying.

And that's it. We set for a while not talking, him driving, me looking out the window. He touches up the volume of his music. Twangy banjo, but good. You could tell it's a white dude singing, but it's recorded lo-fi and sometimes his rhythm, when he gets going, sounds like soul or disco. I like it, but I don't say.

Where we goin'?

He looks to me.

A buddy of mine is a farrier, we're going to watch. He stares at the road. Don't worry 'bout your bag. We'll throw a shelter-half over it. It's just for a couple hours and we'll head back to the house.

It ain't snowin'. I ain't worried.

I look out the window, but catch a slim smile right before I do. We're driving through the mountains and my ears're popping. I pull on my nose and blow out my ears.

We gravel down this winding road and the trees cut away and there's a bit of a drop there where he pulls down a drive. We crossed over this small crick on a short wood bridge and pull up to the farm. There's a big aluminum barn and in front of that a nice, big, tan Ford and a white trailer hitched t'the back. The sides is up on the trailer and a short man with wild brown hair is standing next to it, hitting a shoe on the bench inside. Horseshoes hang all around it and there is something on fire, what I guess is a heater, up front the trailer, close to the big Ford.

My dad pulls the Ranger up. The snowy gravel on the drive slides under us. He pushes in the parking brake and takes a breath and sets for a second and then gets out. I open the door and stand there inside the warm coming off the truck. Look over the roof. The short man don't look up.

Kid, this is Jimmy Bedford. Bedford, this is the kid.

Sir.

Nice manners, Kid.

He brushes a hanging length of hair, pliers in his hand, and looks up brief-like. My dad defends me.

His mother raised him. What you up to?

Not sure, guess this is work.

I hold onto the door a second longer by all that warm, then shut it as my dad motions with his head. We walk over and stand beside the back of the Ford. Bedford leans down and pulls on a strap on his apron, tied round his legs like cowboy chaps. He wipes the back his fingers quick on the leather and then extends a hand. The fingers are cut and marked up and I grab his big, dirty hand best I can. He's got a harp tattooed on his thick forearm and he catches me looking. He shows me his teeth. He's missing two.

My dad shoves his hands in the pockets his Carhartt, digs and pulls out a cigarette from one. He sparks up. I think maybe horses don't like that smell, but Bedford don't say a thing and turns back to work.

You boys come down to watch?

You know we did.

It's not too exciting, but you're welcome.

When he says not it sounds like nawt, wide open and slow, like he's maybe from Pennsylvania.

There's horses in the aluminum barn. They shuffle and huff. Bedford puts a bit of something metal in his mouth. The horses are only steaming a bit from their faces in the barn. I think I's expecting more. Bedford walks up and leans into the side of this big gray what's tied up to rails and standing all impatient in the middle of the barn. The gray's got a dark blaze near its ear. Bedford grabs the hoof and goes to work. It's mostly clipping, the leg elbowed tween his thigh and beer gut. He digs out the crap built up in the shoe. At one point the horse starts to shift its weight and leans into Bedford. Without letting up on the damn thing's hoof, he reaches out and pounds flat against the horse's flank with the odd-shaped pair of pliers. The thing grunts and settles down. He keeps at it and works it clean and pinches off the shoe. Then he sets to clean more. He works his hands for a bit at the bones down there, clipping and digging, and cleaning. The smell of horse is everywhere. I weren't never much for horses. Places I grew up, there was more hicks'n cowboys. I think my dad regret that. He ain't from the South. Thought he'd married a belle, what then turned up a sow's ear. Never said that, but I always got the feeling he thought it. The horses breathe in the back there and spit steam in the chill air what runs through the barn. I stamp my feet to get the circulation going in my legs. My dad looks up from his cigarette.

You cold, boy?

It's winter.

So go sit in the truck.

I's watchin'.

This isn't some life lesson, son. Just go on and sit in the truck. Jim'll be done in a bit and we can go.

He pulls on his cigarette and slits his eye through the smoke.

I'm fine.

Boy.

He says it like he's about to belt me, but he don't even move, just shakes his head, smiles a bit, and pulls on his smoke.

Bedford finishes with the big gray, then clips a goat what's tied up near. When he's finished complete, he puts his tools up in the trailer, closes the cabinets on the side, and turns out that burner up front. I go to set in the truck and my dad talks close with Bedford for a second. After, they agree on something. My dad, smiling big, comes'n sets with me in the truck.

We're going up to town for a bit. Think you can handle that?

I's rooting through my backpack for my Camels. I know he don't like I smoke, but something in me lets me do it. I find them and pull one out.

That's fine by me.

He hands me his Zippo. I spark up and snap it shut. He starts the truck and I look at the lighter. Matte black, slight rubbing to the top, long silvery flash down back where he scratched it on something. That scratch looks like his scar. On the front side there're markings, worn down, Em-nu'd black over-top, to cover-up. The letters CSM was etched in with a knife blade.

Thanks.

I hand him the lighter.

Sure, boy. Your mom know you smoke?

Naw, but she don't know a lot.

Ain't it the truth, kiddo.

I smiled at that.

He makes hisself sound like Mom.

Don't listen none to what yer father tells you 'bout me. Ain't none that the truth.

I laugh and he smiles at me as he lifts off the top of the flask. Chokes down a swallow.

I've never told you much, have I?

No, sir.

You figure there's a reason for that?

Yes, sir.

Know what that reason is?

Don't care, sir.

Kid, you are wise beyond your years.

The heat is blowing strong out the vents on the dash. Disco banjo boy is twanging from the tape player again. I warm my hands though they're already warm. It's something to do. I rub them a little and even blow in them once. I pull on my cigarette and roll the window down a little further, squeeze the butt, flick it out onto the road. We're passing through mountain turns.

●

Brown and dying leaves along the roadside is all wet and covered in snow. A string'a power lines splits the trees above us as we close in on the town. We turn up Main Street. They gots Christmas lights strung cross the street, greens and reds, old, heavy outdoor bulbs, at regular intervals. Some of the store fronts got the newer silvery-white ones. Far down at the end, toward the center town, there's a big statue to some Confederate soldier in the middle a little traffic circle. He's got a orange traffic cone on his head and a star on top that. My dad drives a bit and pulls over, close to the circle. He shuts his door and I shut mine. Bedford rolls his tan Ford past us, minus the trailer. He parks a bit on from the Confederate soldier. We stand in the cold.

What's here?

Libations, boy. Libations.

Bedford is shaking his hand in his hair as he walks up. It don't help.

Maybe some warmth and forgiveness if you're lucky.

He don't mean nothing by it and I don't take him to mean me. We head up the block past the soldier.

Inside the bar, my dad and Bedford set belly up. Me being underage crosses my mind and keeps on. Ain't nobody question that, not out here. Bedford orders me a pint and I take it and go to slip some quarters in the Big Buck Hunter they got in the corner. My dad and Bedford talk on. The sun's gone down and the locals start coming in. I's quiet in the corner, orange plastic rifle in my hand, aiming at pixels on a screen, even go to the bar and order two more beers on Bedford's tab.

You warm, boy?

Bedford claps my shoulder and don't wait for an answer.

Good.

Two girls, what don't look much older'n me, walk past and head toward my corner in the back. I glance at my pint and head to the corner again. Looking back, Bedford just set there staring at the girls. They couldn't've been twenty. Only Bedford ain't really looking at them that way. He's kinda looking at me.I's eighteen, at the time, and only just. At least, I got the genes to grow a tee, my facial scruff.

Dad grabs Bedford's shoulder and they both turn to the bar and toast with slick brown whiskey shots. Those girls eye me a bit. I can feel it, and ignore them best I can. Don't want them to think I'm looking, though I am. I's starting to get a bit drunk.

At some point, while I's retrieving a drink from the bar, Bedford grabs me about the shoulders and sets me down on the bar stool next to him. I nearly spill my beer. My dad's nowhere to be seen, and I'm thinking probably he's in the shitter. Bedford leans in and I don't like being that close to people generally, but he keeps rocking his head closer to mine til I can't duck him no more.

Yer Pop's a good’n. You remember that, boy.

He says something else, but he's swaying so much, and mumbling, that all I catch is the word–bitch. Not sure what it meant, but I keep setting there and he stops swaying and starts to stare at the bar. He's humming what sounds to me like a sea shanty, at least what I think a sea shanty might sound like, and goes and rests his elbow on my shoulder. He ain't heavy, so I let him. I'm thinking it keeps him from bumping into the fella next to him. Which I'm sure's gonna make Dad happy. He weren't never much for stupidity in altercation. He comes back from the pisser and orders more shots.

What are you two doing?

And when my dad says this, Bedford sets up straight.

Sittin' around, bumpin' dickheads. What're you doing?

Why don't you get your second wind?

Bedford gets his second wind. He turns his head at me, robot-like.

So yer at military school.

Yes, sir.

And right when I get out the –sir– he snaps out a sloppy salute. My dad whacks him on the back and downs his shot for him.

Jim, leave him be. I told you already. It's to keep him from doing it later in life.

Bedford gets hisself a spot of mischief in his brow and leans in on my dad.

Not passing on sins to yer boy, are ya?

He's going to lead a healthy, boring life.

Thank you, I say.

You're welcome.

I seen my dad drunk before. He weren't never a huge man, but he could be drunk like nobody else. Put away enough to knock a normal man horizontal til tomorrow night.

A few more, Kid, and we're going.

The crowd's up and I get brushed more'n once. Shit like that happens and I ain't never had no problem with brushing people in a crowd before, but some hillbilly, a head taller'n me, in a Mossy Oak Breakup Tee and a ragged looking John Deere cap, brushes on me and shoves a little. I hunch up a bit and look to pardon myself.

Scuze me.

What?

He's got that immediate anger I never could abide.

Said scuze me, is all.

I lean closer to Bedford's back. But Hillbilly Boy is pitching a bit and reaches out and grabs my arm. I drop the pint I's carrying and bump into Bedford. The pint don't shatter, just makes a popping noise and rolls against my foot. Beer swirls and drops on anything near. Bedford looks down first and then gets up like he's gonna lay into me til he sees who it is. He turns about, foggy for a second, and looks at the hillbilly who's still got my shirt in his hand.

You're knocking things all around, son. His head goes down as he says this to Hillbilly.

Ain't talkin' to you, mister.

Hillbilly leans out.

We stand together like a arc around Bedford. My arm's out where I's froze, Hillbilly holding my shirt like a clothesline around that moment. My dad don't even look up from the bar. Bedford shoves the man back a step. He's still holding my shirt when he pitches back that step, and I got to shuffle to stop from falling forward with him. My shirt rips. I kick the glass out against the bar on accident. He lets loose my shirt. The barman yells something at us, there's a hubbub, a turn, and someone hops on my back. I feel my legs give under the weight. Glass is breaking. I see a table turn on itself. People start hollering stuff I can't hear. I got my hand on the floor. And I feel a punch in my side.

●

You done?

It's my dad what says this. I don't even remember getting outside. I heave a little more into the distance between a maroon sedan and the curb. Like talking at the tires.

Almost, sir.

Take your time, Kid.

He's got Jim Bedford over one shoulder and is supporting hisself on a parking meter with his hand. I can see him when I look behind me, under my arm against the hood. I's wiping tears. Sometime in the course of the evening, it'd flurried. My puke's melting white flakes into yellow beside the curb. I wipe my mouth with my hand and then my hand on my jeans. My breath come out in steam and smells like my insides.

Finished, sir.

Good man.

We walk up the street to the Ranger and my dad lays Bedford down in the truck bed, real delicate with the man's head. Bedford just sets there not moving. My dad pulls the passenger-side door open and reaches behind the seat for something. He quick-releases the black rope what's tied the thing in a bundle, lets the canvas roll out, and throws the green shelter-half over Bedford. The little man looks like a corpse there in the back. Dad tucks the tarp around him, making a little open part for his breathing, then he hands the bundle a punch. Bedford moves a bit and moans. My dad gives me a wink.

Still kicking.

He pulls the collar up on his flannel.

We get in the Ranger and it almost don't start. I crack the window. The air comes out the vents cold.

●

Wake up. I's on a couch. And I am not wanting to wake up, but Bedford is snoring something fierce on the carpet nearby. My jacket's curled up under my head. There's a cross-hatch imprint from the couch cushion on my palm. I wipe a bit of crusty drool from my mouth. Bedford's still wrapped up in the shelter-half. I can hear what I assume is my dad moving around in the kitchen behind me. Across the living room, they got this shitty little Christmas tree with tinsel and a PBR can upside-down on top. Besides that there're open cardboard boxes stacked by the the front door. One's labeled books, two're labeled cook, the others ain't marked. There's newspaper coming out the tops. It's hard to push myself up, but I do. My head finally above the back of the couch, I can see Dad set at the kitchen table, elbows around a black ceramic coffee cup.

You have a cigarette butt stuck to your face, Kid.

I pick it off and not knowing what to do with it, stick it in my back pocket near my wallet.

Offer you some coffee? It's instant. She packed the coffee maker.

I nod my head.

My mouth tastes like I been chewing sandpaper.

He gets up and fixes the coffee. My side's sore. I turn toward the boxes and wince, so's he can't see it. Bedford's still sawing logs.

He puts a metal camp cup on the table as I set down. Smiles and sets back down hisself.

Bedford's not usually like that. It's most of the time the other way around far as who drags who out the bar.

I barely remember.

No, you wouldn't, would you.

It weren't really a question. So I don't answer.

He'd been working at a scratch card, and there's a quarter and some scratch shavings on the table next to his elbow.

You win?

Never do.

And as he's saying this I can hear somebody rummaging around upstairs. I look up with my coffee in my hand.

Mom said you had a woman.

Wife.

He pauses and looks up. Then he clears his throat, small cough.

Was.

I think I mighta rolled my eyes or lifted a eyebrow, cause he looks at me.

He says, Mind your business, Kid.

So I look at my coffee and take a sip.

Bedford is up after a bit and that noise upstairs don't never make her way down whilst I's there, like maybe she knows and don't wanna get to know.

I go out back with Bedford and my dad's old Winchester. Bedford says he wants to shoot anything what moves. And Dad stays on in the kitchen. I want to ask him along, but Bedford says to leave him at that. Outside there's this wide open acre back to the woods what drives uphill toward the ridge. One them low, soft mountain ridges up there in the Appalachians.

There's mountain laurel patches everywhere and snow dusting the tops. We pass up into the wood. My dad's lent me his Carhartt and the sleeves are just a little too big on my arms. Bedford has on one a them Soviet army fur caps, what with the flaps sticking out. We're stomping in the wet leaves a bit and up through the wood. I slip more'n twice.

We pass up through this cut and then set on some greening stones just off the blue marked trail. I light a cigarette and Bedford don't say nothing about it. I guess cause we ain't hunting. We're setting with some .30-06, waiting on chance. I's thinking it's more like fishing than hunting. My fingers are numb and I ball them and blow smoke through the cracks.

Bedford turns round, looking all about like he's lost something, and then just sets and listens to the woods. He glances at me.

How's yer dad look?

What do you mean?

You knew him before. Has he changed?

He rubs his hands together and blows in them.

More scars. He didn't get no taller or nothing. Y'all a couple?

I look at him when I say this so's he knows I ain't afraid of him. But he don't seemed fazed none.

No, son. We're not.

Then what're you askin' for?

He's getting worse, that's all.

Then he shushes me and places the rifle stock against his shoulder. Slower, and with more delicacy than I'd expected, he laces them cut up fingers about the grip'n stabs his index though the space tween the trigger and the guard. His forward hand don't grasp the rifle. The rifle rests, neat, in his palm. His knuckles is red. His fingers're still dirty from the day before. He's fucking stone. If it weren't for the steam coming outa the side of that stupid fucking Russian hat, I'da questioned his breathing. I still got my Camel burning, but don't move to smoke it or put it out and the cherry burns down to the filter. The cigarette starts to stink.

I know it's coming, but the report startles the shit outa me anyway. That burnt iron propellant smell hanging in the air, I drop the butt. It hisses. I turn to look.

At the edge of my dad's property, in a wide, grabbing patch of laurel, something's moving. We hike back down. I slip and fall on my ass and slide on down the slope like that. Bedford's ahead of me and he stops short of the patch. I almost ram into his back.

Whatever he hit is stopped moving.

Looks dead.

What is it?

Bedford pulls the leather rifle strap up his shoulder more and reaches down for a stone. Sizing the rock up for a second, he shakes the snow clear, and wipes it on his pants. I step behind him. Can't see nothing in the bushes. He puts his arm out almost horizontal and wings that rock hard into the brush. Bending down again, he grabs the thing by its hinds and slings the fucker back and in a arc over his head, still holding the legs. He slams it against the ground.

Lynxcat.

He's a little outa breath from the swing.

Shit, what?

A bobcat, boy.

The snow starts, heavy flat flakes. Like big, cold coughs. I watch them fall. Bedford slings the thing over his shoulder and starts up toward the house. It bleeds in tiny red driblets down the back his tan coat. All the life gone, it hangs there, arms out, beggin the earth. Beggin for fuck-if-I-know. Ain't

nothing left to beg for at that point. Its ear's half gone like it'd got in a scrape with something bigger’n it, a ways back. Bedford's shot'd ripped off half its fuckin haunch. I follow on up to the house. Bedford steps neath the tall back porch and drops the cat in the snow, just outside. I look at it. Ain't never been so near something so recently dead. While I'd fired many a rifle by then, I'd never been hunting before.

You fellas done killing things?

My dad sounds from up on the porch.

I stick my head out from under and see him smiling over the rail.

She gone? Bedford says this from beside me, talking up at my dad. He stretches out the bobcat's legs making a X of the body on the ground.

She left just after you did.

Good riddance.

What did you kill?

A wee malkin.

He looks over and grins at me.

A snatch of pussy. About thirty pounds of it.

●

We eat bobcat that night. I ain't never had no bobcat before and never will again. My dad makes a fire in the pit what he's got out back. The pit's this big old iron, wok-looking thing with broken metal rails about the outside. He grabs some logs from under the porch. I help him carry them out. He turns the big pan on its side and, with the flat end of a log, brushes out the snow from inside, and then sets me to rolling newspaper from the house.

My feet are freezing. The snow's dumped about three inches on the ground out there. He puts the newspaper and some dry twigs and some bark from the logs in the middle and then stacks logs all around and over top. With real care, he lights the ends of newspaper I's rolled up. He snaps closed that Zippo. Breathes on the paper, bent over in the rising smoke. It all catches.

We wait in the snow for the fire to get going. We stand together in the cold and then set near the fire as the snow stops. When the only sound in the world is snow slipping from leaves and dropping into more snow, I think that's what cold or silence sounds like. If it had a souond. Out in the yard, backs to the cold, fronted by warm, we's surrounded by silence, staring at the cracks and spits. Wood burning in a pit. We's setting on short stumps by the fire pit and watching the flames barely melt away the white around it.

She left me because of my drinking.

He don't sound contrite. I stare at my shoes what's got snow melting on them and then stare at the fire, put my hands in my pockets.

Want me to tell Mom? I say it at the fire.

It doesn't matter.

And he squats down nearer the pit and tries warming his hands.

Bedford guts the cat and strips it out by the shed, and then he cooks the thing right over the flame on a pair of spits. He throws Montreal Steak seasoning on it the whole time it cooks.

●

A week later, I's gone. Christmas weren't nothing to talk about. My dad give me that Zippo of his, balled up in newspaper and tied with hemp line. Told me next year it'd be better for me. When it come time for me to go he drops me at the bus stop in a rain what's melting the snow. He helps me with my bag on my shoulder. We smoke cigarettes under the overhang at the stop. That rain, it falls against the metal roof and sounds like a million marching feet. He smiles a lot. It seems like he's free from some burden. At the time, I's thinking it was the chink. He takes my hand and give me a hug and tells me to say hi to Mom for him. He calls her my mother. That was the last time I seen him before the wake.

He hadn’t told nobody but Bedford about his illness. I remember, Bedford didn't near talk to no one at the wake. He shook my hand with his torn up ones. He'd made a point to come up to me. His eyes was red.

Bedford went to prison about six months after my dad's wake, for voluntary manslaughter, which I guess's like unmeditated-on murder. He'd shot a friend in the face whilst hunting. I went to visit him at the penitentiary a few times a couple years back, each time I's on leave, in what was supposed to be my last year in the Corps. He talked about my dad. I know he loved him. He called him my old man. I set with Jim for as long as they let us. Didn't look at no clocks. He told me more proud and outright stupid stories about my old man than I ever guessed at. I enjoyed the visits, and think he must have. I don't know why I stopped going. Got busy, I guess. Got deployed. My girl got pregnant. I still think about that time with him and my dad. I use that worn Zippo to light my cigarettes. My girl's been trying to get me to quit since my last deployment. I think about snow and wet leaves. Hell, we got in the first brawl I'd ever been in, and'll never remember. We killed a wildcat. We ate the back. It tasted like pork.