The Freak Observer Read Free Page A

he wanted to cause me serious pain, he could have pushed me against the woodstove and left me with a burn to think about. He was just angry, and he had been trying to clear the toilet. He’d had enough crap to deal with, seriously. And then I show up in a cop car way after I should have been home.
    He said I was as useless as “tits on a tomcat.” I’ve heard him say that about a lot of mismanufactured, overpriced junk. He heard it plenty himself when he was growing up. It’s almost like a family heirloom. I’ve said it myself. It was the first time he ever said it about me.
    I would have rather been hit a few more times with the plunger.
    . . .
    The coffee was brewed at 5:30. Dad comes in the kitchen to get ready for work. It’s way before light on Saturday morning, but Dad works whenever he gets the chance. He’s lucky right now. Some guy’s brother ripped off three fingers in a cable winch. So Dad has work—at least until some guy’s brother is well enough to work hurt or the weather sours or the gyppo crew loses the equipment to the bank. Today there is work to be had, so he glops a couple of sandwiches together out of leftover stew and bread, pours the coffee in his thermos, and says, “You stay home today. I called your mom at work. She knows what happened. She told them you won’t be making your shifts this weekend.”
    As soon as he’s gone, I’m going to go outside and chop some wood. Fresh air and exercise. I need it. It’s getting hard to keep my eyes open—and falling asleep at this point is a really bad idea.
    . . .
    Mom gets home from work a couple hours after Dad leaves.
    I’m lying on the floor in the kitchen. I chopped wood until I lost control of the ax. Instead of biting into the chunk of dead tree, it bounced off and hit me flatside in the kneecap. For a minute, I didn’t think of anything except how much it hurt. Then I realized it was time to stop.Since then I’ve been curled up under the kitchen table. Waiting like a dog for my mom to come home.
    I hear her tires on the gravel. I hear her steps on the porch. I hear the door open. I hear her changing her shoes—she is careful to keep the doughy white rubber clogs she wears at work clean and sanitary. She is going to feed the chickens now, just like she does every morning.
    I follow her out and watch while she doles out kitchen scraps from an old metal pie pan. Stale bread, the ends of carrots, and soft spots cut out of potatoes—she drops the garbage out like treasures, and that is the way the chickens accept it.
    Chickens don’t always cluck, you know. When they are happy, they sort of hum—they chirp—they purr. The chickens are all around my mother waiting for her to make them happy. They are singing to her in their chicken way.
    When I step closer, I can see my mom’s back tighten up. She doesn’t look at me. She watches the chickens.
    I watch them too. I see how feathers ruffle in the wind. I see how Old Mean Gertie limps along without the ends of her toes. The chickens are very observant. Every scrap that drops is pecked up fast.
    Mom says, “They were thinking of giving you a CNA shift at Cozy Pines. It wouldn’t have been official, because you are underage and not certified, but we could have made it look like it was more hours in the kitchen. I could have taught you the ropes. We could have worked the same shift. . . .”
    My mom flips the pie plate and slings the last of the garbage out. The sudden movement flusters the chickens– they scatter and stop singing.
    â€œThat isn’t going to happen now,” said my mom, “You missed the chance.”
    The wind shifts direction. It slaps me straight in the eyes. It smells like it might snow.
    I missed the chance. If I had come right home last night, I could have started working night shifts with my mother at Cozy Pines. I could have just caught the bus from there in