Aftermirth by Hillary Jordan Page A

laughed and said, ‘Well, you can’t blame a cracker for trying to do his forefathers proud.’
    George smiled sadly. “Shane didn’t take anything seriously, least of all himself. It was one of the main reasons I fell for him. Well, besides the obvious.” He gestured over his shoulder, in the direction of the portrait over the mantel. “I know what people thought when they saw us together: What could a hot young thing like him possibly want with an aging queer like me, besides money? And what could I possibly want with him, besides a hot young piece of tail? They might even have been right at the beginning, but they were wrong in the end. Shane was the love of my life, and I honestly believe I was the love of his.” George turned then, slowly, like he was being pulled against his will, and gazed up at the portrait with such naked longing I had to look away. “Goddamn gum, ” he said.
    â€œWell at least it wasn’t a goddamn goat, ” Catherine responded, just as heatedly. “Remember the story about how Cal refused to apologize? Well, he was the stubbornest person I ever knew. Once he’d made up his mind about something, Jesus on a white horse couldn’t have persuaded him to change it. Which might have been fine if there’d been a brain inside that hard head of his, but the fact is Cal couldn’t have poured piss out of a boot with instructions on the heel. Don’t get me wrong, he was as sweet and loyal as they come, and I loved him to pieces. But God he was stupid.”
    Three jaws dropped, but Catherine didn’t seem to notice. “Cal believed anything he heard or read, and whatever version got to him first was the gospel truth. Obama’s a Muslim, they said so on Fox News. Aluminum foil causes Alzheimer’s. Stonehenge is an alien homing beacon. Fluoride is a form of mind control the government puts in our drinking water, and watch out because once enough of it builds up in your system you’ll do anything they say.”
    She let out a choked laugh, and her eyes filled with tears. “He’d been living alone on the farm for six months, ever since his wife Tiffany ran off with the satellite dish repair guy. She withdrew every cent of their savings from the bank on her way out of town, but she left her pet goat behind. Billy—original, huh? Cal never liked that thing. She’d treated it way better than she had him, and I figured he’d turn it into cabrito. Instead, my brother got one of his genius ideas. Called me up on the first of April all excited and told me he was in the process of creating a whole new breed of working animal—the Guard Goat—and that Billy was the prototype. A natural, Cal claimed, just like Tony Romo or Robert Redford in that movie. Once he’d had gotten Billy fully trained, Cal planned to patent his techniques and give ‘seminarials’ all over the country. If it had been anybody but my brother telling me this, I would have been waiting for the ‘April Fools!’ But I knew damn well he was serious. When I asked him what training a Guard Goat entailed, he got all mysterious on me, like I might reveal his secret methods to the breathlessly waiting world of potential Guard Goat breeders. I thought it was hilarious, typical Cal. I wished him luck, told him I loved him and hung up the phone. Three weeks later he was dead. When I went to the house I found all these library books on training techniques for military attack dogs. Basically he’d been teaching this goat to be Rambo—in German. All the commands were in German, and he’d circled some of them and put little notes to himself in the margins, like ‘Say it like you mean it!’ and ‘Remember YOU are the top goat! ’ ”
    Catherine was crying hard now, struggling to get the words out. “He was right, that goat was a prodigy. Either that or it had just had enough of Cal’s bad Hitler