Rust and Bone by Craig Davidson Page B

knows—might change your mind.”
    â€œNo, I don’t think so. Alright, goodbye.”
    â€œAll I’m saying is—”
    But the line’s already dead. Hang up and lie back on the mattress, stare out at the starblown sky.
    When Jason was a kid I bought him this mechanical piggy bank. You’d set a coin in the cup-shaped hand of a metal basketball player, pull the lever to release a spring and the player deposited the coin in a cast-iron hoop. Jason loved the damn thing. Sit him on the floor with a handful of pennies: hours of mindless amusement. Every so often I’d have to quit whatever I was doing to unscrew the bottom, dump the coins so Jason could start over. The snak-clanggg! of the mechanism got annoying after the first half-hour and I would’ve taken it away if Jason wasn’t so small and frail and I so intent on honing that fascination. There were other toys, a whole closetful, but he chose basketball. Right from the get-go. And yeah, I encouraged it—what’s a father supposed to do? Guide his kid towards any natural inclination, gently at first, then as required. If that’s what your kid’s born to do, what other choice do you really have?
    All I’m saying is, I’m no monster, okay? As a father, you only ever want what’s best for your boy. That’s your job —the greatest job of your life. All you want is that your kid be happy, and healthy, and follow the good path. That’s all I did: kept him on the good path. I’m a great father. A damn fine dad. Swear it on a stack of bibles.
    So my boy wants to be a veterinarian, does he? Well it’s a tough racket, plenty of competition, no cakewalk by a longshot. Don’t I know a guy out Welland way who’s a taxidermist? Sure, Adam somebody-or-other, stuffs geese and trout and I don’t know—bobcats? Ought to shoot him a call, see if me and Jason can’t pop by, poke around a bit. I mean, you want to be a doctor, got to know your way around cadavers, right? It’s the same principle. Adam’s one easygoing sonofabitch; doubt he’ll mind.
    Yeah, that’s just what I’ll do. Finish off this bottle, hunt up that number, make the call. I mean, hey, sure it comes as a shock, but nobody can call Hank Mikan a man of inflexible fiber. When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Life offers sour grapes, make sweet wine. A veterinarian, huh? Well, that’s noble . Damn noble . And hey, money ain’t half-bad either.
    Let’s finish this last swallow and get right on the blower. It’s a long road ahead.
    Like the shoe commercial says, right? Just Do It. Hey!

A MEAN UTILITY
    MIDWAY THROUGH THE PITCH I pass a note to Mitch Edmonds, big kahuna of graphic design: This is going good? He grimaces and scribbles back: If by “good” you mean heart-stoppingly BAD, then yes, everything’s PEACHY . Diarrhetic adjective use aside, I suspect Edmonds is correct. In fact, the pitch is veering towards a crash of Hindenburglike proportions: feel the heat of compressed hydrogen flames and charred tatters of zeppelin silk buffeting my face, hear Herbert Morrison’s breathless voice screaming “Oh the humanity! ” into a giant wind-socked microphone.
    Supp-Easy-Quit is a stop-smoking aid in suppository form. The science is sound: the rectal arterial clusters, feeding directly into the larger sacral and iliac branches, are ideal nicotine-delivery channels. Yet the stone-cold fact persists: most smokers—most human beings — exhibit a distinct disinclination to propel foreign objects up their bungs. They’d rather chew Nicorette until their mouths seize with lockjaw, festoon their bodies with the Patch, Christ, insert flaming nicotine wedges under their fingernails. This hardwired predisposition renders the product a tough sell.
    Don Fawkes, lead hand on the Supp-Easy-Quit account, aims a laser-pointer at a storyboard montage. “Okay,”