Sightings by B.J. Hollars Page A

Dad that Mom said if our teachers found out, we’d have child services swarming all over the house. Things like Dad’s habit of leaving slabs of rotting meat in the basement sink. Things like the deer carcass splayed out in the living room for four days last November.
    That year, Dad transformed himself into a mighty hunter, and though he initially appeared childish in his oversized orange vest and camo hat, the rifle added an unexpected legitimacy to the charade.
    â€œYup, off to bag some big game to feed the family,” he said, insisting that we line up at the door to see him off. He liked to give the illusion that he was headed off to war, not just the backwoods off of U.S. 20.
    And though we had our doubts, Dad turned out to be a pretty good shot, taking his deer during the season’s weekend opener, even snagging a turkey a few months later.
    Dad’s friend, Ron Carter, was a fellow hunter, and a man who ran a deer farm to support the small faction of hunting tourists who lingered within the city limits. Mom thought the entire operation repulsive – to raise an animal only to shoot it for sport – but Dad explained it to us in terms we could understand: “It’s called the Circle of Life. You saw the movie, right?”
    Ron’s industry made him nothing short of a venison aficionado. He ate deer the way most people ate chicken – in a seemingly endless array of possibilities. During his hunting years, Dad managed to try out nearly all of Ron’s recipes: deer patties, deer stew, chuck wagon venison, even venison stroganoff. Dad made a production out of each of his so-called “creations,” gathering us around the kitchen table for a sermon-length prayer, thanking God and the bullet and the deer and his steady hand. For theatric effect, he kept his meal veiled under a silver cover, leaving us to guess what peculiar concoction festered beneath.
    Beaming, he’d say, “Without further adieu,” and then, with a flourish, remove the cover. We’d look at it hesitantly, and hesitantly, he’d look back at us.
    â€œWell, Ron gave me the recipe,” he’d shrug, shaking his head. “Goddamn Ron. I didn’t think it would even turn out as well as it did. It’s a miracle, really.”
    Over the years, my father discovered that the problem with killing large mammals was space; that is, where you keep the carcass. Where
do
you keep a quarter hind? Ron Carter had recommended several butchers, but Dad – who fancied himself “one with the earth” – wanted to do it his way: “We shall honor this deer’s untimely death by dividing her equally between the living room and basement sink.”
    This alternative to butchering practices was not embraced by all, though my mother, who had long before learned to pick her battles carefully, turned to Sam and me and said, “Please don’t tell your teachers.”
    Before I could offer my own two cents, Dad and Ron had already begun dragging the front half of her into the living room atop a bloodstained tarp. She stunk of guts and wet leaves, though my father informed us that what we really smelled was victory.
    We turned to our mother for answers.
    â€œIt’s only temporary,” she promised. “Just a day or two.”
    We kept staring.
    â€œLook, he means well. He just doesn’t know how to
be
well. Does that make any sense?”
    Sam and I nodded because it was easier than continuing the discussion.
    As Dad and Ron began filling the basement sink with her hindquarters, Sam and I took turns flipping through television channels, growing ever more uncomfortable with the third set of eyes watching with us.

    That year in sixth grade social studies, Mrs. Powell sent a letter home asking if Dad would like to give the class a short presentation on “the perils of westward expansion.” We were just wrapping up the unit, and she’d been impressed by my