here?â
The door into manhood had swung wide, and I had not gone through it.
âLetâs go,â Pop said.
On our way to the truck, the woods were a different place. The old ancient terror was gone now, as dissipated into the ether as the sound of a gunshot two counties over. It was just trees and hollows and leaves and mud. It no longer seemed appropriate to be afraid. After all, I had a gun. If anything, the werewolves and Sasquatches and deer should be afraid of me. Hell, I was shooting off their ears. With enough practice, I could eventually shoot them somewhere more vital, like the legs, so they couldnât run, or the face, so they couldnât see where they were going.
It was time to grow up, to see the woods not as the setting for some terrific malevolence, but home. These deer werenât made of clay. They were made of meat, and meatâs whatâs for dinner, and I loved dinner very much, even more than candy.
We fetched Bird and slogged to the truck and headed out to Styronâs General Store, to purchase ungodly amounts of bologna, which was unfortunately what was for lunch on that day.
On our way, we came to a knot of trucks on the side of the road, and Pop pulled over. It was the broad-shouldered brothers and sons of Altonâs Creek Hunting Club. They were gathered around a pickup, looking down at something that lay hidden there. From my seat, I saw it: a buck of such heft, such immensity, with a rack of antlers as thick and tangled as briarroot. They held it up for us to see, and we admired it, the awful beauty of it.
âI told you they was monsters in here,â Pop said, as we drove away.
CHAPTER 5
The Phantom Caprice Classic
M ississippi had its share of monsters, in its woods, and its waters, and its Walmarts, that much was clear, but what impoverished, war-ravaged land didnât? The land and its people held many secrets. Was that really an Indian mound? Was there really a secret cabin by that creek back there? How was the earth so fertile? How were the women so fertile? And also the girls? Since they seemed to get pregnant so young, and disappear? What had happened to them, and their babies, and their lovers?
There was one great mystery, more terrifying than Sasquatch, larger than the bulging Indian mounds, and right inside our house: my father. Who, it should be noted, was actually not larger than an Indian mound, but who, like many Native American burial sites, was rumored to contain bones. Who was this man, whoâd dragged me away from all happy things?
The facts of him were unremarkable. He was a salesman. That was his job, the thing someone paid him to do. But he did not look like a salesman. He was not stooped and pathetic like Willy Loman, or toothy and garrulous like the men who sold cars and furniture on our television. He was more like a large granite slab with eyeglasses and a heart condition.
His gut was an oaken cask, his chest meaty and wide, like two Thanksgiving birds yoked together with chicken wire. The man had Popeye arms, and his head was large and round, hard enough to be its own helmet.
In his work, touring the villages of rural Mississippi to sling asphalt bids at county supervisors, he was tieless in his shirtsleeves and brown Sansabelt slacks. Pop did not even need a belt. He was that much of a man.
H e wore steel taps on the soles of his shoes, and every step he took across the linoleum had the grave sound of military judgment, like a man on a horse clopping up behind you with bad news. In the right pocket of his Sansabelts, next to the money clip, he carried a small pocketknife, as men of his generation often did. He did not carry it for show. I have stood by his side as he refused to pay certain prices for automotive repair and have heard him threaten to remove a mechanicâs scrotum and testes and feed them to our dog.
I felt it was wrong to force our dog to consume the scrotums of the service industry, but I was too young to
The door into manhood had swung wide, and I had not gone through it.
âLetâs go,â Pop said.
On our way to the truck, the woods were a different place. The old ancient terror was gone now, as dissipated into the ether as the sound of a gunshot two counties over. It was just trees and hollows and leaves and mud. It no longer seemed appropriate to be afraid. After all, I had a gun. If anything, the werewolves and Sasquatches and deer should be afraid of me. Hell, I was shooting off their ears. With enough practice, I could eventually shoot them somewhere more vital, like the legs, so they couldnât run, or the face, so they couldnât see where they were going.
It was time to grow up, to see the woods not as the setting for some terrific malevolence, but home. These deer werenât made of clay. They were made of meat, and meatâs whatâs for dinner, and I loved dinner very much, even more than candy.
We fetched Bird and slogged to the truck and headed out to Styronâs General Store, to purchase ungodly amounts of bologna, which was unfortunately what was for lunch on that day.
On our way, we came to a knot of trucks on the side of the road, and Pop pulled over. It was the broad-shouldered brothers and sons of Altonâs Creek Hunting Club. They were gathered around a pickup, looking down at something that lay hidden there. From my seat, I saw it: a buck of such heft, such immensity, with a rack of antlers as thick and tangled as briarroot. They held it up for us to see, and we admired it, the awful beauty of it.
âI told you they was monsters in here,â Pop said, as we drove away.
CHAPTER 5
The Phantom Caprice Classic
M ississippi had its share of monsters, in its woods, and its waters, and its Walmarts, that much was clear, but what impoverished, war-ravaged land didnât? The land and its people held many secrets. Was that really an Indian mound? Was there really a secret cabin by that creek back there? How was the earth so fertile? How were the women so fertile? And also the girls? Since they seemed to get pregnant so young, and disappear? What had happened to them, and their babies, and their lovers?
There was one great mystery, more terrifying than Sasquatch, larger than the bulging Indian mounds, and right inside our house: my father. Who, it should be noted, was actually not larger than an Indian mound, but who, like many Native American burial sites, was rumored to contain bones. Who was this man, whoâd dragged me away from all happy things?
The facts of him were unremarkable. He was a salesman. That was his job, the thing someone paid him to do. But he did not look like a salesman. He was not stooped and pathetic like Willy Loman, or toothy and garrulous like the men who sold cars and furniture on our television. He was more like a large granite slab with eyeglasses and a heart condition.
His gut was an oaken cask, his chest meaty and wide, like two Thanksgiving birds yoked together with chicken wire. The man had Popeye arms, and his head was large and round, hard enough to be its own helmet.
In his work, touring the villages of rural Mississippi to sling asphalt bids at county supervisors, he was tieless in his shirtsleeves and brown Sansabelt slacks. Pop did not even need a belt. He was that much of a man.
H e wore steel taps on the soles of his shoes, and every step he took across the linoleum had the grave sound of military judgment, like a man on a horse clopping up behind you with bad news. In the right pocket of his Sansabelts, next to the money clip, he carried a small pocketknife, as men of his generation often did. He did not carry it for show. I have stood by his side as he refused to pay certain prices for automotive repair and have heard him threaten to remove a mechanicâs scrotum and testes and feed them to our dog.
I felt it was wrong to force our dog to consume the scrotums of the service industry, but I was too young to
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