Free Dad Says He Saw You at the Mall by Ken Sparling Page B

barbecue.
    “That’s it,” Dad says. “I guess I’m not eating tonight.”
    “You could have some salad, Dad,” I say.
    “I don’t want any fucking salad,” Dad says. “I hate salad.” He stands at the picnic table, looking down at his plate. He’s holding his fork in his hand. He looks very tall standing there by the table. Everyone else is sitting down, but Dad is standing. I’m over by the barbecue.
    “I was going to propose a toast tonight,” Dad says. “I guess there’s not much point in that now.” Dad steps away from the picnic table and goes into the cottage. “Fuck it,” he says.
    “Can you get the clips and bring them out as long as you’re in there?” Gretchen calls. But the door slams in the middle of her sentence and Dad never comes back out with the clips.
    ~
     
    I could have said “Hi.” Just “Hi.” She might have answered. She might have said “Hi” back.
    What else could I have said, though? “Nice shorts?” “Nice white legs?”
    I think she was trying to look as if she had someplace to go. I’ve seen Tutti walk that way. I know that walk. I knew the moment that woman got beside me that she was trying to walk that walk that Tutti walks. I knew that woman was afraid. I don’t know where she came from. She seemed so small beside me.
    ~
     
    In the end it’s just him and me at the kitchen table with all the lights out and the blinds closed because it’s so hot. All I can see are his eyes and the way his lips curve.
    What I hear is something from a long time ago, a word, or a series of words, leading like crystal to the end of everything.
    Before I take him to the airport Sammy stands in front of him with his hands together and says, “You’re going to the airport now.”
    “Yes,” he says.
    “Bye,” Sammy says. He goes around the corner and out the front door.
    ~
     
    It’s not that I’m young or naïve or anything. But it seems to me all the stories people tell me these days are one line long and begin with: “I bought these things.”

O NE DAY Betty bought a cactus. It was a lovely little cactus, emerald green with tiny white spikes, like sewing needles. It was globe shaped. Betty thought it looked like a little green head. She thought this must be what a Martian head would look like. You wouldn’t want to mess with a Martian , Betty thought, because he would only have to knock his head against you for you to be impaled on all those tiny, needle-like spikes . Betty laughed to herself as she put the cactus in a planter and set it on the windowsill above the kitchen sink.
    “This is the nicest little cactus there ever was,” Betty said to herself as she stood in the doorway of the kitchen, admiring it.
    In truth, her cactus was much like a thousand other cacti in a thousand other homes across the country, and Betty was nothing but a deluded lonely housewife whose husband no longer came home Thursday nights.
    ~
     
    Excuse me. I’m sorry. Just a minute. Could you excuse me for a minute?
    ~
     
    Battle Cat was this kitten we had for a while. We couldn’t keep him because we already had a cat. For two weeks, Tutti and I tried to find a home for Battle Cat. Mornings, while Tutti and I were trying to get ready for work, Battle Cat would chase us around the apartment, attacking our ankles. He would grab on to our socks and hold on as though he wanted to try to keep us there.
    Finally, Tutti found a home for him. We loaded Battle Cat and his little dish and his litter box into the car and we drove downtown to an apartment building. We took Battle Cat up the elevator and gave him to this old lady who lived in the apartment. On the way back down in the elevator Tutti cried.
    ~
     
    I’m trying to tie my shoe. I’m bent down. My cheek is pressed against the top of my desk. I’m groping around under the desk, trying to grab my left shoelace. I can’t find it. “Fuck,” I say. Just then someone comes up beside my desk. I’ve just got my hands on my shoelace. I try