Free Sarah Court by Craig Davidson

linger between the trees like low-lying smoke. Rawbeautied county, this far north.
    I stole the boat from a hairy-fisted rental agent
who overused the word “doggone.” As in: “This is
the best doggone houseboat in my doggone fleet.”
As in: “Talk about your doggone fine houseboating
weather!” After the umpteenth “doggone” I said
to myself: I’m stealing this fucking spaz’s doggone
property. Handles like a bear. Aim it like a ballistic
missile— precise —and hold that course or else you’re
doomed.
    What jackass steals a houseboat? A jackass such
as myself, evidently. Idiotic as hotwiring a car to
drive at speeds not exceeding four knots down the
same unending stretch of road. Inlets crook like
arthritic thumbs and riverside towns sporadically
carve themselves out of the barrens but I am locked
upon this waterway.
    It’s the second vehicle I’ve stolen. The first was a
minivan left running outside a Big Bee store in the
city of my birth. Freakishly clean. CDs alphabetized.
Bright yellow hockey tape wrapped at ‘10’ and ‘2’
positions on the wheel. So enervated did I become
within its confines that I stopped at a ramshackle
fried chicken shack hours past Toronto. Manning
its counter the ungainliest teenager I’d ever clapped
eyes on. This shocked expression you’d find on a man
kicked awake in his sleep. On his head sat a paper
chicken hat so saturated with sweat and grease its
head drooped to peck the gawky sonofabitch in his
forehead.
    “Welcome to the Chubby Chicken.”
    The kid blew at his hat same way you’d blow a
lock of hair out your eyes. The chicken head popped
up, came down, pecked the kid in his head. Ah,
Jesus, I thought drinking in his dreadful spectre. This is too fucking sad . I have been overly sensitive
lately, granted, but this cow-eyed cupcake in his
soggy chicken hat in the airless middle of Buttfuck
Nowhere summoned within me that breed of quasiabstract sadness where spiritual malaise digs in
roots. I mean, not to make too big a deal.
    I purchased a family bucket and paid with my
credit card. Gave the mopey bastard a hundred
dollar tip. Hey, big spender! Such largesse from a
man who scant months ago pawed through a box of
old birthday cards hoping an overlooked sawbuck
might fall out.
    I ate the entire bucket. Pure gluttony. Choking
down the seventh drumstick the realization dawned
that these were modes of behaviour a man would
adopt upon the discovery he has a week to live. Once
it ceased to matter whether he overate, drank his face
off, snorted Borax. Healthy living is an undertaking
only men with futures bother with.
    Full disclosure : I always wanted a boy.
    Shall I put on display the greasy-crawly scraps
of my psyche? You won’t like me. I don’t really
give a damn. I want to be understood within the
parameters of what I am: a hardcore bastard. A
rotten piece of work.
    So, honest goods: a boy. Ask a hundred expectant
first-time fathers: boy or girl? Ninety-nine will
tell you boy. The one who doesn’t is giving you the
breeze. The imprint of one Fletcher Burger would
chalk itself more clearly upon the slate of a boy’s
mind so I wished for one. But as wishes are fickle,
any even-minded wisher should be satisfied with
half measures. Which I got: a ten-fingered, ten-toed
baby girl.
    My marriage was in shambles by then. My wife
caught me sniffing the seat of my jeans to see whether
they were clean enough to wear again and refused
to kiss me for a week. She’d buy too many bananas
and when they blackened throw them in the freezer
to bake banana bread that never materialized. “Is
it me,” I’d go, “or is our freezer full of frozen gorilla
fingers?” She stockpiled my foibles in a mental
armoury and frequently launched tactical strikes.
Blind-siding me with how I begrudged buying my
own daughter baby gifts. “She’s happiest playing
with a crumpled ball of newsprint!” Arguments often
ended with