We were silent right up to the part when the scary gang leader says, “And Cundalini wants his hand back!” and I looked at my brother beside me.
“He means business,” I said to him, “doesn’t he?”
Clay smiled, but didn’t react.
So do we.
* * *
—
In the night, when everyone else was in bed, he stayed up and left the TV on, with the sound completely down. He looked at Agamemnon, the goldfish, who watched him calmly back, before a last good headbutt at the tank.
Clay walked to the birdcage, and quickly, no warning, he took him. He squeezed him in his hand, but gently.
“Hey, T, you okay?”
The bird bobbed a little, and Clay could feel him breathe. He felt his heartbeat through the plumage. “Just hold still, boy—” and quick, like that, he snapped at his neck, he held the tiny feather; it was clean and grey with an edge of green, in the palm of his still left hand.
Then he put the bird back in.
The pigeon watched him seriously, then walked from end to end.
* * *
—
Next, the shelves and the board games:
Careers, Scrabble, Connect Four.
Beneath them, the one he wanted.
He opened it up and was distracted, momentarily, by the movie on TV. It looked like a good one—black-and-white, a girl arguing with a man in a diner—but then, the riches of Monopoly. He found the dice and hotels till he handled the bag he wanted, and soon, in his fingers, the iron.
Clay, the smiler, smiled.
* * *
—
Close to midnight, it was easier than it might have been; the yard was free of dog and mule shit, God bless Tommy’s cotton socks.
Soon he stood at the clothesline, with the pegs pegged up above him, in rows of shifting color. He reached up and gently unclipped one. It was once bright blue, now faded.
* * *
—
He
kneeled then, near the pole.
Of course, Rosy came over, and Achilles stood watch, with his hooves and legs beside him. His mane was brushed but knotted—and Clay reached over and leaned—a hand at the edge of a fetlock.
Next he held Rosy, very slowly, by a single black-and-white paw:
The gold in her eyes, goodbye to him.