Sunday Morning
"Hey Dad." he said, sighing and running a few claws through the dull brown fur between his ears. "I know it's been a little while. I'm sorry I'm late."
It was a bitter night out, really cold and dim. A full moon leered down over the quiet, empty shell of a sleeping city, shedding bright rays between branches of an old, withered oak tree. And in the silence, a sick old dog was leering back, trying not to look at his father.
"I wanted to come earlier, believe me. Ever since Mom died, I haven't really had anyone to talk to about stuff like this. Did you hear about that? It was only a year ago, but I guess no one ever came and told you. We finally just pulled out the feeding tube, and I guess she just sort of passed away in her sleep. I don't think she suffered."
He was a coyote, with dull brown fur and sunken green eyes. His shoulders were broad, and his young muzzle was creased with nervous energy. I lied when I said he was an old dog, you know? He just felt like an old dog, that's all. He had lifted the weight of the world time and time again, and he was hurting that night.
"It's alright, though. I'm sure you wn't miss her. I don't think she missed you, if it makes you feel better. The uh... The Phillies won this year. Four to one against the Rays. Me and Max watched the game on TV, and he spoke to me for the first time in a couple of weeks. You know he looks exactly like you, right? Same green eyes, perky ears, waggey tail, but uh... He got his muzzle from his mom, you know. His smile, too."
The howl of an ambulance split the night in half, and the coyote shrunk away, startled. The sound echoed off the monoliths of steel and glass, crying out to the night. What was this beast that stalked the streets? Who was it coming for? He didn't have anything to offer it for now. Hiding behind the shadows of an iron lattice fence, the coyote watched it pass.
It was a Crown Vic, a cop car- not an ambulance. There wasn't anything to fear. Cautiously, he turned back to the headstone.
"Lately, I haven't been spending a lot of time with him. It's my job, and I know that's not a good excuse. Rickey's been really screwing me to the wall lately, and I'm just so tired. I'm working double shifts, triple shifts, late hours... but the bills need paid. You know how it is, don't you Dad? Christ, I'm just... I'm breaking down. I can't do it."
A dog barked in an alleyway somewhere, and the coyote could feel his voice starting to tremble. He rubbed his paws together in a futile attempt to keep them warm, and the steam was curling off his breath like gunsmoke. He watched it curl up into the night, and he shook his head.
He felt like an idiot, standing alone in a cemetery at night, talking to a headstone. Stooping low over the fallow earth, he laid down the flowers he had brought with him. It wasn't like his father wanted them, but it was tradition, and the coyote's sister demanded he keep it, for whatever stupid reason.
"Karen is doing alright. You remember her, right? I brought her up last time I came. She told me it was pathetic, you know? I guess talking to a grave is kind of childish, but... here I am. I still love her with all my heart, but lately I've been coming home late. Work has me driven into the ground, and when I get back to the apartment, she isn't there. I check Max's room, and he's usually out cold, kicking his legs like a dreaming puppy, but Karen... I don't know where she goes."
The whisky burned as it went down. Just one swig. He'd had half the bottle already, and it wasn't supposed to be for him anyway. With a whimper, he forced his paw to turn, pouring the rest of his liquor onto the grave, his ears folding back at the soft sound of Jack hitting the grass. "Merry Christmas, Dad." He whispered.
"What was it like, when you and Mom split up? Karen keeps nagging me to see a shrink, you know. She want's marriage counseling, she wants me to cut out the drink. I found a receipt she left out the other day. You know how much she spent on makeup? Sixty five dollars, Dad. How come I have to give stuff up, but she doesn't have to? It's unfair. I told her that, and she cried."
"Everytime I come home, and she's not in my bed, I think she's sleeping with someone else. I think she's fucking our neighbor. He's this big burly tiger, he's got this Spanish accent... God, she's probably sucking his cock right now. Drinking it down like she used to for me. That woman has the hungriest look in her eyes when she's choking down dick."
His voice had escalated to a bit of an angry growl, and it was a struggle for the coyote to unclench his teeth. He wanted to strangle that feline fuck, he really did. But Karen would probably hate him for it, the twisted bitch. The coyote wondered how much of his wife was really a loyal husky, and how much of her was... jackal. His heart was pounding in his chest, and he knew he had to calm down.
"But... anyway, she wants us to go get counseling. Like I said, though, she and Max gotta eat, and I gotta pay the rent. There's just no money. There's a lot of business, and not a lot of money. I didn't even have the green to get Max a birthday gift. He turned thirteen just a few weeks ago, you know? Thirteen whole years old."
The coyote shook his head, turning the bottle over in his paws and thinking about a better time. "Actually, no. That's a lie. I got him something. I took him to a game, you know?"
"Max is really turning out to be a smart kid. He does really great in all those math classes, and his school wants us to put him in a higher grade, you know? They want him to skip a few years, but Karen doesn't know if he should do it. She says all his friends would get left behind, but ah... I don't know if it really matters to him.
He draws by himself all the time, and he's actually got a pretty good pair of paws for it. I guess he's always liked to draw. We've still got a drawing of Snoopy that he labored over when he was five. It's on the refrigerator, and I sort of wish I had the money to frame it. Karen thinks he's gonna be a doctor or something, but... I dunno. He just loves being alone and drawing. He's a funny pup."
"Max has this imaginary friend, you know? 'Jake' looks just like me, I guess, except he takes Max to a lot more baseball games."
His voice trailed off. For a minute, the coyote sat in silence, listening to the wind shove a few leaves around his feet. An eerie quiet had come over his soul, and the cold was starting to sink under his pelt. Fur meant so little now, and even the warm coat wrapped around his shoulders was starting to lose its warmth.
He chose his words carefully.
"Well, I took him to a game for his birthday. You should have seen his eyes in the car- they were as round as dinner plates. I don't have a lot of joys anymore, but seeing his little tail wag in his seat was... well..." A small smile curled at the coyote's lips. It was ok to remember this moment. "It was a golden afternoon. I remember going to bed the night before and thinking 'what'll I give him?' And I remembered the stadium. You shoulda seen him, Dad. He didn't even look at me- his eyes were locked on the action. And the way he howled during every bad call. It's like he'd been going to these things all his life."
The coyote's expression turned dark, and he almost dropped the whisky bottle. He realized, suddenly, that his paws were shaking uncontrollably, and he bit his tongue, trying to think about something else. His blood tasted like whisky.
"Thirteen years old. Do you remember that time in my life, Dad? Not the day of my birthday, but the weekend after. You had to work, so we waited."
"Max fell asleep in the car. I guess he was tuckered out during the game. His perfect little ears were tucked against his head as he slept, his tail between his legs. I couldn't stop staring at him. It's like he drew me in with a magnet. He's so little Dad, so soft. Sometimes I see him, and I think to myself 'Did I look like that? When I was a puppy?' I'm just lonely enough now, and it's just quiet enough... I live in my head."
His paws were shaking even harder now, and he dropped the bottle to the earth. The coyote fell to his knees in the light of the full moon, his lips drawn back in a wicked and fanged expression. His blood was fire, and his eyes stung with the intensity of the memory.
"You always told me 'You don't understand, son! I need this! WE need this!' Every night of my life, when I laid my head on a pillow and closed my eyes, I remembered. Every time I ever heard the sound of a baseball being knocked out of the park, I remembered. And every time... every time I look at my little boy, what do you think I see? What do you think I see!?"
"That day at the baseball game, I nearly lost it again. I don't even remember the goddamn score, because I was too busy watching him. Licking my lips, thinking about what an animal I've become. You always told me I was never going to become the big strong coyote you wanted. Well you know what??"
The coyote's fist pounded into the earth. His howls rang out, loud and long against the grey dawn.
"FUCK the coyote you wanted! I took him home that night, I watched him sleep. I lay down in his bed with him and I took his tail in my paw and it was so soft. Like silk. Was I like that Dad? That innocent, that cute? Every cell in my body screamed at me to do everything you did and more. I wanted to tear him apart. I wanted to use him like a toy, mark him as mine, and I wanted to make his mother watch. God, I wanted every part of him! I pressed my muzzle against his ears, I smelled his fur..."
The coyote snarled folding his ears down with a paw and clutching his father's gravestone with the other, trying to crush the granite. His stomach fought to keep from vomiting all over the whisky stained dirt.
"I'm better than you, Dad. I'm better, and I'm stronger, too. They day I fuck my son is the day you come back from hell, you understand me? It doesn't change how I feel, but if there's one thing I do right in my life, it'll be this. Did you even consider how loud I cried out, how much it hurt? Did you even notice my tail brushing against your stomach? I'll bet you could smell my tears. My blood. You sick old fuck."
"When I got out of the hospital, you acted like nothing was wrong. You told the doctors how you always thought I was a weird kid, how you had caught me fooling around with some of the boys at school. But it wasn't fucking true, was it? You even took me to a baseball game afterwards, as if it made it all better."
The city screamed in silence. Minutes passed, and not one thing dared to move. The coyote reached into his pocket.
"Well, it did make it better, dad. I can feel my skin like a prison, now, and every time I look at my son, I think of you. Well, Dad... If I do anything in my life, if I do one goddamn thing right, it'll be this. ... I was working on a lift, a week back. The thing wouldn't rise, and I was fed up with it. It had been a long day, and I wanted to go home and see Karen. I wanted to see my son. So I half-assed the job, I just did a quick fix."
"Michal died tonight. I got the call six hours ago. He was working on a car under that lift, and the thing broke. They say it took him an hour to die, crushed into the cement, vomiting blood, his eyes rolling in his head. John saw fit to give me every detail. He says I'll go to court for this."
The coyote shook his head. Everything was all... so funny. He couldn't help but laugh at how absurd everything seemed now.
"I couldn't find Karen when I woke up. She just wasn't there, so I went into my son's room one last time. He was sleeping so soundly, an hour ago. I just sat on the edge of his bed for an hour, stroking his ears with my paw, fighting bitterly with myself. But... I did it, dad. I lived my entire life, and I never touched him. I hope he forgives me for it."
My... his paws shivered as he picked it up. It was heavy in his paws. His father's old revolver hadn't ever been fired before. There just wasn't a need.
"I can't win, so I'll just stop playing. It's what you would have done, right Dad? It's hard to live your life with your thumb on the trigger the whole time." The coyote whispered.
He pressed the muzzle between his eyes.
His ears cocked when the trigger cocked.
There was a flash. No noise.
Just silence.
And the sun rose over Santa Fe.