“William Gerald McKee! You leave that animal be! Can’t you see you’re torturing him with your teasing?” Billy’s face turned white as the others shifted their bodies away from her, no longer laughing, but coughing, snickering.
“Meemaw, you don’t understand,” Billy answered, his voice sounding more like a whimper as he looked around at the others for help. Getting none, he cleared his throat and continued, “We’re not teasing him. We’re teaching him, for our protection. It’ll take time, you know. But Bull is gonna be a really good guard dog. For—for”—he stuttered—“for protection.” Francine could no longer contain herself.
“Y’all think I believe that bullshit? I wasn’t born yesterday, you idiots! Cut that thing off the tree and do it now!” The three boys looked at Billy, whose facial muscles had begun to relax. He nodded.
The fat one passed off the dog to Billy, removed a switchblade from the pocket of his jeans, moved toward the tree, and swiftly cut the taut rope at its center, so that the ratty thing abruptly fell just as Bull’s teeth swiftly latched onto it. That was when Francine saw that it wasn’t a rubber bear at all, but a rhino, all torn up now, its horn hanging by a single pitiful thread. Billy himself used to teethe on it as a baby. As Billy walked the dog back into the house, without thinking, Francine extended her hand to pat its head. Bull jerked his head and snapped, just missing the tip of her index finger. He was never the same after that.
Francine had a feeling then, like a cold wind passing right through her. She was afraid that something bad was going to happen, something that would drive them away from the home, just like before. It took only two months for her to realize that she was right.
Elias had been gone for three days. He had gotten up one morning, dressed in his brother’s brown tweed suit, which no longer fit Albert, and gone for a job interview. Instead of being his usual sullen self, sleeping most of the day and staying outside smoking weed all night, he was enthusiastic, even gave her a kiss on the cheek as she stood over a pot, cooking oatmeal. He announced that he had a job interview at the community college, not as a professor, for he hadn’t even graduated from high school, but working in building maintenance. Francine stepped away from the stove and wrapped her arms around her son, feeling his bones protrude beneath the thin skin. She wondered how he was able to maintain himself, let alone a whole building, as she rubbed her face against his dark scraggly beard. Still, he could be a good worker as long as he was straight, and, at thirty-three, it was about time he had some gainful employment.
“Elias, I just know things are going to turn out great,” she said, releasing him from the hug. Just the same, she kept her fingers crossed.
The entire time he was gone, Francine couldn’t get her youngest son out of her mind. Thoughts of Elias consumed her in a way no one in her family could, so much so that she wasn’t able to eat for the rest of the day, which was unusual for Francine, who was always hungry. She sat on the sofa in the living room, too agitated to start warming up the drumsticks for Patrick, as the setting sun covered the room in shades of orange and purple. Francine knew that mothers weren’t supposed to have favorites, and yet there was always something special, it seemed, about Elias. A sweetness, a vulnerability. Unlike Albert, or anyone else for that matter, each time she came into a room, he would ask how she was feeling that day. As she lay on the couch late into the night, it was Elias who would sprint upstairs just to get an extra blanket and cover her feet. He was the same with his friends, running out on a frozen night to help a buddy who had gotten a flat tire at 2:00 a.m. But it was that same sweetness that would often get him in trouble, his inability to say no to the drugs, the need to sedate himself after each rejection. Francine sat up as she heard a sound a few feet away, but it was only the jingle of Gracie’s dog tags as she scratched herself near the front door.
Later that night, after no sign of Elias, not even a phone call, Francine began to worry all over again, and this time it wasn’t only about the job. He showed up briefly one evening, still wearing the brown tweed suit. His eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks sunken in. Francine took one look at him and recognized the signs. No, he hadn’t been celebrating getting the job, but just the opposite. She didn’t ask any questions then, and not the next day, when he would disappear for a week, leaving the crumpled suit in the garbage pail at the curb.
It was just after lunch on an afternoon when school had closed for conferences as she was pouring kibble for the dogs, all except Bull, who was now out somewhere with Billy and his friends, when she heard him come in through the back quietly. Without looking up, she knew that it was Elias. Neither of them spoke as he sat down at the kitchen table and she poured him a mugful of the coffee she had brewed a half hour earlier. He drank it in one long gulp, black. Francine dug through one of the cabinet drawers until she found an emery board, plunked herself down opposite him, and began filing her nails, which were painted a rose pink. She stole a look at her son, his hands shaking as he tried to hold the cup steady. She moved the emery board across and then back on the nail of her left ring finger as she tried to slow the beating of her heart.