​Being more of a text message person, to me the phone ringing is always a bad sign.  It implies bad news, Chinese telemarketers, and calamities that must be dealt with immediately.  Glancing at the screen, I saw Home on the caller id.  Normally that provided warning enough, yet I made the mistake of saying, "Hello?"  After all, there's no telling when Home might deliver good news.  Perhaps one of our more racist relatives had finally died. 
 
The gruff voice of my father spoke, "Hey.  Come to the house Thursday.  2, or 3 in the afternoon."
 
"I thought we weren't doing National Christmas Kick-off this year."
 
"We're not.  Gutters need cleaning."
 
Due to a botched knee replacement my father could no longer venture onto the roof to clean the gutters.  Given my brother recently pushing the scale closer to four hundred pounds, and Mom's poor health, the task fell to me.  So, despite my concerns about a guerilla holiday dinner, I went to my parents' house on Thursday.
 
While I maneuvered along the dangerously slanted roof, Pops stood in the yard below.  A beer in one hand he hollered up instructions as if the act of scooping leaves from the gutter required a Ph.D., and several years of on the job experience.  Flinging fistfuls of leaves I spied a rusty minivan pulling into the driveway.  When my brother emerged, his swarm of children orbiting him like comets caught by a planetoid -- I began to suspect we might be having Thanksgiving dinner after all.
 
I shouted down, "So no dinner."
 
Pops shrugged, "No Thanksgiving dinner.  What?  We can't get together as a family?"
 
A deer would be less suspicious of a hunter with a floodlight and a shotgun.  Granted, I'd been avoiding family gatherings all year.  Mainly this stemmed from a very specific game we play.  It's similar, I suppose, to chicken.  We sit around the dining room table, and the first person to speak loses.  By arriving late I often bypass this opening event, preferring instead to show up two beers and three shots deep after the first salvos have been fired.  Better to let some hapless cousin get torn apart than risk my own sanity.
 
"Pick up the pace," Pops shouted, "It's getting dark."
 
I felt tempted to feign sluggishness.  It might be possible to kill a few hours hunkered on the roof, staring out at the neighborhood.  Growing up I never used to mind roof chores because it afforded the clearest view of Mary Carpenter's bedroom window.  She always fascinated me. 
 
Situated across the street, she used to sit for hours in her window smoking cigarettes, wearing only her underwear, then putting out said cigarettes on her body.  However, any time I saw her outside her house she looked like central casting sent the girl next door.  Although ten at the time, it made me realize people are composed of all kinds of secrets.  Thinking about her made me realize Pops tricked me for reasons he didn't feel like sharing. 
 
A blunt man with a my-way-or-the-highway disposition, deceptive manipulation never really factored into his interactions.  Subtle as a tractor rolling over kittens, at least my father could be counted on to be obvious with his demands.  So curiosity peaked, I finished the gutters, and descended to join the family below.
 
My brother sat on the living room couch.  Though it easily seated three, he dominated the space.  He wore a t-shirt featuring a man in a business suit firing an assault rifle, while the American flag waved in the background, and a woman in a Confederate flag bikini clung to the shooter's leg.  Occasionally my brother ordered one of his kids to fetch him another bowl of pretzels, though mostly he let them stare dead eyed at the television screen. 
 
I asked, "How's the wife?"
 
He sighed, "Sick with something, and she's being a bitch, not to be all redundant, I mean she is a woman."
 
I said, "Yes, I'm aware the mother of your children is a woman.  That's usually how it works.  I'm gonna check on Mom, see if she needs help in the kitchen."
 
On my way to the kitchen I passed Pops.  Mentioning my destination prompted him to grab my arm. 
 
He said, "She ain't in there."
 
I couldn't quite grasp that statement.  At risk of sounding inadvertently sexist, my Mom not being in the kitchen is like saying god isn't in the Tabernacle, or Santa isn't at the North Pole.  She loved to cook, so one could always expect to find her in the kitchen.  It provided her all kinds of joy.  Like the time she read Animal Farm, then gained a grim view of pigs that resulted in the year we only ate pork.  That said, Mom managed to make every dish unique. 
 
"What do you mean?" I asked.
 
Pops said, "She's in the bedroom.  Not doing well."
 
"Can I see her?" I asked, suddenly aware how long it'd been since my last visit.
 
Pops nodded.
 
So I went upstairs.  A year ago the news came down that cancer set its sights on Mom.  Over the years I always assumed, worst comes to worst, she'd end up accidentally overdosing on some combination of pills, a handful of Clozapine and Percocet washed down with a strawberry margarita.  She'd fall asleep on the couch peacefully watching TV static, and never wake up.  Thing is I doubt anybody dies the way they expect to.  Even with the truck bearing down on you, whatever you imagine when it hits is something else entirely.
 
Knocking softly on my parents' bedroom door I remembered this place being a sanctum sanctorum of sorts.  If nothing else, this is where my parents came to be human; where a flinty, cold man could expose his heart to the woman he loved, and she could simmer in the depths of her worst delusions until finding a grip on reality again.  Even as an adult I found it hard to just go inside.  But each knock pushed the door a bit.
 
"Come in," a bright voice called.
 
I stepped inside.  On the bed she sat propped up by a mound of pillows.  Always thin, she now resembled a living stick figure.  Yet she smiled, and her eyes shone bright. 
 
"Hey Ma, how ya doing?" I said. 
 
She blinked slowly, "I'd be doing better if I wasn't dying."  She shrugged, "But who isn't?"
 
We chatted for a bit.  She didn't sound like someone on the way out.  She talked effusively about a call from Uncle Jordan relating the latest news about his Real Doll girlfriend.  They're apparently visiting all fifty states.  Mom mentioned Aunt Judy popping by to brag about her recent divorce from Uncle Steve, which is odd given that Uncle Steve is a blood relative, and Aunt Judy is just a meth-head he met at a Chinese buffet.  However, despite the shimmer in her voice, Mom's body language told a different story.  She barely moved the whole time, needed two hands to hold a small glass, and a fit of coughing seemed like it could've shattered her entirely.  Yet her smile never diminished to less than a smirk.
 
At one point she said, "I bet someday they'll have a cure for cancer then people will get cancer on purpose to lose weight."
 
"People are stupid," I said.
 
She sighed, "People aren't stupid.  They're desperately afraid of everything they shouldn't be.  So they'll do anything, even ignore the octopi in the sky."  She whispered, "They're everywhere."
 
"I know," I said.
 
Looking out the window she said, "I'm tired."
 
"Then I'll let you get some sleep."  I gave her a hug, and a kiss then left. 
 
Back downstairs I found my brother and Pops yelling at the TV.  The football game was not being played the way they thought it should.  I went to the kitchen to get a beer.
 
In the fridge I found a four pound turkey breast.
 
Returning to the living room I asked my Pops, "You want me to make that turkey breast?"
 
Without looking at me he said, "If you think it's a good idea."
 
I nodded, "It is Thanksgiving."
 
It would take two hours to cook, but that gave us time to get the ball rolling on some sides.  None of it turned out as well as it could've.  Still, none of us expected it to be perfect.  How could it be?  But it did show us some kind of new normal might be on the horizon, for better or worse.

Every so often, walking about, we might stumble on little bits of yesterday.  Things aren't always intact, and guess I'm too young to recognize a lot of what used to be.  Momma, however, she's lived long enough to recall just about everything. 

Sometimes she says, "It's funny how well we've got on without certain stuff."

I guess she means some things used to be sort of an everyday necessity until no one could use them anymore.  That said, I don't exactly see the funny side.  I think it's kind of sad.  She says I'll understand when I get older.  That makes me never want to grow up. 

Still, one bit of the past sticks in my mind.  We were trekking across a prairie in the middle of the empty stretch from New Louis to Fort Jansson.  I remember we come across this stretch of grass vast as a lake and taller than a small child.  I'd grown that summer, but only stood a few inches higher than the tallest blades. 

For a minute, Momma considered not crossing.  Though what with the sun close to setting, she wanted to make for the woods.  It isn't safe being out after dark, not on the ground anyway.  So we risked it.

The grass tickled my face, making me snicker. 

Momma said, "Hush."

"Sorry," I said.

"Don't worry.  Just be quiet."

About half way across the prairie we came across this thing.  I don't really know how to describe it.  Imagine like a stumpy, chubby kid with the arms chopped off, the left over nubs sticking out; or maybe like a real straight ginger root.  Anyhow, I noticed it first.

Pointing I said, "What's that?"

Expecting the worst -- she always does, though she says there used to be a time she didn't -- Momma spun around.  Aiming her rifle, she scanned all about.  Then her eye settled on the thing. 

Shaking her head she told me, "That's a fire hydrant.  Was a fire hydrant."

I wanted to ask if it gave out fire, and if so, why'd folks have them back when.  Only before I could say anything something tackled me from behind.  I felt claws digging into my back. 

The raspy hiss of an atrox sounded right in my ear.  I couldn't see anything though, my face planted in the dirt.  A shot rang out from Momma's rifle then I felt the atrox flapping its wings.  The talons sunk in as it started lifting me off the ground. 

Another shot.  The atrox screeched in pain.  Hoisted a few feet off the ground I saw Momma running towards me.  I reached for her outstretched hand.  She grabbed hold, and pulled hard as she could.

The atrox tried to shift its grip, get more of me than my backpack.  The second it did Momma gave a firm yank.  She literally ripped me out of its claws.  I felt the talons shredding my back. 

Flapping wildly, and snarling in anger, the monstrous predatory bird went up into the sky. 

While tears poured down my face I felt the blood flowing down my back. 

Grabbing my face in her hands Momma said, "Stay calm."

Her eyes went to the sky.  I followed her gaze.  We could see the giant bird circling.  Another mutation after the failed salvation.  To hear Momma tell it, some scientist figured he could save animals that were dying out.  So he introduced something into the environment, and though it saved the critters, it also changed them.  Plants, animals, everything changed, even some people, sending the rest of us down a notch on the food chain. 

Momma raised her rifle.  Like it knew what to do, the atrox slipped into a dive just as Momma fired.  By the time she bolted another round ready to fire, the massive bird came straight at her talons out.  Momma barely had time enough to hold the gun between them.

The claws wrapped around the rifle, while the bird's speed and weight combined to knock Momma back.  She fell onto the ground.  The atrox stabbed at her head with its beak.  She dodged, but being pinned down it seemed only a matter of time before the bird got her. 

Not knowing what to do, still knowing I needed to do something, I ran at it.  Don't ask me to say what I was thinking.  I wasn't.  Then I jumped on the bird's back.  My tackle pitched it forward.  It stumbled a bit then fell, its head slamming into the fire hydrant.  The atrox thrashed a second, throwing me off its back, however, by then Momma came running in.  She grabbed that buzzard by the head, and started slamming its skull into the fire hydrant until it split open. 

​We sat there a second huffing and puffing.  After she caught her breath Momma bandaged me up.  Then we headed into the woods. 

Still, I'll never forgot that hydrant thing.  I never figured anything from the past might still be of use.  Seems things can still be good for something even if they can't be what they were for.