Skippy: How you doin’, Doug?
Doug: Okay.
Skippy was happy because things were so quiet now after all the noise. When he went to visit his cousin in Green Wood, they didn’t get into an argument once, and Doug didn’t even frown. Well, maybe a little but not to notice. So he had made his peace. Skippy thought it was high time, too, after all the griping and groaning and yelling, which seemed never to end, this, that, over and over. As for Aunt Jade and her animals, now that the animals were gone, she didn’t have to raise her voice anymore, did she. Skippy remembered how her voice went into your ear like a knife when she got outraged, which happened all the time, with the news every hour on the hour. Both of them, she and her son, yelling and scowling, well but now that it came, the worst possible thing, and did its work, the world didn’t end, did it. Being angry does a number on your health, and if Aunt Jade didn’t break into her great horse laugh anymore, she was taking fewer nervous pills, Skippy saw, and there weren’t so many doctors she went to now, this speciologist and that. Of course there weren’t many doctors now, period.
Skippy: How you doin’, Aunt Jade?
Aunt Jade: I’m okay, Skippy.
High time life got simpler. Okay, war wasn’t a picnic, war never is, is it, but hey you know who your enemy is, an enemy is an enemy, no two ways about it, whereas Skippy could remember how, before, no one was sure of anything because there were always a hundred opinions and people holding up signs on this side, that side, over and over. You didn’t need to strain your head anymore, because there were no questions left, really, just answers, and those answers, thank God, were every one of them clear, to the point, and didn’t have a lot of big vocabulary words. In school Skippy had always hated big vocabulary words and the people who used them like a club banging you down, stupid-stupid-stupid, into the ground. A person could relax now without sour brains in lab coats on TV giving their warnings in rocket science gibberish and pointing to their charts of doom-doom-doom.
Skippy: Nice day.
Doug: I guess.
Doug lucked out, and what a relief that was, because after the government torture he wasn’t locked up because of his joining that religious group, which was really crazy. Millie saved him, a treasure that girl, using her personal connection to a big-dick billionaire in Connecticut. Okay, Calvin didn’t luck out, because of his color and last name, which maybe wasn’t his doing but hey folks, too bad, you can’t have everything: look at the apartments and parking lots and playgrounds underwater now around Blue Lawn, and look at all the cancer. A person, in Skippy’s opinion, should step around the downsides the way you step around dogshit on the sidewalk, when there used to be dogs. A person should think positive. It’s good for your ticker, they say, because there’s so much to be thankful for, when you stop and think about it. Like for example: no more drug addicts with tattoos on their necks and corks in their earlobes. No more homeless who stink like year-old cabbage and hold out their paper cups as if it’s your fault and not theirs. No more of those annoying reservation casino Injuns or those cabbies in turbans, with brown teeth and reeking. Mexicans, Jews, Arabs, Japs, Pakis, and queers all history.
Skippy: Anything up, Aunt Jade?
Aunt Jade: Not really.
To add to the thankful list: no more ton of leaves to rake and bag every November. There’s not a tree left standing now, if you don’t count the few scraggly dwarf pines at the edges of the sumps, looking more dead than alive these days after the Chinese blight, or the Saudi blight, whichever it was, or maybe the radiation did it, but hey who cares. What’s past is past and not important. Skippy always hated history in school, American history, world history. They don’t do that now, or civics or current events, either, because education has got a whole lot more comfortable and positive, high time, too, not just in the heartland but on both sour coasts.
Skippy: Hangin’ in there, huh?
Doug: Yeh.
Skippy: That big scar there don’t hurt you?
Doug: Nah.
They used to play, all four of them—Skippy, Doug, Millie, and Calvin—king of the hill on the steep landfill slope in the bird sanctuary north of White Shore, when there were birds and when there was air you could breathe without any protection, in the good old days before politics got in the way of everything. Kids laughing like crazy and never getting hurt. You fell, you rolled, you got up again. Aunt Jade would cook chili con carne for them in the evening, back when there was meat. God, it smelled wonderful. Or they would go hide-and-seek in the cemetery at the town border, among the old tombstones in languages no one could read anymore. Best friends every summer, for years. Of course today kids are a whole lot safer, after the militia guys took out all the terrorists, immigrants, and reporters with their semiautomatics and after the razor wire walls went up in every direction. Skippy sleeps with a Glock under his pillow and thinks of that familiar lump near his head as insurance. He doesn’t need it of course but you never know and why take a chance.
Skippy: Great to see you, Aunt Jade.
Aunt Jade: Great to see you, Skippy.
At night, over his head when he gets home, in every room hangs a big color glossy of our shepherd, who is kind of like a father ten or a hundred times your size, and at the same time kind of like a buddy, who’s just your size. Our shepherd is no-nonsense and down-to-earth, and if he’s a badass sometimes, hey he’s a badass there to take care of you when you need taking care of. Skippy sees no pictures of our shepherd in Aunt Jade’s place, but he understands that it might be asking too much of her to put one up, time has to pass and wounds have to heal. He doesn’t like to come east anymore, to tell the truth, this is uneasy, treasonous country, where sadness and hate hang in the air like smoke that won’t go away, smoke on top of all the other crap a person needs a mask for. But this is his only family now and he feels drawn, probably on account of all the memories.
Skippy: Bye, Doug.
Doug: Yeh.
They used to go fishing, back when there were fish. Skippy never cared that much for fish, he was a meat guy, a juicy beef guy, but there was something wonderful about being on the water or in sight of it. The water made you feel clean and open and free. Now of course the water is nine-tenths scum and the permits cost so much. Skippy once reeled in a shark, and everyone was cheering. He was maybe ten then. Not a big shark, just a mud thing, maybe two feet long, ugly and thrashing all over the deck, but the fishing people slapped him on the back like he was a hero and had won first prize. He’s choking up now, on account of that memory. He has to swallow. It will pass, in a minute. Take a deep breath, Skippy, as you wave, leave, go out the door, walk to the road, and turn west. The armed guardian drones above you will comfort you and lead you in the right path for our shepherd’s sake. See, it was only a minute. Skippy feels better already. He’s okay.