So I started to button up the work shirt. My fingers stumbled over them, too big and blunt. Clumsy and foolish, I was. All hands and arms and legs, graceless and dull. I was too big for myself.
The last button finally went through and I closed my eyes. I took a breath. I remembered how Mom had looked this morning. The purple lines under her eyes. The slump of her shoulders. She’d said, “Be good today, Ox. Try to stay out of trouble,” as if trouble was the only thing I knew. As if I was in it constantly.
I opened my eyes. Looked in the mirror that hung on the closet door.
The shirt was too large. Or I was too small. I don’t know which. I looked like a kid playing dress-up. Like I was pretending.
I scowled at my reflection. Lowered my voice and said, “I’m a man.”
I didn’t believe me.
“I’m a man.”
I winced.
“I’m a man.”
Eventually, I took off my father’s work shirt and hung it back up in the closet. I shut the doors behind me, the dust motes still floating in the fading sun.
catalytic converter/dreaming while awake
“GORDO’S.”
“Hey, Gordo.”
A growl. “Yeah? Who’s this?” Like he didn’t know.
“Ox.”
“Oxnard Matheson! I was just thinking about you.”
“Really?”
“No. What the fuck do you want?”
I grinned because I knew. The smile felt strange on my face. “It’s good to hear you too.”
“Yeah, yeah. Haven’t seen you, kiddo.” He was pissed at my absence.
“I know. I had to….” I didn’t know what I had to do.
“How long has it been since the sperm donor fucked off?”
“A couple of months, I guess.” Fifty-seven days. Ten hours. Forty-two minutes.
“Fuck him. You know that, right?”
I did, but he was still my daddy. So maybe I didn’t. “Sure,” I said.
“Your ma doing okay?”
“Yeah.” No. I didn’t think she was.
“Ox.”
“No. I don’t know.”
He inhaled deeply and sighed.