Assisi: An Online Journal of Arts & Letters Volume 4, Issues 1 & 2 | Page 49

!
“Where the hell you been? Why didn’t you come back home with those
other knuckleheads? I don’t have all day to sit here and wait for you, kid!”
“Sorry.” Mack knew that any attempt at an explanation would be futile.
Once his old man was pissed off, it didn’t matter what he served up.
“Know what sorry did? He shit himself,” snapped his father, ramming a
gnawed, pulpy cigar back into his mouth.
On the ride back to Indiana Avenue Mack’s father remained silent, but
Mack knew what was on his mind: that fight with his mother yesterday, and the
fact that he was worn out from working two jobs, and all of his other travails in
life. He’d already heard everything a thousand times. What he wanted to ask his
father was, “If you hate it all so much, why do you do it?” But he was afraid to.
When they pulled up to the house a few minutes later, Mack told his father
to bring his mother around to the backyard because he had something to show
them. He ran down the narrow alleyway, turned the bag over and the rainbow
trout tumbled onto the grass. Its skin had dulled and the corpse itself had
stiffened into a curve, like a boomerang.
“What d’you expect me to do with that thing,” snorted his mother, who
appeared inside the back door screen in an apron next to