My little miniature, he said. Best sharpshooter in Florida.
Then I went to the back and pulled out the mop bucket and the bleach, staring hard into the water as it churned in the yellow tub. Told myself it was the fumes that teared me up as I dunked the mophead into the liquid, and then began the slow process of cleaning up the mess. I left the letter on the counter until I could get myself under control, wondering if it would say anything to help me understand the animal in front of me.
1
Along with the typical antler sets and knotted pine logs that bracketed our porch, the plate glass window at the front of the shop held a goat, a Florida panther, and a wild boar. The boar and the panther had been around for so long we considered them part of the family. I’d mounted the goat just a few weeks back. It was a black-and-white English Bagot, identified as “vulnerable” on most species survival lists. It had a coat so soft you’d think you were stroking velvet.
But when I came in that morning they weren’t in their usual display spots, reenacting a scene from Wild Kingdom. Instead, the panther was propped behind the goat, its openmouthed growl suddenly transformed into an expression of uninhibited ecstasy.
“Why?” I turned to my mother, who was wearing her favorite pink floral nightgown with the smocked lace around the throat. She sat sideways on a metal folding chair she’d set in the middle of the sidewalk, holding an empty coffee cup and a cigarette. “Just . . . tell me why.”
“It speaks for itself.” She took a drag and tapped ash into the mug, which she balanced on her knee.
It was the second time in a month that she’d rendered a sex scene in the front window of our store. While the panther plowed away at the goat, the wild boar leered at the two of them from behind a large plastic ficus I recognized as a decades-long resident of my parents’ living room. Even now, in my thirties, I could vividly recall when my parents had brought it home—something green and “living” to chipper up the dull drab of decapitated animal heads that lined the walls behind the couches and my father’s recliner.
Binoculars had been propped in the boar’s yellowed tusks. There were condoms thrown around, some of which had been opened up, innards dangling from the branches of the potted plants. A second look revealed that the panther’s paws were shredded from where the adhesive and pins had originally secured it to an oak branch.
“Take a real good look,” I said. “Get it out of your system before I take everything down.” My casual morning of stripping skins and sipping black coffee faded into the distance, replaced by the aggravation of refurbishing injured fur and staining new mounts. The panther would likely take days to fix.
The sun was already burning off the morning humidity and warming the pavement. I’d seen Travis Pritchard’s pickup pull into the Dollar General parking lot across the street. This part of town was all older family businesses and single-family homes, dirty, flat places with sprawling yards. Pitted streets intersected at odd angles without the benefit of stop signs, stucco ranches in myriad shades of tan squeezed between a coin laundry, a Goodwill, and a shoe repair shop. A used car lot took up most of the real estate two streets over, near a diner where I ate most of my meals, convenience stores dotting the perimeter. It was Wednesday—BOGO value day for the retirement set from the Towers, a gated community comprised of local grandparents and snowbirds. Soon a crowd would gather to view Libby Morton’s latest unholy rendering. The thought of fending off scandalized seventysomethings this early in the morning did bad things to my stomach.
I took the cigarette from her hand and got one good drag off it before stubbing it out under my boot. The goat stood placid, assessing me with its slitted yellow eyes. I turned away so I wouldn’t have to see it in its indignity. “Can we go back inside now?”
“I’d prefer to sit here.”
“I really wish you wouldn’t.”
My mother shook her head, free of the waist-length hair she’d had since my brother was born. When questioned about the decision to lop it all off, she mentioned a magazine article she’d read when she took my father to one of his doctor’s appointments. Something about hair holding grief: how dead cells left on a living body might make pain last longer. Her shorn head took some getting used to. When the light caught her just right, it was like looking at a miniaturized version of my brother. They both had the same strong jaw and sallow skin, a long, narrow nose framed by deep grooves that almost resembled parentheses. Her remaining hair was still mostly dark, but now there were sprigs of white along with bits of bare scalp that poked through in patches where she’d gotten a little overzealous with the razor.
“Please?” I said, looking at the Dollar General. Travis stuck his head through the front door and waved.
She sighed heavily and propped her chin in her hand. “I’m gonna sit here for a minute. You go on ahead.”
A morning jogger in bright purple spandex ran past, moving down onto the street to avoid us on the sidewalk, almost stumbling to a collision as she took in the window display.
“What is that?” she asked, mouth dropped so far open I could almost count her molars.
My mother placed one hand over her heart. “It’s my work.”
“I’m gonna go make some coffee.” I scrubbed a hand over my face and wished it were late enough in the day to crack open a beer. At least the place next door was vacant. For a while it’d been barely surviving as a subpar kitschy vintage restaurant, but no one had rented it for the last year and a half. My father always said he’d rather eat something I cooked than spend money on a place that couldn’t even manage to make a grilled cheese.
“Coffee? Mom?” I repeated.
She nodded and waved me off, pointing out various areas of interest in the display. I heard her mention something about the panther’s naturally high sex drive as the door snicked closed behind me.
“Good fucking grief.”
The mess was even worse up close. Bits of fur and leaves littered the floor, as if the animals had taken chunks from each other’s hides. There was a big slash by the boar’s tail that nearly brought me to tears. I turned away, disgusted with my mother and with myself for not handling things sooner. Imagining what my father would say if he could see the wreck she’d made of his work, I swallowed hard. He’d be so disappointed.
This kind of shit was getting to be a regular occurrence. The original lewd display had been constructed less than a month after we’d buried my father. That morning the shop was pitch-black and I ran directly into the bear—except I didn’t know it was a bear; I thought I’d caught an intruder. When he built it, my father had reinforced its broad torso with two-by-fours. The punch I laid on it almost broke my hand.
I’d tried to wrap my mind around the scene as the overhead fluorescents flickered spastically to life. The futon from the spare bedroom wedged next to the glass, covered in my grandmother’s linens. A raccoon I’d mounted the week prior gowned in a satin negligee, bridal veil hanging delicately over its face. Its uplifted hand gestured sweetly at the bear, standing beside the bed in a roomy pair of custom boxer shorts made from two pillowcases. I’d immediately recognized the print; they were from Milo’s old Spider-Man bedroom set.