The Rise & Fall of the Scandamerican Domestic: Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

stories. We have sung, held and hung signs damning “the coward” who could not face his accident.
    In fairness to the specifics of this tragedy, I have yet to mention to anyone that I myself have hit two people with my car before. Neither person died,just as our neighbor did not die, but I hit them both on the same day and both were very much deliberate acts. I hit one of them at exactly 8:30 a.m. and the other shortly after the lunch hour. They were both male. It was the end of the spring. I was very busy. I had many errands. My mind was, as they say, awash.
    The first man went up the hood, then down; I clipped the other one and sent him into a dramatic spin. In both cases, I stopped and got out. I did not flee the scene. I could have. I had time. I definitely gave it consideration. How many decisions you can squeeze in a moment! Rather, I stepped out of my car and helped each gentleman—because this is how it’s done—off the ground.
    Both victims were my bosses. My program director said, “You know, a more detailed explanation would really help me see your side of this a lot more clearly.” Then he closed his eyes and told me he needed to sit. He walked away and sat down on the curb. He is a poet, bald, and goes by three names. I let him sit there in silence. He had his head in his hands. I got back in the car and pulled away from the edge, turned off my blinkers, rolled right past him.
    My dean is also bald but he always wears a black Orvis Stetson. He insists we address him by his title and his abbreviated first name—Dean D. He popped back up after his dramatic spin and said he was “fine,” “excellent,” and “this sort of thing happens to the best of us.” He was bleeding from the mouth. His knees were exposed through the shreds of his pants. He was very friendly. He dusted me off, swiping at the front of my shoulders. He nodded. He adjusted his hat. I just looked at him. He laughed. I put my hand on his cheek. “Let’s call it a career,” he said, “shall we?”
    After helping him across the street to his office, I got back in my car and drove home. I played ball with my son that afternoon. I remember it well. At eighteen–nineteen in what had become an uncharacteristically physical contest, he received one free throw because we were in the one-and-one bonus. If he’d made the first, he would have received a second and probably carried the game. But the boy missed his first free throw, I wiped that shit off the glass, and I spun elbows-out and called him a “tool” to his face.
    He did not care for this. It was too much. He walked away.
    I dropped the ball, called after him—another, uglier name. I followed him. I didn’t let up with the name-calling. Then I jogged abreast of him and asked him where the hell he was going. He wouldn’t speak to me. He sprinted ahead. I watched him run. It was not nice to watch. He’s athletic enough, but when he’s upset he hobbles like an old lady, all frail hunch and wobbles.
    But I knew we were going to the grocery store because my son loves the grocery store. He’s drawn there, magnetized by it, by what I don’t know exactly, but it’s obviously linked to the affair I was caught organizing with a woman there about six years ago. That affair didn’t end well for me, our family, or the community at large. Whenever I come in to the store now, everyone looks up, drops their eyes, and shakes their heads. Whenever he comes in, by contrast, they embrace him with a false warmth and familiarity usually reserved for caricatures of Southern domestic life.
    I found him sitting in Bread, gagging on Vündercrüst. I sat down in front of him. The linoleum was cold. “Look,” I said, “let’s not dick around. This is about your hypothalamus, and you know it. My firsttime was in a grocery store, actually. Let me tell you about it.”
    He stopped