.:ELECTRIC VELOCIPEDE:. Sitting Round the Stewpot by Patricia Russo

This is a true real story, granda said, stirring the mush that we were gonna have to eat that night, and the next night, and the next too, probably. He coughed for a full minute, then finally spit out a plug of gunk. He scuffed his mess into the dirt. This is a true real story, not like the shit you hear from them liars down by Blue Street. He looked at me when he said shit. I just looked back at him. Stupid old man still thought I was a boy. This is a story about the old days, he went on. The ancestor time. Do you know what ancestor means? I sighed and took the spoon away from him and started stirring the mush myself, because the old man was like to let it burn. Granda, I said, I’m the one that reads you them old storybooks, when you say you can’t find your good glasses. He said, this is about the old days, when we had dogs.

Not dogs again, I said, but granda had no mind to heed me. He was staring out the window at the last red edge of the sun easing under the earth. Ever since they burned down the warehouses ’long river side, we got a real nice view of the sunsets. You don’t remember, he murmured, and I wanted to spit myself. Sure I remembered. I used to play in the warehouses when I was little, me and a bunch of other kids. We’d look for stuff. Nails and screws, bits of plastic not yet so brittle they couldn’t be shaped. It was dangerous, cause of the big buckled gaps in the floors, the fallen stairs, the crumbling walls, and the rats. And sometimes men worse than rats. Only granda was still jawing about dogs, not the warehouses. Time was, he said, long ago, people and dogs had a real sweet deal going. We was like partners. Lived together in the same house. Ate together. Worked together, played together. Slept together. Didn’t hardly need no blankets in winter, with a couple dogs up on the bed with you. Not that it was all sweet, I ain’t gonna lie. Dogs, they had a mind to sprawl, and fart in their sleep. Fleas. That was a pain in the ass. Oh, and their breath. The stink? Boy, you have no idea. You think this mush here smells bad? No, granda, I said, but he wasn’t heeding me at all. Just wait till you been licked all over your face by a woof-woof with tartar teeth and gums red as fire. Whew, you like to die. He took the spoon from me and dipped up a little mush, looked at it, then let it fall back into the pot. You never will, though, will you. Get licked in the face by a dog. Play ball with a dog. Hunt with a dog. Some folks still got pictures. You know, the flat kind. Photos. Snaps. You seen them?

Sure, granda, I said. I seen them.

Some was beautiful, some was butt-ugly. Some dumb as dirt, some so smart folks swore they could talk if they just wanted to. Probably did talk, when there wasn’t nobody around to listen. There was all different sorts, you know. Little tiny ones you could put in a coffee mug, for a joke, you know, and real big fellas, big as a pony, almost. Half the work in the world, dogs did it. Hauling, fetching, guarding, hunting, watching. And blind people, and folks in those wheelie-chairs, dogs did everything for them. Opened doors, washed the dishes, dialed 911, folded the laundry. Special trained. Had me one, when I wasn’t no bigger than you, could tell time. Better than a clock, he was. Used to come stick his nose in my back of my neck when it was time to get up for school. Dude, his name was. Wish I had a snap of him.

I took the pot off the fire and set it aside to cool some.

That ain’t ready, granda said.

It’s as ready as it’s gonna get, I said.

He looked at me. Then he looked out the window again, though it was dark now and there wasn’t shit to see. When I die, you’re going to be the man of the house, he said.

Watch that sass. Trying to teach you something here. Real true history, not that garbage they talk over Blue Street. Don’t be listening to that junk.

I don’t have to do with Blue Street.

Boy, granda said, I seen you. You and your cousin Mase, hanging around those yappers call themselves men. They got no sense down there. They telling you fairy tales. They want to be women so bad, let them chop their peckers off. Chop yours off, catch you sneaking down there again. Where’s that worthless cousin of yours, anyway?

I didn’t say nothing. I turned the spoon over and over in my hands.

Got to live in the real world, granda said. He wiped brown spit off his chin. Only world we got. No more dogs. The dogs ain’t coming back. They left us. Wishing ain’t gonna change that. Wish in one hand, piss in the other, see what gets wet first. That’s all they are down by Blue Street, wishers and pissers.

I seen them, I said.

Wolves, granda said, after a moment. They been coming round some, last few years. Foxes, might could be. Hell, probably all you seen was some damn cats. You got to be careful, though, when you’re out. Keep your eyes open. Don’t walk around in a dream. Coyotes. Been lots of coyotes slinking about. The women are useless, just useless. Back before the dogs left us, it was a load better. They could smell wolves, coyotes, anything, a hundred miles away. Warn you. Growl. Their hackles—you don’t know what that is—like their shoulders—rose up and bristled. They’d set up abarking and ahowling. And fight? They’d fight. Granda nodded. They’d fight to the death. Dogs’d die for you. Can’t say that about women. See now? Women’re letting the coyotes in. Foxes. Wolves, now. Useless, fucking useless.

They was dogs, I said quietly. Three of them, on the other side of the river. I took down two bowls from the shelf. Mush today, and mush tomorrow. Day after, though, I was going to go work in Uncle Cuff’s garden. Uncle Cuff was all froze up with arthritis, and a bigger pain in the neck than granda, but he minded that garden good.

Where’s your cousin Mase? granda asked.

Hell he did. Granda worked his mouth, chewing air. I plopped our dinner into the bowls. Get the bowl in his hands, the mush in his mouth, maybe he’d shut up already. Dude, he said, and I groaned inside me. Dude was the bestest dog, granda said, but he woulda left with the others, if he’d been alive. They all went away, every last one. Don’t you be paying no mind to them liars down by Blue Street.

Think you’re grown, don’t you, he said. He took the bowl, but kept it in his lap, not stirring, not blowing, not eating.

Been grown for a while. Sir.

Got me mad. I knew I had to be careful, with granda and Uncle Cuff and everybody else. With Mase it was different. Least I thought so. He would give me these looks sometimes, like the two of us was in this together. He never sassed the men, though. Always acted respectful, nodding and making believe he was swallowing down everything they said. You been lucky so far, Mase would say, but you gotta watch your ass. He was right, but the mad grabbed hold of me real hard, and I said, what happened to my mother?

I hit the stewpot with the side of my spoon, bang!

Nothing special, granda said. Nothing different. You know. His eyes were narrow. He made a fist and beat on his knee a couple times.

Tell me that story, I said. Tell me that true real story, since that bug up your ass cut your tongue strings. Go on.

Got me some other stuff, too.

All the same story, he said, after a moment. Dogs stopped loving us. Dogs lost interest, went away. So the women had to work. Piss poor job they do of it, too. Your dam—

—she couldn’t haul worth spit. And he spat, right on my foot. Give me a dog, any day.

Give you a dog, might be you ain’t gonna like what you get.

Boy, don’t make me get up out this chair.

Boy, boy, boy. Mase told me, watch your ass. You been getting away with it, cause your mama was smart and granda, you know, ain’t so sharp.

Get up on out of it, I said, and tossed my mush back into the pot, bowl, spoon, and all. I seen the dogs.

I seen them. On the other side of the river. Scouts, ’peared like. Skitterish, sniffing the wind, ears twitching every which way, but looking at us. Staring. One of ’em barked, kinda low and soft, but that bark, it carried across the water. Heard it fine and clear.

You heard shit, granda said, but his voice wobbled. He sat his bowl on the floor. Wait a minute. Who’s us?

You? You a titty-baby. No more use’n a girl. Mase see ’em, too?

I don’t do with Mase. He got no time for nothing cept hunting.

Hunting. That’s another one wants his butt whopped. Ain’t no man in the city fool enough to let that one hold his gun, not even those soft-brained bastards down by Blue. What he hunting with, a rock and a stick? You and him, two of a kind. Not enough sense between you to find an acorn in a wood of oaks. Where you seen these dogs you dreamed up? There was something in granda’s eye, more’n just the mad that was always there, more’n just mockery and meanness. I should never’ve opened my mouth, shoulda just et my damn mush and gone to bed.

Granda leaned over and picked up his bowl again. Tomorrow you gonna take me down there, show me where.

No? You live in my house, boy. You eat my food. You don’t never say No to me.

This is my mother’s house, I said, and that mush in your bowl, it comes from the meal I ground, the meal Uncle Cuff give me after I worked his garden two days.

Granda dropped the bowl, not caring if it broke or spilled out or nothing. He tugged at the knot on his rope belt.

Oh yeah, I said. Sure. You older’n dirt. You couldn’t whip a three-legged roach. All the old men, they passing one by one. What you holding on for? You think maybe you live to be two, three hundred, them dogs gonna come back, lick your face? Haul your sleds, hunt your deer for you? Guard your fences, mend your drawers? You think you sitting in that broken-ass chair, but you really in a dream. The dogs, they don’t want you. That much you got right. Dogs are sick of you old men.

You gonna learn me about dogs now? Get out of my house. You got no call to talk to me like that.

My mother’s house.

Yeah, well, she got no use for it now, does she?

You put her out. You said, you a bitch, go work with the bitches.

Son, he said, his hand still on the knot of his belt, that’s just the way the world is. Been like this since I was a boy. Old Dude, he wasn’t in the ground maybe a month before the dogs all up and walked off from us. So the women got to do the work. What you think, the government gonna do it? Somebody telling you stories, cause you don’t remember your mother, nohow. She tended you two, three years, then went back to work. Like they all do. Them’s the rules.

I got me any sisters, granda?

He shrugged. Fore you were born, there was maybe a couple. You don’t need to worry none about that, though. The women keep track. When the time comes you need to get your pecker good and baptized, they’ll send over a couple-three good young bitches, ain’t related. You bothered in your mind, maybe you gonna fuck your sisters? Nah. The women, they know what’s what. Besides, he said, grinning, you still got a ways to wait yet. You ain’t got nothing but a baby finger there.

I walked toward the door.

You told me get out, remember?

Yeah, and now I’m telling you build up this damn fire again—he kicked his foot at it—and clean up this mess—he jerked his chin at the bowl and spoon on the floor. I want some damn dinner before breakfast time. World’s going to hell when boys don’t mind their elders.

World was gone to hell long before that, I reckon.

You get your ass back here. I ain’t playing.

If Mase had been there, he’d a called me a fool. You growing, he said to me, but you got a couple years yet, fore the old fart catches on. He got that one eye all white, and he never been too bright in the head anyways. Lay low, keep your head down and your strappings tight. Wait. Wait for what, he never said. Wait for him, might be he meant.

But I didn’t want to wait no more. I seen the dogs, and the dogs seen me. It was me they was staring at, not Mase, that time by the river. They never even looked at Mase. He didn’t say nothing, but I figured he felt bad, cause he didn’t want to talk about it after.

I seen the dogs, I said, swinging open the door, slow, the way you had to, cause it had just but the one hinge left. They coming back, but not for you. They coming to get the women.

You been chewing that looney-weed, boy? Granda was up out of the chair now. You been drinking that Blue Street shine?

There was three dogs, cross the river, that time. And two women with them. Couldn’t swear to it, it been so long, and they being so far off, but I think one of them was my mother. I didn’t say none of that to granda, naturally. Going out the door, all I said was, hope that mush sticks in your gullet. Hope it chokes you.

And him, in the doorway, yelled after me, You crazy, you round the bend! Dogs don’t have to do with women! Dogs have to do with men! And you ain’t a man yet, boy, not by a long shot.

I walked away. Granda stayed in the doorway a while, yelling.

In the darkness, the only light a couple of lamps flickering from windows that’d lost their shades, I picked my way slowly down to the river. Maybe the dogs would be there again, maybe they wouldn’t. In the morning, I’d figure out how to cross the water. Those two women I saw did it, so there had to be a way. Would Mase tell? Probably. Most I could hope for, he’d hold out for a bit. Couldn’t go back now, anyroads. Granda’d keep after me, and the Blue Street men, they’d never take me in. One more mouth to feed. So. I’d cross the water, then hunt out a place in the ruins to hunker down in, somewhere nobody from our side of the river could spot me, and wait. Wait for the dogs to come stick their cold wet noses in the back of my neck, and lick my face, maybe, and maybe, I thought, lead me far away from here, to where the free people might could be.