Karate Chop: Stories

DUCKLING

ALONGSIDE THE BIG FARM, DAD RAN A DUCK FARM, AND BECAUSE he was a clever man he earned a lot of money from it. It helped, too, that he was orderly and always had a good grip on things. He liked that. He was known for saying, whenever anyone brought something up that had already been discussed, that he thought that had all been squared away. It didn’t matter whether it was me or my sister, a business acquaintance or just a neighbor he’d been talking politics with, he’d always say: I thought we’d got that all squared away. He’d say it to Mom whenever anything came between them, just like he’d say it to his other women whenever they got distraught about him not wanting a divorce.

I remember one time one of the others came to the house. I was sitting up in the gable window where I could see everything. A car came, and this little woman got out. Mom wasn’t home, and I couldn’t hear what Dad was saying at first. He was standing on the step and she was by the hood of the car talking in a sharp voice about tidying up after yourself. I would have closed the window but I was too scared, and then he said it to her, that he thought they’d got all that squared away. I don’t think she said anything in reply. She just took this not very big plastic bag from the backseat of the car and gave it to him and then drove off.

That was the first time I saw one of the women Dad had on the side. Actually, it was the only time, but Mom said he had several and that it all came in periods. At his funeral years later, I was too scared to look up from the hole for fear that there’d be all these women I didn’t know standing around it too. I looked at the lid of the coffin instead and told myself there was only the close family and the priest. I didn’t want to think about what Dad looked like in the coffin. And I didn’t want to think about what he would look like in time. Fluids can seep in anywhere, and the body means something to those left behind.

Obviously I was a bit quiet for a time after seeing the business with the other woman from the window in the gable. Dad could detect things. He was sharp, and he was watching the expressions on my face. Then one evening not long afterward he looked at my sister during dinner and said that a man with a wife had no business sleeping with women outside his marriage. Not if there were feelings involved. If there were no feelings, there was no problem. Man was like any other animal who had to have his basic needs fulfilled. He had no respect for girls who went to bed with men on the first night, and he had no respect for men who beat their wives. My sister sat looking into her glass of water while Dad said that a woman shouldn’t have a deep voice either. And it was no good if she tried to be funny. She was allowed to be subtle. But a woman trying to be funny was compensating for being fat or ugly in some other way. A woman who knew she was good looking and for that reason could afford to keep quiet was a completely different thing.

That’s what he said, and then my sister drank her water and looked across at me. There wasn’t much in it that was new. Dad had his boxes and he put things away in them, even things that contradicted each other. But I remember afterward when the table had been cleared. We were sitting in the living room watching television. He prodded me on the knee and pointed to Mom who had fallen asleep in the armchair. Her chin had dropped onto her chest, and she was twitching just beneath the skin every time her muscles relaxed. Dad smiled then and said: The way she’s sitting there, you can see that Mom’s really just an animal.

But he was fond of Mom. He couldn’t have lived without her, because men couldn’t, he said. Men had to have wives, and my sister and I still talk about how moved he was at their twenty-fifth anniversary. He’d already lost a lot of weight then and there he was making a toast to Mom and looking down at her. He said he’d be a goner without her, and we were so fond of him. When I think about memories of him I’ve lots. We never wanted for anything, and my sister and I were allowed to do all sorts of things. I remember him tow-starting cars, and I remember when we were snowed in and he got us out. I remember the feeling of being held up high and thrown into the air without knowing if I’d be caught again. For me happiness will always be the feeling of landing in his arms.

I especially remember how he hatched the ducklings in a big hatching machine that smelled of warm eggs and feathers. Sometimes he’d hold the eggs up to his ear and shake them to see if there was any life. If there wasn’t he’d let me throw them in among the trees, and the other ones he put back. When the ducklings were about to hatch, a little hole would appear in the egg. Then you could see the duckling pecking away in there. It was always an excitement to see if they’d survive. If they couldn’t stand and walk properly Dad would bash them hard against the floor. I remember once he gave me this weedy little duckling. He said I could see if I could keep it alive. I came up with the idea that the oven would have the same effect as the hatching machine. I took a little box and lined it with a floor cloth. I put the duckling inside and put the box in the oven. I don’t know what I set the oven on, but it wasn’t more than fifty degrees. Then I closed the oven door and sat down in front of the glass. Of course it died eventually, and he was kind and said I shouldn’t be upset. Ducklings like that almost always died eventually. We buried it together behind the machine shed in a plastic bag, and he let me fill up the hole myself.