Heezey caught a dose of cancer. She fought like hell. Took chemo, drank contraband herbs smuggled from Mexico, lost her hair. She patched the best face on it. At the Halloween party she used the sprouting roots of hair on her head as part of her costume, a white-faced ghoul like you used to see at the Saturday double features.
Reality trumped pluck and she got cancer again. Ate her up. Like a rattlesnake you see on one of those nature shows; a frog or rabbit half swallowed, legs scrabbling frantic-like. She quit on a Sunday afternoon when a dust storm flayed the paint off Cadillacs. Wednesday she was in the ground.
Me and her old man, Hooter, went back to the cemetery that Wednesday night and saw herds of rabbits hopping around the gravestones. Big old jacks with their ears jabbing the air. Cottontails, too. Hoppy-hopping from one headstone to the next munching Bermuda grass.
Hooter and I’d slammed a few VOs and were all chewed up after hauling relatives from the airport, ones that hadn’t been heard from in decades. Old ladies wearing way too much make-up, blue hair, thick-heeled shoes that needed polish.
At the cemetery we parked his Dodge and slumped low in the seats, watched the rabbits graze, headlights etching the black. We sucked on Buds.
Hooter said, “You know the bitch was cheating on me before she got sick?”
I didn’t answer.
He said, “Damned near blew her head off. And her fuckhead lover’s, too.”
Hooter looked out his side window.
He said, “Found them in a motel down on Washington. Where Tempe and Phoenix meet.”
I started to ask how he found them, but let it ride.
He said, “I was parked right outside. Had both kids with me. They were so freaked out they looked like statues.”
He swigged beer, sloshed it around, spit it out.
He said, “Right fucking there. I had them. My shotgun loaded, #1 shot, three-inch magnums.”
I shook my head like I was impressed.
He said, “Would have done some splattering.”
I said, “How come you didn’t blow their asses away?”
He said, “Wasn’t worth going to the pen. Some damned convict lifer riding my ass like a whore.”
He stared at me. Tears spilled out.
He said, “Besides. You know. The kids.”
I said, “Yeah.”
He said, “And now it’s just me and them.”
I turned my head. Couldn’t look him in the eye.
He said, “Look at them damned rabbits.”
I swallowed some beer. It was warm, turned my stomach.
He slumped, sniffling and shivering.
The headlights cut the night like claws grasping at cobwebs. He started his engine and drove around the graveyard, light capturing the eyes of the rabbits as they hopped, a little frenzy, the way they held their ears. Not quite straight, but pointed off in the direction of the black.
He said, “Them damned rabbits are going to eat all the grass.”
I said, “Hell no, not all. It’s what keeps them alive.”
He looked at me; his swollen eyelids, his streaked and ruddy face.
He said, “Look at them rabbits. They’re all around Heezey’s grave.”
I couldn’t have told you where Heezey’s grave was. They all looked the same, the headstones dark grey, cut at predictable angles.
He said, “Pissing me off.”
I watched the rabbits. They hopped a bit, nibbled some, looked around and listened with their long ears, nibbled, hopped some.
He said, “Fucking rabbits.”
I looked north, to town. Its lights flitted like it was meandering.
He opened the car door and climbed out, left the door open. I heard the trunk. It croaked like an old toad. I watched him stride into the headlights. He was carrying a sawed-off ax handle. It was familiar to me. A leather thong strung through a hole drilled in the end. So you could grip it. Good for busting heads. Painted black. Cored out and filled with lead. It was familiar. Made it myself. Gave it to him for Christmas one year. Good for busting heads.
The rabbits didn’t seem to care. They kept nibbling and hopping. He slumped into a stalk; a small cottontail. Hooter swung, missed, then started to flail. I saw flying cottontail. Then a jack with his ears knocked down and bloody. The rabbits reminded me of sheep when a coyote gets in their midst. Frightened. Run a little ways, stop and look, gang up, eyes catching starlight, red reflection like being caught in a bad photograph.
Hooter swung the sawed-off ax handle. There was blood on his white shirt.
He screamed, “Heezey.”
His smooth-soled boots slipped on the grass. He stumbled. More than once. Slow motion. He swung. Headstones glittered. I thought I heard a voice; high keening. Like Heezey might do. I didn’t know rabbits could speak. I looked away. The lights of town. They seemed to be going somewhere.
Ken Rodgers is a writer, teacher and filmmaker who lives in Boise, Idaho, along with his wife, Betty.
Ken has a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Creative Writing from the University of San Francisco. His short fiction, essays and poems have been published in a variety of fine literary magazines. Ken has published three books of poetry and a book of short stories titled The Gods of Angkor Wat.
Along with his wife, Betty, Ken wrote, co-directed and co-produced a documentary film about his company of United States Marines at the Siege of Khe Sanh, Vietnam, in 1968. To find out more about the film, titled Bravo! Common Men, Uncommon Valor, visit www.bravotheproject.com.
Buy Ken’s debut collection The Gods of Angkor Wat.
