Pumpkin
“I could clear out death row in an hour with this much pentobarbital. And I guarantee I’d be better at it than most executioners. I don’t even believe in capital punishment but every time I hear on NPR that there’s been another botched execution I think ‘they should really just hire me.’”
“I bet.”
“The ones who survive it, they say it’s like fire in the veins.” She walked it back: “she’s sedated though so she won’t feel a thing. This is the way to go. It’s how I’m going one day. I’ll do 4 units to make sure the job gets done, even though it’s a little overkill.”
“First time I’ve heard overkill used literally.”
She stared back blankly. “Do you want a box for her or is this a BYOB-type situation?”
Pumpkin–in the box I brought myself–was moved from the passenger seat to the trunk. A decision that proved crucial when the heat elevated the pungency of the fumes wafting off her body, a stench that brought forth images of the fields of Ypres. Something faintly chemical but mostly just that putrid and universal smell of death.
Wearing a cute matching set of underwear grants you an incomparable degree of confidence. Even–especially–when no one else knows. It’s a glowing-from-the-inside feeling that should be accomplished through tough introspection and healthy self esteem but is more accessible through a pointelle bralette for those of us who are lazy, immature, or unwilling to neuter that tinge of self hatred you convince yourself motivates you. So, you get your fun, almost-sexy secret to get that radiance. In any case, a dead cat in the trunk is an equal and opposite feeling.
The drive home was plagued with the sense that everyone could pick up on my not-fun and definitely not-almost-sexy secret. I imagined omniscient old men on porch rocking chairs thinking as I passed by, “and she couldn’t even put the cat in the front seat with her.” They’d shake their heads and fish for a pack of Pall Malls in the breast pocket of grass-stained overalls, “I mean it’s the least she could do.”
If anyone were to be anything close to omniscient it would be old rural porch-sitters. Not because they’re psychic but because they’re the nosiest people you’ll meet. Playing the role of oracle in a small town, they keep track of all important history and offer wise counsel.
As a kid, if you wanted to know the details of anything going on you could rely on your childlike charm to be invited to sit amongst septuagenarians and drink lemonade. The intel or advice would cost you a small chore, helping weed the front garden or move some boxes. But more often it would be yet another gift disguised as a favor: “oh honey, could you take some of these strawberries off my hands? We grew too many and I don’t know what to do with the half of ‘em!”
In the summer, too hot to do much of anything but melt into your chair, it would stay comfortably quiet with a few snippets of information lazily thrown out for consideration of the group.
“Well, dontcha know that the house just down the road sold to some flatlanders.”
“What typa flatlanders though, are they snowbirds or gonna be full-timers?”
“Young family so I’d assume full-time.”
And so conversation would continue until you heard the tidbit of information you were hunting for.
Later us kids would meet at the playground to reenact the conversations we sat in on throughout the day in a clumsy and unpracticed mimicry of adulthood. More importantly, we’d pool and split our candy stashes. Whoever was best at division would oversee the process. They’d count out the Skittles and Starbursts and M&Ms with a deep sense of duty and professionalism. One uneven split would void a social contract of sorts.
“Did you hear the Millers are divorcing?”
“I heard he cheated.”
“I think he’s a dog.” A long, contemplative drag on a juicebox. “At least that’s what my mom said.”
“The people in the purple house have ferrets and said we can see them sometime if we want.” A shrug, a toss of a balled gum wrapper into a growing pile.
I come home around the holidays to visit with the same people I did as a nine-year-old. Now we sit on the porch with coffee and a pack of Luckies in the pocket of one of our hunting or work jackets. The fraying and sun bleaching show a history of outdoor work. The dried salt stains are proof of another winter survived in sub-zero temps. The damage being minor comforts me. We aren’t too old yet. I measure out time on my friends’ coats like this and find pleasure in the fact that my hunting jacket is my grandfather’s, its original wear and tear making me immune to the type of investigation I subject others to.
I was thinking about this while driving around with the corpse of the family pet. And I was thinking about how I was wearing cute matching underwear. And how that was a weird choice on a day I knew I’d have to kill the cat. But more than anything I was pissed that the cute-underwear-confidence effect didn’t zero out the dead-cat-shame effect.
“I had to put Pumpkin down.”
“I’m sorry,” she winced. “It was time though, yeah?”
“This’ll cheer you up: you will never guess who’s getting married,” his gossip offer was accompanied by a conspiratorial glance that interrupted his work of divvying up the cake.
He traced a practice line through the icing before committing to a slice. His precision in order to maintain fairness betrayed what his role in the group was a decade and a half ago.
The largely empty chatter continued but was imbued with a subtext that said “you’re one of my people.” The type of easy warmth that makes you remember you’re part of humanity again, enough that you’d be able to drive with a dead cat in your car and not even care that the possibly-omniscient porch-sitters are, impossibly, judging you.