And so, as he was just about ready to turn around and get back into the rickety old car, I said, “Randy?”
Randy stopped.
I stood there and wanted to say something that was memorable for him.
I wanted to say something that inspired him.
I wanted to say something about how I remembered when he wore that woman’s panties and how funny it was.
I wanted to say something that made him think I was a real friend.
I wanted to explain how it was wrong that I doubted him.
My voice cracked and all I could say was, “You know what Randy? Your brother was the best of you Doogans.”
Randy just looked at me like he was overwhelmed by my sentiment. There were tears in his eyes and he kept looking at the ground.
Then he said, “ Yeah. He was a good brother. He was a real good brother.”
Then it was quiet for a second and he said, “I better get going and take care of business. It’s going to be a long drive.”
I shook my head yes and watched him squeeze into the back of the car. Then the car took off — putt — putt — putt — and drove away on down the road, heading off to Delaware.
And I stood in the Go-Mart parking lot and watched them drive away. I thought, “You did the right thing Scott. You did the right thing.”
But then I thought, “I guess I did the right thing?”
That’s what I was telling myself at the kitchen table a couple of hours later when I went back home. “He looked so sad.”
My mother piddled around in the kitchen and said, “Oh Scott. It could have been Jesus.”
I told her maybe so.
Then I told her about all that had happened. I told her that he asked for fifty dollars, but I gave him seventy-five because I didn’t think fifty dollars was very much by the time he got to Delaware.
Then I told her, “I guess I did the right thing.”
She just patted me on the back and said, “Oh you’re a good person Scott. You really are. We don’t realize how responsible we are for each other. Only a good person wonders if they did the right thing.”
I agreed with her.
So over the next couple of days, I told everybody I knew about what I did and they all said the same thing — that I was a good person. I told them about how Randy lost his brother. I told them about how he asked for fifty, and how I gave him seventy-five. I told them about how I doubted him, and how we were all responsible for each other.
Then about a couple of weeks later I was out at a party in Rupert with a couple of friends of mine. There was my friend Wayne, and Wayne’s woman, and my friend Kevin, and this teenage girl he was dating who wasn’t even out of high school yet, and who Kevin later got pregnant. He was already the father of three other children with three other girls. My friend B.J. was there too. We were all sitting on Wayne’s porch, drinking beer, and telling stories back and forth to one another. Then somebody started telling a story about Randy Doogan and how crazy he was. They told how they were going down the road with their mom one day and they saw Randy fucking this girl on a picnic table, right beside the road, and how his mother pretended like she didn’t see it, even though she did. He told us that it was weird to drive down the road and see a guy fucking a girl on a picnic table. And then everybody laughed. Then B.J. told us how a couple months ago he saw Randy getting his ass kicked up the sidewalk by this guy, and Randy’s head was all cut up. Then everybody laughed more.
So I waited for the moment to die down so I could tell my own story. I wanted to tell them about how he lost his brother, and how I gave him some money. And finally the laughter died down and I thought, “Here’s my chance.”
I said, “Well it’s horrible what happened to his brother.”
Everybody just looked real confused and then B.J. said, “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
I drank my beer and said, “Didn’t you hear? He got killed in a car accident a couple of weeks ago. Isn’t that horrible?”
But B.J. just laughed and said, “No he didn’t. He didn’t get killed in a car accident. Randy was going around telling everybody that and asking for money. Some dumbass even gave him some, and Randy took it and got all hopped up on dope, and ended up robbing the Handy Place. He’s over in Southern Regional Jail now. He ended up knocking over some old lady on the way out and hurting her.”
And then everybody laughed and started telling other stories about Randy, but I didn’t. I just sat around and drank the rest of my beer, and that evening after we were all drunk, I wandered around the front yard, beside the old dozer, and emptied my pockets of a couple of dimes, and a few wadded up dollars, pieces of torn receipts, and some stupid pennies. I told myself to forget about all the old stories, and that I wasn’t an asshole. As I did it, I threw some more money on the ground, and crushed it down into the rocky mud with my dirty boots. I reminded myself that I was a good person, and I was never going to do another nice thing for as long as I lived.
ODB, THE MUD PUPPY AND ME
You ever hit a deer before? I used to ride to school in the mornings with these guys who worked at the saw mill in Princeton. There was my neighbor who everybody called ODB, and there was this other guy who everybody called the Mud Puppy and who got his name from throwing a water-dog across the river. They used to drive me to school every Monday morning at about four o’clock on their way to the saw mill.
One day we were driving through the dark woods on this old back road, listening to the Mud Puppy tell about how this guy got killed the other morning trying to miss a deer and what ODB should do if he saw one.
“Yeah most people get scared as shit and just slam on their brakes and end up getting killed,” the Mud Puppy said. “What you should do is just hit the gas when you see one and use your bumper like a battering ram”
And then the Mud Puppy told us that the problem was the damn deer were all doing it on purpose. He told us that the deer are all just waiting out in the woods trying to find a car to run in front of so they can watch it crash. He told us that people are just too kind-hearted to see it. He told us deer are crazy fuckers.
Then he asked me what I thought about it, but I just smiled from the backseat and told him I didn’t know.
Then ODB told him that he didn’t know either.
He liked to sit outside in the mornings and watch the deer eating in the field below his house.
He said, “I figure that people just don’t want to hurt something that’s all pretty and wild. I know I kind of like to drink my coffee in the mornings and just watch them. It makes me feel calm.”
The Mud Puppy shook his head all disgusted and told us that deer were just rats with big eyes.
ODB chuckled and drank his coffee and drove and drove and after a while it got quiet because it was still only four o’clock in the morning and people were still sleepy. ODB pushed his Roy D. Mercer tape into the tape player and chuckled along. The tape played like it did every Monday morning and the Mud Puppy took off his sweatshirt and made a pillow out of it and propped his head up against the window. I sat in the back of the car and looked out at the dark woods and thought about all the deer waiting for us in the trees, waiting to try and take our lives.
Was that one?
Is that one?
Then I saw our headlights and a couple of deer crossing in front of us. ODB saw them too and stomped on the brakes.
EEEEEKKKK.
And then — BAM.
But it was too late. We slammed into a deer that bounced against the hood, and slid up against the window, and then shot up and over the car until it landed in the road behind us.
“Holy shit,” ODB said, stopping the car in the middle of the back road.
“Holy shit,” I said, grabbing a hold of the side of the car.
“Did you fuck up your car?” the Mud Puppy asked, jumping up out of his seat and staring at the hood.
Then ODB said that he knew it was bound to happen, especially with us talking about it so much. Then the car was completely stopped and he was looking back to see if he could see the deer.
I turned around too and looked at the dead deer behind us. It looked like it was dead.
“Is it dead?” I asked, looking for the deer to move. There was a big dent on the hood.
ODB shook his head like he didn’t know, and the Mud Puppy looked at the hood.
Then he laughed and told us that we should have sped up. We should have done what he said.
So I asked again, “Is it dead?”
Then the deer moved its head up and down. It looked like a doe who was a couple of years old.
ODB said, “No it’s not dead.”
Then he turned around and his voice sounded sad. “I think I broke its back.”
He broke its back and now the deer kicked its head up and down and all around. Then ODB shook his head and whispered again, “Poor thing.”
And with that the Mud Puppy just popped his head around and said, “You got any rope around here, so we can put it up across the hood? We can check it after work.”
But ODB just shook his head and told us that we couldn’t do that. He told us we had to put it out of its misery, and we weren’t putting any deer across his hood.
Then he put the car into reverse.
He hit the gas, and backed all the way up over the deer — Ka-bump.
The Mud Puppy jumped back like “What the hell?” as the car bounced over the deer.
“Did that do it?” ODB asked all nervous, looking back.
I looked to see if the deer was moving and at first the deer didn’t move and looked like it was dead. But then the deer moved again and it was still alive. It was trying to crawl away.
So ODB put the car into drive and ran back over it again, except this time it didn’t work either.
“What are you doing?” The Mud Puppy screamed, holding on to the dash.
And then the deer kicked its head some more and groaned, “Grrr” and it still wasn’t dead. I told ODB, “It’s still moving.”
ODB looked behind the car with a look on his face like nothing should suffer more than it has to.
“What are you gonna do?” I asked.
ODB acted like he was scared and looked around the car for something to put the deer out of its misery.
He looked in the glove box for a fishing knife he kept, but it wasn’t there.
He looked in the backseat for a box cutter, but there was too much trash.
He looked underneath the seat for something, but there wasn’t anything there either.
There wasn’t anything except his shiny thermos he drank his coffee out of in the morning.
He took his thermos and got out of the car and walked all the way back to the deer. Then the Mud Puppy looked like “What the hell is he doing?”
He said, “He’s crazy — we should just leave it. It’ll die sooner or later.”
But I didn’t care anymore. I was watching ODB stand in front of the deer holding his thermos. Then I jumped in my seat because the deer started thrashing all wild. It stood up on its front hooves, like it was trying to get away and went AHHHHH. It stood for a second and then fell back down. But ODB didn’t move, and reached out with his hand and touched the side of the deer. Then he patted its side like he was trying to comfort it.
The deer rested back down like it was finally calm. ODB took his thermos, and raised it high above his head and hit the deer with it.
The Mud Puppy shook his head again like “What the hell?” watching ODB hit the deer. Then ODB hit it again.
And then again.
And then again.
But the deer wouldn’t die.
It tried getting away with its broken back and ended up dragging itself into a ditch beside the road.
ODB hit it again.
“Crazy bastard,” Mud Puppy said, shaking his head. “What the hell does he think he’s doing?”
I decided I’d heard enough from the Mud Puppy even if he was twenty years older than me.
I told him that ODB didn’t want to just leave it there with a broken back.
I told him he was trying to put it out of its misery and keep it from suffering, and he was just trying to do the right thing.
The Mud Puppy chuckled and gave me a look like, “Oh really.”
But it didn’t matter anymore because the deer had stopped moving. It was finally still as I watched another deer watching from the woods.
And we were all watching ODB now — the deer, and the dead deer, the Mud Puppy, and the trees, and me. We were all watching him as he touched the side of the dead deer one more time and the deer looked thankful. ODB walked back to the car, cradling the thermos to his stomach, and got in. He sat for a second and held his thermos in his arms like a child. Then the Mud Puppy looked at him all disgusted. ODB looked around the car and put his metal thermos up on the dashboard where it shined in the morning sun still rising. It shined all broken and dented at the bottom, covered in hair and blood. And ODB put the car into drive and we took off through the woods, wondering if this is what you called kindness or not.