Catch & Release

by Blythe Woolston

  “D’Elegance,” says Odd, “D’Elegance.” He points at a curlicue of letters on the wooden dash of the car. “D’Elegance gets ten miles to the gallon, and she’s worth every drop.”

  “I’m sorry. I just wanted . . . look, I’ll pay for the gas. OK?”

  “Sure,” says Odd. “I’m hungry,” he says, which explains why we pull into the parking lot of a gas-casinoeat-truck plaza. I’m down with it. I was hungry when I crawled out of my sleeping bag, and a couple of pastel marshmallows are a crappy breakfast.

  A few minutes later I’m sitting in a booth with my ruined side leaned up against the window. Odd slides out to head for the casino-and-souvenirs side of the place. He needs aspirin, he says. He has a headache from the reflection on the water. It happens. He’d be better off buying some sunglasses. The sun is not that high yet, and it’s going to be glaring while we drive back home. Or maybe he’s going to wear the pair of glasses I noticed neatly clipped to the passenger’s side sun visor. Sure they are huge as Chihuahua eyeballs, and the frames are a swirly pink that probably looks very fancy on an elderly lady with a lavender updo. But who, exactly, is going to notice that Odd is wearing granny sunglasses? Except me, that is. I’m going to notice and I’m going to enjoy it.

  I’m lost in imagining Odd in his granny glasses. The waitress comes up and puts a couple of menus on the table and says, “Coffee, honey?”

  I forget myself and I look at her to say, “Yeah, thanks, and milk . . .” but, before I get the words out she sees me, all of me, the real me, and she drops the coffee pot. The glass pot doesn’t break, but the hot coffee splashes out when it smacks onto the floor. Some of it must have hit her feet because she yelps and squats down.

  “I’m sorry,” I say to the top of her head. “I’m so sorry.”

  Then Odd is beside her and he holds her hand while she gets to her feet. She’s flustered but working on it.

  He looks her straight in the eyes and says, “Thank you, Vonnie.” Maybe he didn’t look her straight in the eyes every second. He had time to read her nametag while he was checking out her boobs. “Are you OK?”

  She pulls a wobbly smile together and says, “Silly me. We’ll get that cleaned up.” She never takes her eyes off of Odd’s face.

  When the busboy comes with a mop he looks at me long enough to prove he can, but mostly he just mops up the mess. He’s as skinny as his mop handle. The place is buzzing with customers. There is stuff to do.

  Vonnie returns with more coffee. “Ready to order?”

  “Sure,” says Odd, “Biscuits and gravy—for both of us.”

  “Sure thing,” says Vonnie. The coffee cups are full. She moves Odd’s closer to him. Mine she leaves where it is. She’s forgotten the milk. And I don’t like biscuits and gravy, either.

  “I figure,” says Odd while he fiddles with the side-view mirror, “We’re this close to the park, it seems like a waste not to go.”

  It seems to me that it’s always a waste to go to Yellowstone in the summer. It’s crowded and there is too much traffic—and the animals with any sense are chilling up and away from the roads and the swarms of tourists. I’d like to consider myself an animal with sense, so I’m inclined to vote no.

  “We can go back over the pass,” says Odd.

  The pass means high country, above the tree line, banks of deep snow that look blue in shadows. That actually sounds good. That is persuasive.

  “You think this fine car can make it?”

  “D’Elegance will purr right up the Beartooth.”

  I’m not sure there is any justification for such a ringing endorsement of our wheels. But what’s the downside? Worst case, the brakes go out and we plunge, probably not more than a couple hundred vertical feet, from one switchback to the next and die a horrible death. No, worst case is we get a flat and have to change the tire where there isn’t any shoulder to pull over to do it—while being eaten by mosquitoes the size of bats and reviled by motor-home drivers. Because the worst, as I’ve discovered, never actually kills you. It just humiliates you.

  “Sure. We can still be home by dinner tomorrow.”

  “Alrighty then,” says Odd, “Yellowstone it is.”

  I get my phone. There’s reception here, so I touch base with my dad, “Im ok today in ynp.”

  I have thirteen messages. They are all from my mom. The first one says, “You forgot lunch.” I delete the rest without reading them. Then I turn the phone off and put it back in the waterproof box.

  Odd removes the clown-size pink granny sunglasses from the visor, but he doesn’t put them on. “Here,” he says, holding them out in my general direction. “It might be better if you wear these—kind of cover up some of that mess you got there. We need to go in and pick up some groceries before we go in the park. How much you got on you?”

  “This.” I pull my debit card out of my pocket.

  “Alrighty then,” says Odd, “and how much is that?”

  His question catches me off guard. It isn’t nice to talk about money, but I answer before I realize I should tell him that’s rude. “Thousands. My college tuition money. Every cent I earned at the Kid-O-Korral plus money my parents have been putting in since I was born.”

  “Alrighty then,” says Odd. “Money is no object.”

  I don’t say no to that, because he’s right. Money is no object. What do I need tuition money for now? I’m not exactly really graduated. I never took my AP tests. I’m not going to be registering or paying fees in the fall. What difference does it make how that money gets spent? It doesn’t make any difference at all.

  I don’t tell him there isn’t more money where that came from. I don’t tell him that Mrs. K of the Kid-O-Korral came out to the house to visit after I got home from the hospital. She brought a bunch of lilacs and a big smile and a weepy hug and whole lot of concern. She and my mom talked, mostly. I didn’t really have much to say. A lot of the details about my illness are unknown to me. Things happened while I was in a drug-induced coma. Their conversation seemed to have nothing to do with me, so I just tuned it out.

  The smell of lilacs filled the room. Lilacs always remind me of Memorial Day and putting flowers on the graves. It’s better to use real flowers, the park department reminds the town every year, because the decorations will be removed in one week. All the teddy bears and artificial flowers and plastic flags left on the graves will be gathered up to make mowing easier. Real flowers can be composted and add to the beauty of our local parks. Those other things? They end up in the dump and a bulldozer comes and pushes dirt over them and buries them.

  “Polly . . .” Mrs. K was talking to me, directly, “Polly, honey . . .” and she told me that she had made different arrangements while I was in the hospital. I could have my janitorial after-closing hours back, if I wanted, but it would be better . . . some of the parents . . . confuse the children . . . whole town’s having a hard time . . . it would just be better if . . . not actually work with the children anymore. And I joined the ranks of the unemployed.

  I just left the lilacs on the table. I didn’t put them in water. The sooner they got tossed out, the better. It was so nice of her to bring them.

  We choose tortilla chips, refried beans, and some nasty American cheese made out of oil that’s pretty much indistinguishable from the plastic wrapped around it. It isn’t even cheese. It’s “cheese product,” but it melts easy, so hey, win. We pick up cookies and a twenty-four-pack of high-octane pop full of sugar and caffeine. We pass on the dark red apples; they are shiny on the outside but always disappointing, sad and pulpy inside the skin. A box of graham crackers, a bag of marshmallows, squares of chocolate.

  When we pay at the checkout counter, I look at my feet. With the ugly glasses on and my tangled hair as a wall, I’m hidden. When the time comes, I slide my card through the slot and push the right buttons. That’s my part to play. Odd is smiling and “Howzit goin’? Think it’s gonna be a hot one? Yeah, goin’ to the park. Fishing Bridge, maybe the Firehole.”
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  I’m eavesdropping on my own plans, I guess. They are a little different than I thought.

  When we get to the car, I take off the pink glasses. There is no one close enough to see the lumpy scars. I kind of forget them, how they look, because I don’t look at them. I did look at them, at first. I stared at them in the mirror. The skin looked polished, almost wet, like I had a big patch of bubblegum plastered over my eyehole—or a pronghorn antelope fetus growing on my face. It looked like chewed gum, too: pink, slightly shiny, and mashable.

  After my dad showed the fetus to me, I put it in a sandwich bag and added it to the plastic freezer container marked, “Polly’s Collecshun KEPP! DON’T THROW AWAY!” Up to that time, my collection was three dead birds (one of them still had both eyes), a bark beetle, and a slightly run-over water snake. Each was in its own sandwich bag, marked with the date and what it was: SNAK, Baby robin, Chikady. Very scientific. Now I added “antalop feetus.”

  For all I know, that box is still at the bottom of the freezer in the utility room, waiting for me to add something new.

  When Mom found the first bag with dead bird and a smudge of peanut butter in it, she went sort of ballistic and came screaming up the stairs, “No, Polly, No! Don’t ever do this again.”

  I was hanging out, waiting for dinner with my dad.

  “This is wrong, Polly. Just . . . wrong!” She held the little plastic bag at arm’s length. I could see what was in it. My bird. . .

  She hit the lever on the trashcan with her foot and dropped the bag.

  “Mommy! That’s my bird! My BIRD!”

  “Never, never touch dead things, Polly. Never,” Mom said and started scrubbing her hands with antibacterial dish soap up to the elbows. “It’s not nice!”

  I felt all crumpled up. How could it be wrong to keep something that interesting? I thought the freezer was a great solution. It would have got smelly if I stuck it in my sock drawer or my Dollie Dreamhouse.

  Dad went and opened the trashcan and took the bag out.

  “Looks OK. Come on, Dawn. What’s the problem? The freezer is already half full of dead animals. What’s the difference between a chicken and a . . .” He looked at the bird in the baggie, “chickadee?”

  Mom’s mouth was a hard, tight little line that said she thought there was a lot of difference.

  “What’s the harm? We could double bag it or something. And you won’t be surprised next time. Come on, honey. It’s OK.” My dad was using the same voice he uses to settle nervous animals. He’s good at his job. It’s a very effective voice. “It’s OK.”

  So that night my collection became formal and authorized, in a large plastic freezer container with my name written in Sharpie marker so there wouldn’t be any mix-ups or upsets in the future. The only time I ever looked at my collection was when I added something to it. I’d rearrange the bags and look at the frost crystals growing on the feathers and little scaly feet. Then I’d put the lid back on the box, shut the freezer, and know that everything was safe there, perfectly safe, in the cold and the dark.

  Somewhere in a lab at the CDC my eye might be in a freezer, carefully labeled, perfectly safe, and seeing nothing.

  D’Elegance slows and turns. Both changes are too sudden to qualify as good driving.

  “That might be historical,” says Odd, pointing at a tiny white church about the size of a drive-up coffee kiosk. I wish it were a coffee kiosk. I could enjoy another double hazelnut latte way more than another Odd history lesson. When we park in front of it, he adds, “Also, I need to meditate on that fence . . .”

  “Meditate?” How long is this going to take?

  “I’m gonna meditate on how I magically turned coffee into piss—excuse me, Polly—pee.

  “There’s probably a public bathroom right over there,” I say. “Look, they sell gas. That’s a better place.” Working at the Kid-O-Korral required a certain vigilance on the where-and-when-to-do-potty front. I sort of dropped my guard though, with Odd being taller than me. I thought he’d be potty trained.

  “Nope. Look how pretty this place is. It’s perfect,” Odd says, then opens the door and heads toward a fence post. I guess I should be happy he didn’t decide he had to meditate on the little white chapel itself. After he has committed the crime of public urination, he walks around the little church three times. Then he sits down on the porch steps.

  I get out of the car. I’m careful to use the “sing-don’tscream” technique, “Time to go . . .”

  Instead of doing the right thing, the thing I want him to do, Odd just spreads his arms out like wings and smiles.

  I give up and walk over toward him. I may have to use the “gentle touch on the shoulder to get attention” since “sing-don’t-scream” didn’t work.

  He pats the step beside him. I’m supposed to sit. I sit.

  He pulls a plastic bag out of his pocket and says, “Now it’s time to medicate. Are you feeling any pain, Polly? It’s prescription. Alrighty then.”

  I only smoke a little bit—just enough to be friendly. But it’s good and I’m feeling it. I’m in the right frame of mind to go fishing, no doubt. Paradise Valley is world famous for trout. There are trout to be had. I plan my strategy. An orange stimulator would be good here. It doesn’t matter what’s hatching. A stimulator would work because it doesn’t look like anything in particular—just lands on the water and everything about it screams “bug!” But when we get back in the car, we roll past every fishing access that could put us on the water. Every turnout is a promise and then, in the rearview mirror, a disappointment.

  “I need a job,” says Odd.

  “How about fishing guide? We can practice right up here,” I say.

  “Nope, going to The Park,” says Odd. There will be no detours or delays, I guess. “And fishing guide?” He says, “Be serious? Where’s the future in that?”

  Who says there’s a future in anything? Who says there’s a future?

  “So you want me to write you a reference for the Kid-O-Korral? Little kids need more male role models,” I say. An employee like Odd would serve Mrs. K right. He would drive her batshit teaching the little boys to pee on the shrubbery.

  “You won’t catch me doing that wage-slave shit. Service profession? Profession, my ass. Once a wage slave, always a wage slave. And daycare? Damn! That’s like being a wage slave to other wage slaves with a side of extra crap and boogers. You might be up for a lifetime of that, but not me.”

  He’s right, a little. When The Plan was in place, I was going to make money wrangling diaper-poopers at the Kid-O-Korral so I could go to university and become a professional wrangler of slightly older kids. Then, after my career was established and we had a good start money-wise, I was going to produce my own poopy-diaper producer. To keep my baby in diapers and my career on track, I’d go back to work. Meanwhile, some not-metamorphasized-me would take care of it nine hours a day, five days a week. Of course, when Bridger pitched The Plan, he’d put a different spin on it. Poop and diapers weren’t even mentioned. It was all happily-ever-after as a diamond-ring commercial.

  “You ever worked before?” I ask.

  “I worked. Football was my job,” Odd says. “Football is the place to start. Some places it’s basketball maybe, but football is golden, probably anywhere—except Canada— not that Canada matters—except to beavers.”

  I assume that we have now entered the zone of conversational drift. It’s a medicinal side effect. I clamp a smile on my face and wait for the unfunny jokes about beavers. Supposedly guys think of sex every fifty-two seconds. Wait for it. . . .Wait for it. . . .

  “Now football,” says Odd. And he catches me being the idiot thinking about sex, or at least thinking about guys thinking about sex, but turns out he’s still talking about football. “Football sets a person up. You got your guys. You got your recognition. People hear your name. Football is the first step. But now football is out, so I need a job. A job with the benefits of football, if you know what I mean.”

&n
bsp; I’m pretty sure I don’t. I’m pretty sure the benefits of working at the Kid-O-Korral were nothing like the benefits of football.

  Odd turns on the radio.

  Does everything on the radio suck? Or is it just that Odd is making the choices? Even the ads are dumb— worse than TV, that’s for sure, and that’s saying a lot. I miss my friend TV. I miss my couch, and I miss my monsters. I want to be home.

  “You can talk to me,” says Odd, and he switches off the radio.

  I don’t feel any overwhelming urge to talk. I’m kind of out of the habit. My friend the TV doesn’t expect me to hold up my end of the conversation. TV is the best friend ever.

  “You can say anything,” says Odd.

  “Can I say shut up?”

  “You can, but I’m listening. I’m just going to listen as long as you need me to listen. So I hear you saying you want me to shut up. But I don’t hear you saying you don’t want me to listen . . .”

  “So, you heard me say shut up?”

  “I’m just listening.”

  “So talking is listening?”

  “Yes. Talking is listening.”

  “If you won’t shut up, could you at least make sense?”

  “The only person who needs to make sense to you is you.”

  “That’s dumb.”

  “Yes. It is dumb. It’s OK to be dumb. You can be whatever you need to be.”

  “Fuck. I don’t need to be dumb. I need you to just shut up. Is that possible?”

  “It’s possible, if you make it possible.”

  “OK. I’m making it possible. All it takes is you shut your mouth and I shut mine. Deal?”

  “That isn’t the way it works. Communication is a human need. We need to communicate.”

  “Look, if I needed to communicate, I’d do it. But I don’t. Can you just turn the radio back on if you need to listen so much?”