by Will Mackin
It appeared, however, that I should’ve called tails. The feathers, I’m sure, would’ve agreed. But they no longer seemed to care why I was there. They just wanted me and the rest of the troop to leave, thereby returning their house and their lives to them.
Tull passed the open door going the other way, followed by Zsa-Zsa, who stuck his head into the room.
“Last man,” Zsa-Zsa said to me.
I told the feathers to stay, in English; then I pointed at my watch and held up ten fingers. They gave me blank looks. I held my hand out, like, Stay. The mother nodded and patted the grandmother’s leg. The older daughter explained what I meant to the younger: Stay put for ten minutes. I followed Zsa-Zsa out of the room and down the stairs.
The living room’s velvet curtains conjured disgraced royalty. The grease stains on the kitchen walls resembled Rorschach tests. I exited through the back door, into the courtyard, to find the troop filing through the gate into the alley. They were turning east, away from the desert and our rendezvous with the helicopters.
I walked over to Tull, who was standing where the cameraman would’ve been at the moment he realized that his phone had recorded the entire getaway.
“Are we going to the other place?” I whispered.
“Yeah,” Tull said.
The troop continued to pass through the gate. Dogs streamed by, following my brothers down the alley. A skinny mongrel lingered for me outside the gate. I waited until everybody else was gone.
I turned to look up at the window with its roll of foam rubber sticking out, and there I saw the youngest feather. Her forehead was pressed against the glass.
I imagined that the older sister asked, “Are they gone?”
The youngest feather stared at me, staring back.
“Not yet,” she said.
For Alaina, Betta, and Eli
Thanks—
To my wife, Alaina—everyone else is loco. To Betta and Eli: someday you will look upon new and improved versions of yourselves and you will be at an equal loss for words. To brother Jon, with whom I share both heart and mind. To Mom, Dad, and sister Amy, for your love and support. To George Saunders, whose fiction class I took on a whim, and who turned it into my life’s work. To Andy Ward, my patient friend, for always listening. To Esther and Liz, for showing me the ropes. And to Karen Karbo, for your generous guidance.
To Deborah Treisman: when the vertical bars of blue light talk, it’s in your voice.
To those who provide indispensable shelter, knowledge, and encouragement for rejects of all shapes and sizes: Summer Literary Seminars, Tin House, the Lannan Foundation.
To rejects of all shapes and sizes.
And last but not least, a sacred debt to the men and women of Naval Special Warfare Development Group.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
WILL MACKIN is a veteran of the U.S. Navy. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, GQ, The New York Times Magazine, and The Best American Short Stories 2014. A native of New Jersey, he currently lives in New Mexico. Bring Out the Dog is his first book.
wmackin.com
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