Cow Killer

I want to smack her. Literally. She certainly deserves it--her words strike harder than my hands ever could. But physical assault will get you arrested while hateful words seldom do. My father is proof of that.

When I was seven, after my parents divorced, I had to go see my father. It was his way of getting out of child support. My visits were a nuisance more than anything.

About a year after the divorce I rode the school bus to his house on one of many miserable Fridays.

“Home, Dad.” I said after I fumbled through the screen door and dealt with his dogs, Thumper and Max. Dad was sitting at the kitchen table in his rumpled underwear and t-shirt. He leaned over his bowl of cereal like a bear. A dark shadow of stubble matched the smudges under his eyes. In the back, I could hear Nolene, his girlfriend doing some kind of housework.

He didn’t respond, so I headed toward my room.

“Don’t bring a bunch of shit in here,” he said to my back.

“I won’t, Dad.”

He was talking about my insect collections. Mostly moths and butterflies. A few beetles but those icked me out when the pins went through the plasticy shells.

“I’m serious, girl. Nolene don’t have the time or patience to be picking up after you.”

“Yes, Dad.”

I didn’t hate anyone then. When I was a kid. Now, I’m pretty full of it. I wonder if it’s contagious?

My father worked the second shift at the air conditioner plant. Looking back now I can see that drugs probably influenced his behavior. Nolene never did anything about it except fight. The result was usually him getting on to me.

I’m married now with two kids of my own. They are out of the house. Doug is in graduate school and Nancy married a nice accountant and does nothing with her own accounting degree. I guess counting is useful for keeping up with three kids. I’d like to see them more, but they live an hour and twenty minutes away. I’m still living in my hometown. I guess it’s good the kids moved on. Nobody beat them for their hobbies. Maybe that’s the reason.

At first, Nolene tried to befriend me. She’d been “rode hard and put up wet” as my dad’s brother told me one time and was emotionally detached and unpredictable. I think she wanted me to be her kid, a nice little family. When that didn’t work out she gave all her attention to getting what she could from my father in terms of attention, affection and fidelity. There wasn’t much of that to go around.

Maybe that’s why I married Bruce. He’s got the good looks of a Greek god sculpted from mashed potatoes, but he’s dependable. His non-verbal way of interacting doesn’t even bother me much anymore. Silence at my father’s house was dangerous.

One time, when I was about ten, my fourth grade teacher had encouraged me to do something with my insect collection for a science project. She figured that out when she saw me pick up a dead spider from the backpack room floor.

“What are you doing, Ellen?”

“What?” I tried to stall.

“Why did you pick up that dead bug?”

“What bug?” Why do we think we can lie and get away with it? Besides it technically wasn’t a bug.

“The dead bug I saw you pick up from the floor and that you are now holding loosely in your hand so that you don’t crush it.”

Ms. Thatcher had a way with details.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you collect them?”

“Sometimes,” I said. I could feel the crinkly little legs lightly touching my palm.

“That might make a good display for the science fair.”

It’s all I needed. I spent the next three nights at mom’s picking out my best specimens. My mom even got me a new piece of foam board. Friday morning is when I realized I had a problem.

I talked it out with Professor Peter my Praying Mantis. He was pinned to the bottom right of my poster. I had drawn a talk bubble like he was naming each of my bugs. I’d even made him a little mortar board hat. His spiny arm made a good pointer.

“I’ve got to turn this in Monday,” I said when I realized I would be at my father’s house all weekend.

You can’t take it to your dad’s. Nolene hates bugs.

“I know. But it’s not ready.”

Tell your mom.

“I can’t tell Mom because she won’t let me take it.”

Maybe she can say something to your dad. It’s a school project.

“She never says anything to him. And he won’t listen anyway.”

She’s gonna see it.

“I’ll just have to tell her it’s ready, and I’m taking it today to turn in early.”

I covered the panel up carefully with a plastic bag. Dried insects are fragile. At school and on the bus to Dad’s I guarded it from bumps and jolts. When I got off the bus I tucked it beside the door and made a trial run inside first. Dad had already gone to work. Nolene was on the phone. With as much stealth as I could muster, I snuck it into my room. After I closed the door, I listened to see if she would follow me. When my heart settled down I couldn’t help but unwrap and admire my work.

Eight of my favorite bugs I had arranged in a ring and from the bottom corner Professor Peter called out their names. At the top was a sweet green Actias luna “Luna Moth.” Then a fuzzy black Xylocopa “Carpenter Bee” and a Periplaneta americana “American Cockroach” to creep people out. Most of my bugs I had found dead, window sills catch and dry them out perfectly, but the three little Fireflies Lampyridae had met their fate in a jar on my dresser.

A large space in the center I had intentionally left open in hopes of finding something spectacular before Monday. Gently, I placed the foam board between my bed and the wall and headed out to the yard to hunt.

“Be safe, Professor!” I said.

Good luck!

There was lots of luck that day.

Today has had its own bit of luck. When I arrived at the nursing home, the shift nurse Cindy said, “Miss Nolene had a pretty good evening. Not much in the way of trouble last night, and she’s up and cheerful this morning. The CNAs said morning cleanup was no trouble. She’ll be glad to see you.”

She’s never glad to see me.

The TV was on when I entered, but she wasn’t watching it. Dementia has eroded much of her attention span. She didn’t even look at me when I said hello. It’s her unintended kindness to me to be so out of it that she doesn’t recognize or interact with me. Her roommate is a pitiful stroke victim slowly contracting into a ball and completely oblivious to the world around her.

“Good morning, Nolene.” I say.

“What is it?” she says to the corner of the ceiling. I smell body fluids and disinfectant.

“Just thought I would drop by to check on you.”

This brings a glance, “And who are you?”

“I’m your step-daughter, Ellen.”

It’s hard to tell where the long pause is going. In my mind, I’m racing out of my dad’s house again, with my glass Ball jar. His house was situated on the edge of a field and there was stand of trees nearby. It was hard to find bugs in the forest, but the lawn and field usually proved fruitful. And there it was. Without even looking—a big, mean, red and black ant making its way across the lawn. It was really not an ant but a wingless wasp with a wicked black stinger. “Cow Killer,” I said under my breath. I couldn’t remember the scientific name, but I could look it up after I captured it.

It was such an awesome little creature and proud--like it didn’t know it was tiny. I had played with one before, penning it down with a stick to hear it hiss and aggressively fight with its stinger. This one was huge. We battled like a bull and matador, me trying to get it in the jar and it avoiding the glass death chamber. Finally, I was successful and tromped to the house triumphantly with the centerpiece for my exhibit.

Unaware of what had happened, I entered my room thinking of where I could hide my prize until it died, Nolene was standing opposite of me at the end of my bed. Her huffs and angry scowl revealed my fate before I even noticed my poster at her feet.

A few frizzy strands of hair clung to her sweating face and the rest shot from her head in all directions, “I told you not to bring bugs into this house!”

Dreadfully, my eyes took in what she had done. The foam board was mashed and creased with shoe prints, bits of dust and scattered legs were the only things left of my insects. Heartache and sorrow pull my heart down, then from some unknown place a spark of anger raced forward. I didn’t know what to do with it. Nolene continued to rant at me and justify her act of destruction, “You’re a stupid weird little girl! Why are you so weird? What’s wrong with you to bring shit like this into the house?” Like an exterior elevator I watched my own fury rise and threw the jar at her.

In my hot anger I hoped that the Cow Killer to spring out and sting her to death. Instead the jar smashed into the wall behind her. Momentarily, she was stunned into silence. We stood there glaring at each other. In the moment she backed down. When my dad came home that night she filled his ear full of her side of the story. He got me out of bed sometime after midnight to spank me. I never let him see me cry.

He died about fifteen years ago. I’m kind of glad my grandkids never met him. Even though he had mellowed, he never could say, “I’m sorry,” or “I love you.” It fell to me to look after Nolene. She has no children of her own. The dementia makes it both worse and better. Worse in terms of complications and meanness, but better in that at least I can blame it on the disease.

Perhaps it was the disease moments ago that made her respond to my greeting with, “You ain’t my daughter. I never had any children. At least none that survived.”

“I’m not your biological daughter, I’m Ellen. You married my dad, Carl. Remember?”

“What I remember is that you are a stupid and weird little girl.”

I’m holding a glass vase with three white daisies in it. I want to throw it at her. She wouldn’t be able to dodge it this time.

It occurs to me that there are bugs over on the window sill: the ubiquitous “Pill Bugs” known around here as Roly Pollies, Armadillidium. She hated those things. I could go around the building and gather a few more, certainly I can also find some Silverfish and spiders for a nice necklace to place on her when she dozes off. The image of her waking up in a panic, screaming and thrashing around trying to knock a few not quite dead bugs off on the floor is surprisingly appealing.

Instead, I place the flower vase on her nightstand and leave. I don’t tell her Roly Pollies aren’t even insects, they’re terrestrial crustaceans. She doesn’t care and couldn’t learn it anyway.

END

[12-3-18 Thanks for the challenge! It has become an exercise against perfectionism as this is a very rough draft. I wrote it today and forced myself to share without any more edits or polishing. Any feedback is welcome and will be appreciated.]

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