A Fat Cow

For a long time it seemed like a couple dozen vultures had stumbled drunkenly into the dead room. Stumbled in staring at the cemetery statues that somehow qualified as people, and eat their food right off the plates because that was how it was anyway. Nobody ever gave them a real meal—at least never one that they could ever earn on their own. And certainly not Tiffany Amber.

The food Tiffany Amber was served was made of Father’s money. Money that Father sweated a dozen lifetimes of blood and bone and muscle to earn. Money that Father finally received in this lifetime, and received like only the French Sun King would. Money that Father never decided to turn into anything real. Like being at the table with the woman he married and the too many children he had with her. Like eating a real dinner instead of some sandwich he bought in some random big city on the West Coast. Like enjoying dinner with the family he worked so hard to get, instead of with yet another cigar-smoking CEO who thought he couldn’t do much of anything useful anyway to get what the CEO wants.

But finally Father did eat dinner at home. Finally Father was going to eat dinner with the woman he married and the five sons and only daughter he fathered. Finally Father was going to talk because Tiffany Amber couldn’t even remember what his voice sounded like.

The last time I saw you Father was ten years ago. But at last you’ve decided to return during the eleventh. I had no idea where you go on your walk from your hotel room to your workplace near the giant courthouse in New York City.

Father, did you pass the statue of Atlas holding up the world with his cracked and bloody arms and shoulders? Did you ever think that Atlas will shrug? I think that Atlas will shrug. I like to think that one day Atlas will shrug exactly like he does at the ocean trenches. One plate slips under another. They rub friction together—seething, rubbing, and working against each other. And then Atlas snaps his fingers, burning the world to ashes. And then he could rest.

Father, did you ever pass the giant debt clock? Did you ever stand and watch the numbers change? I’d like to watch them change. Watch the number get higher and higher until it falls off the building it was tied up to. Like Joan of Arc tied to the stake before the straw got torched. And then she can do little more than stare at the big white light above her in the sky. I’d like to stand there watching the big debt clock. I’d like to wonder if it ever feels that way too. And I’d like to stand looking up at Atlas wondering when or even if he would shrug in my lifetime.

Father, did you ever stop to examine the pidgins who call the city their home? Did you ever stop to look at the blazing lights and flying colors and weeping traffic, all staining the only sky it ever had with ugly white? Did you ever wonder about me? Did you ever wonder about how my day went as you walk from plushy hotel to dingy lawyer stains? Did you ever wonder what I learn in school—perhaps how to reduce a complex fraction, or how psychologists do their research, or how to conjugate a Latin verb in yet another bizarre and bewildering way? Did you ever wonder what I do at karate—perhaps preparing for my next belt test?

But of course Father wasn’t paying attention to her. He and Mother were talking. Seemed like an odd place for a two-way conversation, because Mother was always the broken record. But what could I, or anybody else for that matter, do? Tell them to shut up and eat? Tiffany Amber could have done that—if, of course, she wanted to go to bed without dinner for a week.

But father didn’t care that Tiffany Amber never said a word. Father didn’t care that she wasn’t paying attention to the conversation. Father didn’t even care that she was thoroughly enjoying the food in front of her. And enjoying it like a real woman would.

Girl! he barked, and Tiffany Amber jumped. Get out! he ordered. Like Hitler ordering a Jew to die.

She said nothing. She dropped her fork and her knife, and she stood up like a newly enrolled soldier, and she turned around to leave. Father yelled so loudly you’d think he was an alcoholic who had one too many again. Then the plates and forks and knives and candle holders started being smashed and banged and crashed against the wall.

I gave you china! I gave you gold jewelry! I gave you plush quilts! he screeched. Somebody stole my wife!

No, Father, you aren’t going to pass the statue of Atlas for me. You aren’t going to pass the national debt clock for me. You’re not even going to stop and listen to the pidgins for me. You’re just doomed not to arrive back until one in the morning when Mother and I are asleep. And wake up again only to have little more than strawberry jam on white bread and a dung-tasting latte. Then you march back to the fat cow courtroom, and repeat the cycle until the very moment you die.

Meanwhile she sat at the table with the food cooked from his money sitting in front of her. With a bunch of other cemetery statues that substituted for people near her. And with a couple dozen turkey vultures who had stumbled drunkenly into the room.