Bridge of Clay

“Dad?”

How many times could he rehearse?

Once, he almost arrived, in the heavier light of the kitchen, but again, he returned to the hallway. The next time he actually made it, The Quarryman tight in his grip—and Michael Dunbar caught him:

“Come in, Clay, what have you got there?”

And Clay stood snared in the light.

He brought the book up from his side.

He said, “Just.”

“Just,” then held up higher. The book, so white and weathered, with its creased and crippled spine. He held Italy out before him, and the frescoes on the ceiling, and all those broken noses—one for each time she’d read it.

* * *

—

“Clay?”

Michael in jeans and a T-shirt; his hands were weathered concrete. They might have had similar eyes, but then, for Clay, all the constant burning.

He’d had a concrete stomach once, too.

Do you remember?

You had wavy hair; you still do, but more grey in it now as well—because you died and got a bit older, and—

“Clay?”

He finally did it.

Blood flowed through the stone.

The book, in hand, held out to him:

“Can you tell me about the Slaves and David?”

In many ways, you could argue the cat was our biggest mistake; he had a string of disgraceful habits:

He drooled almost uncontrollably.

He had a nasty stench of breath.

He had a God-awful shedding problem, dandruff, and a tendency to throw his food overboard when he ate.

He vomited.

(“Look at this!” shouted Henry one morning. “Right next to my shoes!”

“Just be grateful it wasn’t in ’em.”

“Shut up, Rory….Tommy! Come clean this shit up!”)

He meowed all hours of the night—such pathetic and high-pitched meowing! And then all the ball-tearing happy-pawing, on anyone’s lap he could find. Sometimes, when we watched TV, he’d move from boy to boy, sleeping and purring the house down. It was Rory who despised him most, though, and summed up all of us best:

“If that cat starts slicing up my balls again, Tommy, I’m gonna kill the bastard, I swear it—and trust me, you’ll be next.”