WHAT IT IS

Since no one else wanted to be with him, and since he couldn't be left alone, I was the one who ended up accompanying him on all his errands. He had a small dog that never left his body. Most of the time, the dog perched on his large shoulders, but when the dog felt especially threatened, it would climb onto his bald head and make boiling noises. To piss, the dog would scratch his shoulder. He'd hold out one of his arms, the dog would walk it like a plank, and then piss off the end--just missing his stubby fingers.

I was supposed to watch this man--to make sure he didn't kill anyone, steal anything, or take bodies to turn into skeletons. That's what he had done to my grandmother's body. He had made it a skeleton. She had expressed in her will that she wanted to be cremated, but he got to her body first, removed all the meat off it, and dried out her bones one by one in his electric oven. He made a beautiful base out of carved wood, set a metal pole into the base, and, with wires, hung her bones on the pole. What granddaughter can say she's touched her grandmother's bones? Certainly many can say that who are in other countries, but I can say it, too. The man had a tattoo of a beer can's pull tab on the top of his head, but he says he got that tattoo in his drinking days but that now his drinking days are over. They have been over for ten days.

I went to the dump with him.

"I was supposed to be the manager here," he told me at the dump. His dog scratched his shoulder.

"I worked here for years--got this dump under control--and it was understood I'd be the next manager. But they passed me up and gave the post to the son of the fire captain."

The dog scratched his shoulder urgently. I reached over and shoved the dog off him. After the dog hit the ground, and after it got its senses back, it behave as if the ground were trying to eat it. It threw itself at the man's legs, but then I pushed him down, too.

"You're not the dump manager because you can't be trusted with anyone's garbage," I yelled at him.