Every Shallow Cut by Tom Piccirilli Read Free Book Online

sharp joy. My mother cooking, sitting around the table smoking at parties, wearing funny birthday hats, standing at waterfalls, on beaches, in front of Broadway theatres. My brother as a youth, on a bicycle, on a motorcycle, in a Mustang. With a blonde, a brunette, a redhead, another blonde, another brunette, even a black girl as my father stood in the background looking uncomfortably aware of his own inherent old-school racism. Me with my childhood love, at the prom, holding my diploma, at college orientation. My mother holding up my first novel with a wide smile, her eyes lit with delight. My mother holding up my second novel, looking less interested, not so happy. My mother holding up my third book, bored, faking a smile and doing a poor job of it. I remembered what she said next. “I read the bestseller lists every week, and your name is never on it.” My wedding. My wife. My lips pressed to her temple, eyes closed, mouth caught in some kind of half-whisper, but I couldn’t remember what I was saying. Her eyes closed too, lips tugged into the smallest of grins. We had a huge print of that picture hanging over our fireplace. When she left, I took it down and kicked it to pieces and chucked it in. Let the next family use it as kindling.
    My brother opened the door and said, “What is it?”
    “What?”
    “I thought you called me.”
    “I didn’t.”
    “I heard you say something.”
    “I don’t think I said anything.”
    “I heard you.”
    “I was ruminating.”
    “It was loud.”
    “I ruminate loudly.”
    Finally, that seemed to appease him. “Oh.”
    “Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
    “You didn’t. Good night.”
    “Night.”
    “Don’t let the dog sleep on the bed.”
    He vanished down the hall. I closed the door. I turned and Church was trying his best to leap onto the bed but his stubby legs couldn’t make it. I hefted him up. We crawled under my mother’s half-finished blanket. He let out a low sigh of contentment as I stroked his meaty back. I shut my eyes.

Church’s snoring woke me at around dawn. I walked my brother’s house in the rosy morning light trying to get a better sense of him, but it didn’t help. I turned the knob on his bedroom door and stood there watching him sleep. He was a mess, strewn across the dishevelled sheets. He snored nearly as loud as Church did. The blankets were in a ball at his feet and one pillow was on the floor. He looked like he’d gone fifteen rounds with his nightmares. I wondered if he slept this way every night or only because I’d invaded his home, and probably his dreams.
    I circled town falling back into the same Saturday night roaming pattern I’d established twenty-five years ago. North up the strip down 357, then coming around and passing the high school, the rec centre, the local community college, east to the ice cream parlour and movie theatre. I expected to be assailed by memories but only a few of them came. The places had changed too much, or maybe I’d just forgotten. Buildings had been torn down, parking lots expanded, a new science building added to the college and a security gate around the front of the high school. Two guards were posted in a small booth. I drove up to a semaphore arm and wondered how many other members of my class had come home to stare at the buses and kids and visit our old teachers in a befuddled effort to rediscover themselves.
    Holding a clipboard, one of the guards poked his head out of a tiny window and asked for my ID.
    “I’m just looking,” I told him.
    “Looking? Looking at what?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Does your child attend this school?”
    “I’m revisiting the scene of the crime.”
    “What crime?” he asked.
    I wasn’t sure. I felt like I’d been lied to, or that somehow it was me who’d told the lies that had become my life.
    “Are you reporting a crime?” he said.
    Yes, I almost told him. One against me. Against all of mankind. Against God and nature. Against the