Page 28 - WTP Vol. IX #9

Trappers (continued from preceding page)
“Well then, yes m’am. Cheese and crackers would hit
the spot.”
Tanya gets up from the couch needing a second on her feet to regain her balance. Her short walk to
the kitchen requires extra concentration. As she prepares the plate of cheese and crackers, her eyes travel to Clayborn’s small suitcase in the foyer. Where is he going dressed so...how should she put it, temporarily? Does he think he is going to spend the night? Returning with the plate of cheese and crackers, she tells herself to stand up straighter and pulls her shoulders back. She places the plate on the table in front of the couch. “Yeah, bud,” he says after she sits again. “New Orleans. Mardi Gras. How would that be? Bourbon street,” he says lifting his glass. “What about you?”
“What about me, Dave?” “You ever been?”
She gazes at him in his Nike jacket and is hit suddenly with a rush of numb pleasure, and Sally’s voice play- ing in her ear. “Uh-uh,” Tanya says all but wagging
a finger. “I won’t ask you, and you won’t ask me. No more talking about the past.”
Her guest chuckles. “Oh, is that how we’re playing it? I like that, bud. I won’t ask you, and you won’t ask me.”
She watches him lean forward, seeming like he needs to throw his weight into the gesture to accomplish
it. He puts a piece of cheese on a cracker and leans back again. Then it grows quiet, the quiet descending over them like it has been hovering all along. She sits there a while feeling thick in the stillness, not know- ing what else there is to talk about, if not the past? Her eyes revert to the bluish tint of the TV screen,
surprised it is still stopped on pause from before he arrived. The image of a small animal has been frozen there all this time. “What were you watching, bud?” Clayborn asks, his attention drawn.
“Oh that,” she says. “It’s a documentary I was about to start. It’s something about animal trappers.”
“Animal trappers. Well, we can watch your documen- tary, if you want.”
“No, it’s nothing.”
“Don’t say that. I’ve had to do some trapping myself. Got a coyote. The goddamn thing had been attacking my goats. Let’s see what they have to say.”
Tanya is not so interested in the documentary any- more, but Clayborn has already picked up the remote and hits play. A male voice begins an introduction over a montage of animals of all sizes, some caged and still alive, others caught and killed or thrashing in various types of traps. “I really don’t think I can watch this,” Tanya says.
“Come on, it might be interesting. Yeah, bud, let’s watch.”
The narrator has begun tracing the roots of trapping back to Babylonian times. “That’s right,” Clayborn says, “those Babylonians knew what they were doing, didn’t they? Not that we’re talking about the past.”
To Tanya, the narrator’s voice is droning. But she stays with it, if for no other reason than the idea of Clayborn sitting there watching a documentary with her fills her with disbelief. Eventually the images on the screen turn bloodier with depictions of numer- ous animals caught in the wilds, trapped in various steel-jawed footholds, writhing helpless or maimed. “I think I’ve seen enough,” Tanya says.
“No, look, they’ve got themselves a coyote. Right there.” Clayborn turns up the volume.
“Please, it’s too cruel,” Tanya says.
“Where’s the cruelty? Tell that to one of my goats.”
“It’s torture. The poor things are terrified. You can see that. How would you like to be that coyote? You heard what he said. Sometimes they’ll chew their own leg off because they’ll do anything to escape. Sometimes I feel that way myself.”
“But they don’t have to, it’s like this,” Clayborn says and leans down taking hold of one of Tanya’s bare ankles
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