Page 29 - WTP Vol. IX #9

with one of his hands before kneeling on the floor.
“What are you doing?” she says as he wraps both his hands around her ankle.
“Let me show you. Go ahead, bud, now try to get away.” She tries to pull her ankle free of Clayborn’s grip, but he tightens it harder. “You see, it’s not so bad. Don’t be afraid.”
“Ow, you’re squeezing too hard,” she says reaching for his shoulder.
“No, I’m not. Come on, we’ll work this together. I want to show you. Come on, be a sport.”
She gives her ankle another tug, now with a nervous laugh. “That’s it, give it a good college try,” Clayborn encourages. “There’s no looking back now. Yes, m’am, give it all you got.”
With new determination, she yanks harder on her ankle, but Clayborn isn’t letting go. He looks up
at her from the floor with his eyes shining. She wriggles her ankle harder and harder, but there is no setting it free from his grip. One time she grabs her own knee and yanks hard enough to nearly upend the snack plate on the table. Another time, she relaxes her leg before giving it a sudden thrust trying to catch him off guard, but no dice. Until af- ter giving her a look of triumph from the floor, she feels his hands relax. “I’m telling you, you can trap damn near anything. You lay the trap in the ground, cover it with some dirt, not too deep, just a couple of inches. Coyote comes along and, wham, they don’t much feel it until it’s too late.”
~
Tanya’s bare ankle remains loosely in one of his
hands, though now she has no inclination to pull it out. But letting go, he stands up from the floor wear- ing a look of satisfaction, before sitting back beside her on the couch.
“Pretty good, huh, bud? I think you see my point.” He smells a little bit like marijuana. She senses his low, steady breathing. She is not ready to look at him. Instead, her eyes shift back to the television, but now the TV pictures barely flicker on the screen. Rather, her imagination replaces the documentary with the image of herself sitting at Sally’s gathering. “Bud? You okay?” Clayborn says.
“What happens after?” she says vaguely. “How’s that?”
“To the coyote after it’s captured?”
“That is a good question, isn’t it? You either got to take it to some sort of preserve or you shoot it. The main thing is not to leave it there to bleed to death.”
“You would never do that, would you?” His gaze drifts back to the TV screen, as she waits, growing fearful. “Would you?” she repeats.
“Never, I assure you I’m all about freeing them,” he says, turning back to her. “Who can imagine what they go through? But let me tell you this. You would never see me chewing my leg off. You can never escape what got you there. And you sure as hell can’t escape your fate.”
Hearing this, her eyes fall back upon her hands rest- ing in her lap, the sight of her manicured nails, freshly painted, recalling his strong grip. Looking up, their eyes meet several long moments until she has to avert hers to the shoulders of his warmup jacket, and the sudden memory of the blow drier comes surging back. “What is it now, bud?” he says without a smile.
She glances back at the TV screen. “I don’t know, but I’m thinking of a poem,” she says. “I used to write them...”
He reaches down, picks up the remote and turns the TV off. “Is that so? I’d like to hear it,” he says.
Berman is a former newspaper reporter and staff writer at Good Housekeeping magazine. His debut novel, Seeing Someone (Adelaide Books), will be published in Spring 2022. His work has appeared in numerous magazines and journals, including Rutgers Review, Interiors, Centerstage, and others.
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