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Taught him the value of an honest day’s work. Is a man not allowed to provide for his boy no more?”
    “Carl, you ain’t broke no laws,” said Lou, “but you might think about heading inside now.”
    Dad glowered at Lou and, for a minute, I got scared he was going to get really mad, but then his shoulders kind of slumped and I could see the fight had gone out of him.
    He cleaned the chainsaw off real carefully and put it away. He picked up some of the bigger deer bits and tossed them in the chest freezer without bothering to wrap them.
    “Got time for a cold one?” he asked Lou, who watched him with his arms folded and a worried expression on his face.
    “Never on duty,” said Lou with a wink at me, “but it just so happens, I’m due a break.” They headed inside together and soon, the sound of laughter carried outside.
    I went to my room and read my guitar books for a while. Even with my guitar sold, I still liked to study the music, to make the shapes of the chords with my fingers. It was relaxing somehow.

    The next day I was up at dawn. I tiptoed past Dad’s room, wincing at the creak of tired floorboards. I figured I’d cook him up some eggs for his breakfast, just the way he liked—sloppy and buried in a gallon of ketchup—but there was nothing in the fridge but a couple of beers and a dried up splat of last week’s chili, covered over with saran wrap.
    Gross.
    I dumped the chili onto the top of the trashcan, careful as I could so as not to cause an avalanche of stinky garbage.
    I picked through cast-off pairs of Dad’s pants and jackets, looking for some cash. I could get to the corner store and back before he woke up, I was sure of it. If there was any chance of Dad being reasonable, it would be more likely if his belly was full.
    The first thing I saw when I got outside was that the body of the deer was gone. The second was that the head still sat on the woodpile, forgotten by Lou, but not by my Dad, nor I guessed by the Biedermanns.
    Its tongue lolled out between yellow teeth, and its glassy eyes seemed to follow me as I walked by. I thought I saw the drapes twitch over at the Biedermanns and walked faster.
    I didn’t have enough money for the eggs and the ketchup, so I stuck the sauce inside my shirt, feeling shitty when old Mrs. Carey smiled and asked how I was doing.
    The head was still there when I got back. A crow or something had made off with the eyes, but I still felt like it was watching me from the raggedy black sockets.
    All morning I expected Mr. Biedermann to call the cops again, but I guess he’d seen Lou leaving our place late that night, laughing and back-slapping and stinking of beer. The Biedermanns were still pretty new in town and in small towns like ours, old friendships are important. Mr. Biedermann was a smart guy; I guess he understood that. He could have taken it down himself, but that would have hurt his pride, I guess.
    I couldn’t help feeling bad for him. Dad had proved his point already, so why not just end things by taking that nasty old head down?
    It was afternoon when I heard the slam of the bathroom door and the rattle of pipes that meant the shower was spluttering into life. I had the eggs and sauce on the table by the time Dad ambled into the room, but he shoved them aside and lit up a cigarette instead.
    His bare shoulders were tan and muscled, but his chest was corpse white, and his ribs were showing.
    “Gonna eat?” I asked him.
    He snorted, and stubbed the cigarette out in the ketchup.
    “Get me a drink,” he said.
    Calories are calories
, I told myself as I cracked open his beer.
    “So about that head…” I started, but the cold flash of his eyes was enough to shut me up quick.
    The Biedermanns opened their drapes after lunch, but when I waved to them through the window, trying to be friendly, they looked the other way, even Mrs. Biedermann, who had used to smile at me sometimes and ask how school was going.
    The stink was already getting bad. I