Chapter
4
Apologies
The following
day, he sat on bench located on his front porch and peered out between two
columns bearing the ceiling over his head.
People did not often walk the streets in this part of town, especially
with the air so frigid. And if he did
manage to see some pedestrian beyond his fortress of property, he would not
greet this person; his mood was far to gloomy to permit small talk. He was presently dressed in a black, bloated
jacket and dark grey sweats, effectively blending in with the dull tones of his
house. Little light reached him, blotted
out by the leaves that were loath to fall from his yard’s ancient oak
trees. He sat deep in thought. In fact, he forgot that he was well into a
game of fetch with Sancho half the time.
The small dog would climb up the stair to the porch, drop the
saliva-riddled tennis ball at his master’s feet, nearly fall over with
excitement at the prospect of the ball being thrown soon, and then vanish from sight
into the unmowed grass once it left Renardo’s hands. But even amidst the fun and hilarity of such
a game, Renardo felt alone.
After some time,
he pried himself from the bench and attempted to get more actively involved in
the sport. At times he would sprint
through the grass with the ball in hand, keeping it just out of Sancho’s reach
as the dog bounced up like a kangaroo; at other times, he would throw the ball
to the other side of the yard and then hide behind a tree. Sancho would not be so easily duped. He always returned to his master, prepared
for the next round. Renardo eventually
grew weary of playing and again took his seat on the bench. The dog came to him and dropped the ball at
his feet, only to be disappointed by the young man’s nonchalance; he then began
to wander about the property as Renardo cradled his head in his hands and stared
at nothing in particular. He released a
long sigh.
“Sancho, why are
women so difficult?” he asked. “And why
are all the good ones taken?”
The dog said
nothing. His ears perked up at his name,
but he continued to sniff around and urinate in arbitrary areas when he
realized that his master was not calling upon him for anything he considered
fun. Renardo looked at the empty spot on
the bench beside him. He shook his head
as a pang of deep grief entered his heart.
Perhaps Nate would come by today.
Better yet, maybe Corinne would walk by his front yard, greet him, and
tell him that she had changed her mind about the coffee. He averted his attention from the bench and
looked toward the black gate ahead of him.
Amusingly, Sancho pawed at the gate, looked at his master with a longing
gaze, and spun in eager circles. He
repeated this for about a minute, until Renardo finally smiled and rose to his
feet.
“You want to go
for a walk, is that right, boy?”
The dog bristled
with enthusiasm at the word “walk.”
“Yeah, a walk
would be good for you.” Renardo turned to the front door and opened it. “It’s not good for you to be cooped up all
the time. I’m sorry about that, boy.”
He walked into
his house and passed by the family room and kitchen. About ten feet from the spiraling staircase
at the end of the first floor, a dining room opened up on the left. He passed through the doorway and looked
around. An expansive, oval table
stretched from one side of the room to the other, its deep brown wood
emphasized by the pale light shining through the room’s two windows. Two hutches filled with expensive china,
matching the table in color, loomed on the room’s northern and eastern
walls. There were a few paintings
scattered here and there, but the most prominent decorations were the mounted
heads of various animals on the walls: deer, brown bears, wolves, and
coyotes. Renardo’s father was, for some
time, a taxidermist, and quite a talented one.
He would often pay friends, or even total strangers, to hunt for
specific game and bring him back a portion of their results. Although taxidermy was not a living by any
means, people paid huge sums of money for the apparently flawless quality of
his work. Most of his creations now
served as ornamental background pieces in classy hotels and restaurants across
California, but some of his later work was on display in Renardo’s dining
room. As the young man looked carefully
at each mount, he recalled the time his father had given him a taxidermy piece as
a gift.
“Hey Renardo,”
the voice came to him, as clear as it had been many years ago. “Hey, do you mind putting that on pause for a
sec?”
“This game
doesn’t really pause, Dad.” His eyes never left the television screen. “They just kind of made it that way. What’s up?”
“Well, I have a
gift for you. I mean, I don’t really
think you’ll like it too much. I know we
don’t see eye to eye on…well, most things.
And I know you don’t like the idea of animals being killed to serve as
decorations. But I thought you might, I
don’t know, find a spot for this somewhere.
Or at least keep it for memory’s sake.”
“What is it?”
Sitting on the edge of his bed and holding his controller, he glanced toward
the entrance of his room and noticed his father holding something white.
“It’s, um….Well,
you know my friend Stan? His dad was running this taxidermy store over in San
Francisco, but he passed away recently.
Now Stan loves hunting, but he doesn’t care much for taxidermy, so he
didn’t continue his dad’s business. They
had a big closing sale over there, and I picked up a few things. This right here is an arctic fox head, but
according to Stan, it’s only a model—not the real thing. And he said that if it was real, it was
acquired a while before arctic foxes became endangered, as his father hadn’t
been to Iceland for years. Anyway, I
thought it was fitting for you, with your name being what it is.”
Renardo finally
wrenched his eyes from the screen and looked at the fox head. It was hollowed out below the top portion of
the snout, its eyes were a light grey color surrounded by black marble, its
ears popped up from its tousled fur, and part of its coat reached down from the
back of its head. His father cleared his
throat. “Now obviously, it wasn’t really
made for mounting or anything like that.
And I know you’re fifteen and all, so I don’t expect you to wear it like
a hat, but—well, you could if you wanted to.”
“Yeah, cool,
Dad,” Renardo said to him, trying to some degree to feign interest. He continued to play his game. “Um…thanks.”
His father
smiled a warm, sad smile and set the fox head on his son’s bed. Then, without another word, he left the room.
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