Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events by Kevin Moffett Page A

Floyd’s.”
    â€œMaybe someone’s playing a joke on Gar Floyd.”
    â€œMaybe. And maybe we’re all clowns in a giant circus.”
    â€œMaybe.”
    The other mechanic came in from the garage and whispered something to the old man, who said, “Christ,” and stood up with his sandwich. They walked outside. Tad followed them behind the station, where, in a packed-dirt clearing, Jeff was stooped over the picked carcass of what looked like a turkey. When he saw the three men, his front shoulders went rigid and he took the carcass’s spine in his mouth, waiting, it appeared, for a reason to run away with it.
    â€œHe acts like we don’t feed him,” the younger mechanic said.
    The old man breathed through his nose. “He’s not acting like anything, Lon. It’s instinct. He’s made to think every meal’s his last. It’s how he survives.”
    â€œI bet he’d bite me if I tried to snatch it from him.”
    â€œWhat would you do if someone tried to take away your last meal?”
    Tad had the feeling that this exchange had occurred before, perhaps hundreds of times. After a while, Jeff relaxed and began gnawing at the carcass, crunching the bones ostentatiously.
    â€œStranded in Bisbee,” the old man said finally, continuing to admire his dog and eat his sandwich. “That could be a hit song. It’d be sad, but not too sad.”
    â€œSomething’s wrong with this place,” Tad said. It was one of those things that he didn’t know he was going to say until he said it. “We were happy till we got here.”
    â€œWhat rhymes with Bisbee?” the old man said.
    â€œFrisbee,” the other mechanic said.
    Tad waited for something else to happen. The old man bit so close to the wax paper that Tad was sure he was going to take a hunk out of it, but the old man knew, apparently he knew, what he was doing.
    T ad and Amy had dinner in town. He ordered a buffalo burger, because he thought it might make things more exciting, but it didn’t. The way the waitress handed him the plate and said, “Here’s your buffalo,” and then later, “How’s your buffalo?” and then, “How was your buffalo?” depressed him. He felt like a baby with a toy. A man at a nearby table said to the young boy across from him, “Pretty soon you’ll get to sleep in a bulldozer. How’s that sound?”
    The boy seemed suspicious but interested.
    Amy smiled from time to time to let Tad know their mutual silence was okay. The smile was a token that stood for something to say. It reminded him of the edge of a curtain being lifted and let go.
    A group of waiters came out of the kitchen singing “Happy Birthday.” One of them presented a single-candled cupcake to the boy, set a coffee filter atop his head, and told him to make a wish. The boy kept his eyes shut a very long time, then, all of a sudden, his face came alive again and he blew out the candle.
    Tad said, “I keep thinking of that stupid commercial that goes, ‘If this hammerhead stops moving, he dies.’ ” He tossed a napkin over his half-eaten burger. “It’s probably not even true.”
    Amy looked at him solemnly and said, “There is so much we don’t know about the hammerhead.”
    They laughed and then it was quiet again.
    â€œFor my birthday one year,” she said, “my dad gave me The Odyssey , the children’s version . There’s a part where Odysseus returns home disguised as a shepherd to claim his wife. His dog is old and blind, but he sniffs him and immediately recognizes him. I loved that part. That’s what I always thought my husband would be like.”
    â€œLike Odysseus,” Tad said.
    â€œNo,” Amy said. “Like his dog.”
    They waited for the check. Tad took Amy’s hand and kissed it, inhaling the brackish sea smell of zinc oxide. She brushed crumbs off his