NATHAN DIXON

King of the Wild Frontier

I saw your freckled body wading into silver water.  Saw you turn, and wave a hand at me.  Then something bit my face—was already biting—needle teeth digging into my forehead and cheek, hot chuff on my eye.  Alive.  I was confused.  But, considering the situation, much too calm.  Incapable of feeling?  You had disappeared, of course.  And after a moment, I figured I should try to do something about the situation.  But my hands were very heavy, and almost as soon as I reached for the cusped mouth, I gave up.  The teeth were too sharp.  It would take too much effort.  You always said I lacked ambition.  But—as one does in these situations—I rallied.  Chastised myself for my apathy, reached up again to attempt the impossible.

I found a silky hand on my forehead, and, distracted by how soft and little it was, I fell to stroking it, forgetting that the jaws of its owner were latched about my face.  So soothing I almost fell asleep.  The room was almost purple.  Stroking the nimbus of slim bones wrapped in velveteen—alive—I remembered your feet in my hands, alive.  Remembered you on the sand in the moonlight.  But—I reminded myself as I dozed off—no one wants to fall asleep with an animal biting his face. 

So I roused myself from my floating near-slumber.  And attempted again to dislodge the jaws, edging my fingers carefully between the pointy teeth.  Afraid of puncturing my skin—you always said I was a sissy—I pried halfheartedly at the mouth, my arms out like chicken wings.  And again, I gave up as soon as I’d begun.  More self-scolding followed, then another attempt.  And another.  This went on for some time.  I could say something about a clock ticking on the wall or a whippoorwill outside the window—about crickets chirping or thrumming cicadas—but there weren’t any.  Just the hot rasp on my eye—yellow panting, sour-sweet.  I could feel a heartbeat in that breath.  A lurch behind the lungs, something needing to be said. 

Every time I gave up, I thought of you.

Eventually, I reached out for the silky hand again—perhaps for some sort of encouragement.  But, not finding it on my forehead—and suddenly spurning my own desire for comfort—I grabbed the jaws once more.  Disregarding the pointy teeth this time—you would have been so proud—I snatched open the mouth, my fingers puckered with pain, and stood.  And stared wide-eyed at a fat raccoon, dangling like a hooked fish from my hands.  Bright pelt aglow in the glassed window light.  Glistening horrendous like the fur on Apollo’s belly.  We read Rilke once, didn’t we? 

I threw it across the room as hard as I could.  And it thumped into the wall—hard—and slid lifeless to the hardwood.  Road-kill on the bedroom floor. 

Not wanting to touch it, but knowing I couldn’t just leave it there, I retrieved a hockey stick from downstairs. 

But of course there was no way to find my room again.  You always said I was bad with directions.  I realized I had not killed the raccoon when I saw it scamper into the salmon-glow of the bathroom.  Who was I?  To think I was capable of killing a raccoon.  Davy Crockett?  Daniel Boone?

No sir.  There, atop the vanity, in front of the backsplash of pink tile, the little critter bobbed its head and grinned at me.  Standing on its hind legs, its greasy arms gesticulating, its dark, dexterous hands jazzy.  Did it want to play a game?  I swung the hockey stick at it, but I think I purposefully missed.  Just like I did out on the San Juan Isles when I threw rocks at that raccoon that stole our marshmallows.  Remember?  Rocks plunking wide as it swam into the Pacific trailing dollops of sugared starlight.  Leaving us with nothing but chocolate and graham crackers and forked sticks.  The fire flicking hot shadows on the sand.  Do you remember?  You turned—firelight on your freckled face—and said through the smoke that the thing reminded you of me.  I threw rocks into the water.  Plunking wide.  Oh well, you said.  Oh well.  Oh well. 

So again.  And again, I swung and missed, knocking the toothbrush into the toilet bowl, the soap dish onto the floor.  The raccoon hopping up and down, laughing at me.  Like a game of whack-a-mole, but there would be no splurge of tickets here.  No bright lights loud in this arcade.  No prizes for a pretty girl.     

I finally gave up.  You always said I lacked ambition.  Finally gave up and shrugged my shoulders at the masked critter, who seemed immediately to understand.  Seemed, in fact, to shrug his own shoulders in rapport before he dropped to all fours and leapt from the vanity into the hallway.  Down the staircase to the front door, more or less ambivalent about me walking behind him.  Shooing him along with the hockey stick, allowing me to believe I was actually doing something, though I suspected—all along—it was a ruse. 

In the yard, my students stood clapping.  Clapping in the silver spool of lunar light.  The raccoon turned and waved after he trotted down the stoop-steps into the grass.  Do you remember the halfmoon in the northwest sky?  Hanging above the islands?  Like an island itself?

There were silver streamers in the trees, a piñata with its gut busted, a puddle of candy on the grass below it.  No one seemed to care.  I waved back at the raccoon like a fool.  Before I felt the blood dripping down my face and remembered the bite.  Rabies calls for seven shots in the belly.  We both loved songs of seventh sons. 

I remembered turning back toward the island beach.  Toward the lambent clucking of our dying fire.  As you backstroked toward the moon—giving languid chase—the waves lapping silver on your thighs.

Nathan Dixon is pursuing a PhD in English Literature and Creative writing at the University of Georgia. His creative work has appeared or is forthcoming in Tin House, The Georgia Review, Queen Mob's Teahouse, Crab Orchard Review, North Carolina Literary Review, Northern Virginia Review, and Penn Review among others. His one act play "Thoughts & Prayers Inc." was chosen by National Book Award Winner Nikky Finney as Winner of the Agnes Scott College Prize. His critical/academic work has appeared in Transmotion and in Renaissance Papers, where he previously served as assistant editor. He co-curates the YumFactory reading series in Athens, Georgia.