“Animals” by Angie Ellis

Featured art: “Series 4 (Unknown Woman)” submitted anonymously

My camp chair is lopsided and my dad’s ranting about American politics again, stabbing the fire with a stick and gesturing wildly with his beer can. Warm foam sloshes onto the dust where wasps land, zipping away when his foot crashes dangerously close to their new food supply. It’s a warped episode of Planet Earth: drunk human, least likeable insect.

He tips the rest of the can into his mouth and opens another, barely pausing his monologue. My brother Sam sits near him, scrolling through his phone and tapping his foot in manic staccato. Every once in a while he leans his head back and looks at me with wide eyes. Kill me.

My poor dad—all riled up and nowhere to go. It’s Father’s Day and I’d agreed to a day at the campground, but only after his third ask, which, I’m aware, is nearly unforgivable. I also had to bribe my brother into taking a day off so he could join us. We really are the worst.

“Dad,” I interrupt him. “I think I’ll head to the river for a swim.” I get up and grab a towel. “Want to come?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” he says, sticking an extra beer in his shorts pocket.

I look at Sam, who’s drumming his fingers on his knee like he’s got somewhere else to be. He says he’ll stay behind to keep an eye on the fire, but I imagine him bolting as soon as we disappear down the path. My dad and I coming back to an empty site and a note—Gotta run! Let’s do this again, though.

So, me and my dad. Off we go, one of us in a straight line, the other not. I ask him about work. He makes birdhouses to sell at local markets, but it’s never quite panned out.

“People love them, they’re always saying they love them, but you know how it is, in the summer everyone’s broke and I always tell them—come back in the fall when you have money, then you have a birdhouse for the next year.”

I’m not buying his money in the fall theory but nod anyway. My dad stumbles over a root but pretends he didn’t.

“What about selling them online?” I say.

The problem is, I can’t afford to keep buying him groceries for the rest of my life. I suggest an Etsy shop, but he shrugs and says eh. This means he’ll stick to his current strategy.

At the river, he sloshes ankle-deep into the water. The sun is low and hitting the ripples in blinding, brilliant flashes. His feet are bone-white under the water, his toenails long and yellow. I throw off my shirt and run, diving in and letting the icy river rip the breath right out of my body.  My dad’s whooping when I surface.

“Look at you! Always the go-getter, Anna,” he yells, red-faced and holding his beer can above his head. To Anna, the go-getter!

He’s said this about me before, like he says Sam has a knack with people. Neither is even remotely true and I wonder if it’s carelessness or wishful thinking.

There’s no breeze, but he wobbles like some shift in the air is nudging him back and forth, his feet rooted in the pebbles beneath the water. I dip my head under, backwards so my hair floats away from my face. Dad’s going on about boycotting American products.

“You know French’s Ketchup is Canadian? Don’t buy that other stuff.”

“Heinz?”

“Yeah, Heinz.” His mouth curls and I know, from experience, that spit’s collecting in the corners.

“And that fucking Tropicana,” he yells.

I mean, I’m the one paying, so he’s kind of stuck with the off-brand that says something like, Tastes like oranges! I slip under again. The water fills my ears, a low and constant trickle, but I can still hear him. Just the inflection of his words, the bellowy rise and fall.

I rise up and take in a breath, then push my body out of the river and grab my towel. He chucks his can in the water as we walk away and I shake my head, but say nothing.

“What?” he says.

“It’s against the law. It harms wildlife.” He’s seen the pictures of turtles with straws up their bleeding noses, or slices in their flesh from torn cans.

“One fucking can,” he splutters. “Like one can’s gonna destroy the world.” His breathing is so loud and ragged I can nearly feel it on my neck. I speed up.

Back at the site I’m relieved to see Sam’s still around. He’s cleaning out his spotless car, but that’s how he is. Tidying his nest, shuffling, pecking, itching to leave. Whatever, I won’t bug him about it now. I just want to get through the day without a fight.

I drop a large chunk of wood on the fire and toss my wet towel over the beer cooler in a hopeful disguise. I know what comes next. My Dad is already circling the campsite, his mouth has taken on that shape, that curl, and his nostrils puff with each exhale. He nearly steams, overwhelmed by injustice, directionless in his fury. He’s going on about clinics and polls and weather patterns and Tropicana. His mind is a sad and helpless slur, and all he can offer is Canadian ketchup. You gotta stop watching the news, I’ve told him before. This is why I don’t have Twitter, I’ve said, arms out like I was the fullest realization of zen through ignorance.

But now, I’m cold and wet and have nothing helpful to say. I run my hands along the goosebumps on my arms and notice his sagging pockets. Somewhere along the walk back he finished the last beer, which was stealthy. I imagine the empty can, crushed and covered in ants, sitting under a bush. It’ll still be there in a thousand years. Someone will find it and think, those assholes— what a horrifying culture! then take it home in their flying car as a souvenir.

“You know who needs a gun,” my dad is saying, but he’s not philosophizing, he’s raging and I don’t like it. His eyes bulge as he stares at me, waiting for my response.

“Dad, let’s just relax for a bit.” I look at Sam, who’s standing, watching my dad with his hands in his pockets. He’s wary, but also tired of this scenario.

“Dad, you hungry?”

“No.” He waves me off and turns his back to me. His shoulders rise and fall, his back expanding and contracting with each breath.

“Hey, I forgot to show you this blue jay at my feeder last week. That one you made me? Look.” I step toward him, a bit to the side so he can see me out of the corner of his eye as I hold out my phone.

His body is slick with sweat and along the ridge of bones at the back of his neck, thick wiry hairs unfurl and stand at attention. He refuses to look, but I can see the bulge of his eyeballs, veiny and red. The thing is, a bull like my dad could crush a bird with one reckless step and not even know it. Maybe that’s why no one buys his birdhouses.

Sam takes my arm. “Let’s go.”

I shake my head but let him lead me anyway as my dad stomps his left foot down. He drags it through the dirt—once, twice, three times. As we get in the car we hear him exhale, low and snarling and brutal.

I watch the other campers as we leave—washing dishes in plastic bins, blowing tiny flames under twigs in their fire pits, reading, chatting, laying in hammocks. I think of my bed, soft and used to my shape, and the spinach pizza I have in the freezer. I’ll watch reruns of The Office, avoid the news, fall asleep early. I’ll try not to think of my dad’s lonely rage and drunken offerings. I hope he can sleep well enough tonight. I hope he can forget, for a moment, how useless we all really are. But he’s not like me. He’s incapable of retreat.

“Do you feel bad?” I ask Sam. “Leaving him like this?” I can tell, by the distance in his eyes, that he’s already back at work, or jogging, or cooking for Carla, or water-skiing, or power washing his driveway…

He shrugs. “What else were we supposed to do?”

And I feel my shoulders hunch and my spine curve, hard and encompassing. I’m pulled inward, but before I’m completely tucked away in my shell, I thank Sam for coming.

“Stay in touch,” I say, but he won’t. He pats my hand, twitchy and ready to take off, and I know it’ll be a while before we all cross paths again.

Angie Ellis lives on Vancouver Island, where she recently finished her first novel. You can find her work in Narrative, The Cincinnati Review, Grain, The Fiddlehead, and others. She is grateful to have been awarded grants from both Canada Council for the Arts and BC Arts Council. www.angieelliswriter.com