Peaches

On the puffy couch, Helen sat in her pink bathrobe while her small dog Peaches snuggled into her soft plushy thigh. Helen was finishing a bowl of peanut butter ice cream, and entranced with the handsome figure of Alex Trebek on the TV. She savored the last spoon, turning it and pressing her tongue hard against the creamy cold. She liked Alex’s grey suit.

“American Lit for six hundred.” the young female contestant said.

“Ok….here’s the clue,” Alex replied, turning toward the large screen. His silver hair was handsomely groom, Helen thought.

“He dreamt of the lions, again.” Alex said assertively.

“OLD MAN AND THE SEA!” Helen barked from the couch, a full second before the contestant was able to utter the correct response.

“CORRECT!” Alex said enthusiastically. “Pick again. “

Helen squirmed. Alex was so cute. She thought about getting another bowl of ice cream.

“American Lit. Eight Hundred.” the contestant said.

“See, Peaches…”Helen said dreamily, stroking the ridiculously cute little six pounds of fur next to her. “I could be on Jeopardy.... to actually see Alex in person. I can’t even imagine….”

Peaches’ cute little face peered up and Helen stroked her fuzzy ears; the empty ice cream bowl rest upon her lap.

“Reaching for the green light.” Alex recited, with alluring masculinity.

“THE GREAT GATSBY!” Helen said excitedly, again a full second before the young contestant’s podium lit up.

The little dog lifted its head.

“Two in a row, Peaches! Momma’s on a roll!! “ She channeled her happiness toward the dog. “Awwww..My sweet little Peaches”. She said sweetly, pulling the dog closer. The dog responded with snuggle movement.

“ Awwwww ! My sweeeet witttle peeeechy-weeeeshez” Helen repeated in a high, baby voice. She placed her ice cream bowl in front of the dog, and with a long pink tongue, the cute little thing began licking the streaks of remaining cream with abandon. She made little licking noises that sounded like the slurps of some delicate, angelic, adorable entity.

A phone call from Helen's son, Jacob, interrupted the rest of the Jeopardy game. He had moved out to Eddyville a few months back and taken a position as a manager for a fertilizer firm.

" A shit supervisor, " Helen thought to herself amusedly. The job sounded remotely important to Helen, so she tried to be supportive. But, when her son told her he was moving two hours away with his fiancé Grace, and their six-month-old, Henry, her only grandchild, Helen felt gut shot. After all she had done...

Atop Helen’s mantle was Henry’s latest baby photo. He wore a little blue collared shirt and there was no doubting there was something odd about the shape of his head. Crooked. Sort of elongated, too. One might have thought a professional photographer could have used some lighting or background techniques to downplay the peanut-M-and-M shape of the small boy’s cranium. Maybe a wide angle would have been a better choice? The textured background only accentuated the crooked mass of the boy’s dome. Helen had never mentioned the slight deformity to her son. Secretly, she blamed Grace.

“It’s those small man-hips of hers,” Helen confided to a friend at the hair salon. “She done squeezed and clenched right in the middle of my poor grandchild’s skull as he was passing through. “

“Skinny hips huh?” said the large woman next to her.

“Skinny little thing she is. But, that boy’s a piece of sugar I tell ya.” Helen laughed lightly. “I hope in the Lord’s name that puberty will intercede, and his features will straighten out.” Under the hum of the large hair dryer, she privately imagined her grandson at the junior roller rink, skating couples with a girl who’s pig-tailed head bore resemblance to a globe or beach ball.

The call with Jacob wasn’t long. Her son blandly went on and on about his new job. Most of it hardly registered with Helen as she did the dishes. She had wanted to tell him the story about getting the wrong change at the gas station, but he didn’t even give her a second to chime in. After five minutes of Jacob rattling about his new job and “ supervisory responsibilities”, Helen heard Grace in the background.

“JACOB! ....Henry needs changed!” A screech. Nails on a blackboard.

“Oh my. That witch tone!”, Helen thought . That’s one thing she was going to talk to Henry about next time they were alone…why does Grace have to whine all the time?

“Gotta go mom.” Jacob suddenly said.

“When you coming to visit, honey?”, Helen asked hopefully.

“Uhhhhh” Jacob said, but in the background, Helen could hear Grace’s shriek.

“It’s RUNNING down his leg, Jacob!”

Voice like a cat getting skinned, Helen thought.

Jacob said, “Soon, mom. Gotta go. Love ya.” Click.

The dial tone hummed. Then Helen hung up, and stood for a moment watching a commercial that featured little golden, striped cats playing on fluffy pillows. She liked cats but didn’t like things that shit in the house. Peaches was good about that.

In Helen’s estimation, Jacob was whipped. Plain and simple. Like a limp pickle. She sometimes thought that maybe she had breastfed him too long.

“Maybe 15 months of titty milk made him soft.” That’s what her late husband, Tony, said drunkenly after Jacob was cut from the middle school wrestling team. Tony had been a philosopher of sorts.

Years later, when Jacob got engaged to Grace, Tony postulated:

“That’s what happens to boys when they nurse the nipple til their nine," he exaggerated and went on. " Some snake- face-skinny- hip bites 'em on the neck and controls them with cobra fangs.” After his four beers and two shots of Wild Turkey. Helen knew he was trying to be funny, but didn't laugh.

Secretly, however, Helen had agreed. Grace wasn’t exactly a snake-face, but Helen thought her tight-tops, push-up bras, and loads of lipstick were a bit too much for a engaged mother-to-be putting on. AND that tone of hers! Like the scalding of a hog!

A picture of Helen’s late husband also adorned the mantle. A lean man in a Navy uniform, he stood confidently leaning against a 46 Plymouth, and holding a black pug, their first dog- Mr. Kung Fu. Tony resembled the Jeopardy host with his handsome face. He had liked to wear nice suits, and often took Helen to nice dinners on Friday nights.

Like most evenings lately, Helen fell asleep in her chair with the TV on and Peaches snoring into her thigh. She woke with a start at the sound of a commercial for a monster truck event in the area. Engines revving. Echoed announcements blaring - “FRIDAY, FriDAy, FRIIIIIIIIDAAAAAY!!!” the endless, exciting commercial went on. Then a mpment of black silence and the news came on. In a grim tone, a stoic anchor began a horrific tale that made Helen sit up. Peaches snored.

“ A local man says his little dog was attacked by several coyotes in his own backyard….” The reporters eyes remained fixedly staring into the screen, which suddenly changed to a reporter on the scene.

A man in a blue blazer stared into the camera.

“Charlie Miller will never forget the piercing sounds their miniature schnauzer, Gabby, made yelping for help.” the field reporter stated. He was standing in front of a home that Helen thought bore some resemblance to hers.

The camera panned. The homeowner appeared on the screen. He seemed shook up; his eyes were wide.

“There was a coyote back here, and one over here, and one had her head. and one had her rump,” the homeowner said. He was smoking a menthol and his hair was disheveled, like he might have just been sleeping on a couch.

The reporter continued: “Miller described the scene he discovered in his front yard when he rushed outside.....”

Again, the newly-awake man appeared on the screen.

“I come out to have a smoke, and HOLY MOSES, I could not believe what I seen.”

Cut to reporter kneeling in yard.

“Miller found Gabby pinned down by two coyotes, a third one keeping a look out,” The reporter stated ominously pointing to a random spot in the grass.

The man with the cigarette was on the screen, again.

“I just ran toward them and yelled as loud as I could,” Miller said. He looked at the camera, held the menthol between his lips, and held his hands above his head like the wolfman. “I said ‘Get out of here!”, he laughed awkwardly. “Fortunately, they’re still scared of humans, evidently.”

The reporter resumed.

“The coyotes took off and Gabby ran back inside. The wild animals left a mark, their teeth puncturing through Gabby’s skin on her back and neck. With nearby construction of homes and condos, the Millers said the coyotes are being pushed out into people’s yards to forage for food, attacking pets like Gabby in the process.”

Messy-haired Miller appeared on the screen again.

“She was so scared she bit me,” Miller said, flicking an ash. “She was still in defense mode, and evidently they rolled her in the grass because she was soaking wet. The vet said she was one lucky little girl, coyotes usually do not leave victims behind.”

Miller's exhaled a large smoke cloud, punctuating his remark.

The weatherman came on next, but Helen could hardly pay attention to him. “That poor little dog!”, Helen thought. She stroked and picked up Peaches, giving her a kiss on the cheek. Then she turned out the light, and scooted to the bedroom in her slippers.

After a steady day of TV and phone calls, Helen fell into a deep sleep. Peaches slept beside her. Then toward morning, Helen had a dream that startled her awake.

She had dreamt that she was on the edge of a frozen pond, surrounded by dark, leaf less trees. Wind was howling and little dust devils of snow floated across a cracked, icy surface.

Suddenly, she noticed Peaches in the middle of the pond. She called to her but Peaches didn’t seem to hear. In the dream, Helen went to walk but found her legs frozen. As she looked up to Peaches again, she saw dark dog-like forms emerging from the far edges of the desolate pond. Coyotes moving toward her precious.

Then the ice beneath Peaches started to crack and, in the dream, Helen screamed but no sound came. Instead, dark branches rattled with ice , while the wild things howled. A moon swirled in vibrations above her. The wind began its own ominous chorus and when Helen looked again, she saw that the ice had cracked and Peaches was gone. Only a dark hole in the ice remained. The shadowy dog-forms howled into the darkness and s Helen suddenly then saw a misshapen object bobbing in the cracked hole. Her grandson Jacob! His large head was floating up and down in the midst of the cracked ice, and kept him buoyant. The coyotes moved toward him…”

Helen’s eyes opened. She sat up quickly and looked at the clock. It was four thirty in the morning, and she was covered in sweat. She reached out in the darkness and felt Peaches snoring gently beside her. Her heart settled but her mind reeled with sadness for a few moments in those early waking irrational minutes.

As she lay there recovering from her vivid dream, she decided that she would drive to the grain store that afternoon and buy some coyote repellent. Maybe she would put up some string and bells along the back fence, just to scare something off. The thought of poor Peaches being attacked was just too much.

The day passed and Peaches and Helen watched Jeopardy again. Helen scooped two bowls of ice cream this time and put one in front of the little dog. Alex was wearing a stunning dark blue suit with a red kerchief poking from the pocket. Helen had gotten five answers correct in the second round, including one daily double. She felt like she couldn’t lose. It was time for final Jeopardy:

Alex charmingly announced the final category- “Historic Americans”.

In the blue glow of the tv, Helen rest her arm upon the little ice-cream-licker beside her. She turned her spoon upside down in her mouth and savored the last creamy swirls of peanut butter and cream.

She watched. Alex begin to read the clue.

“Let’s just bet it all Peaches. Lets just bet it all...My little sweet peeeecchy wweeeechy.....”