The Dog and the Sea
Prologue
Carmody Rodgers finally hanged himself on a Sunday morning, from the half beams his wife installed in their living room the previous fall. The Rodgers family had a couple skinny, average looking trees adorning their front lawn, with limbs that looked too lazy to go on and stretch themselves out. That always bothered me. I would mentally compare the two fat trees in my own yard to theirs, and in my private competition, my trees always won. With this being said, I always had a slight fantasy buried deep within myself which included telling Carmody that his trees stood to no comparison and that he should replace them with sturdy ones, like the ones I owned.
He worked for my father for a while, Carmody did. He was always very pleasant, but very uninteresting and dry. Like a vanilla cookie, I used to think. Carmody Rodgers was a tired vanilla cookie of a man with a soft voice and enough worry lines to sketch out a map. It looked as though his youth was stolen from him by the early onset of a family. My parents mentioned his financial worries here and there. My father needed help filling papers and getting assorted licenses and whatnot, and in acts of sympathy, he always called upon the then-unemployed Carmody to aid him. I might've held a childish conversation out of a mutual politeness once or twice, but I was too young to actually remember it. Carmody died before I actually got to know him.
My first years of life were as contained as my parents could keep them. I was educated by the wise minds behind PBS and went to bed early so I could enjoy day to day outings with my mother. This innocence was a little spurred, though, when suicide came into play. Eighty five degrees at 10am was an already atrocious way to start off the day, but I sat outside and watched with quarter round eyes as a speeding ball of blue and red pulled into the Rodger's relatively unkempt driveway. My mother didn't try to shield me from this. She was still in her robe, too preoccupied on the phone with a girlfriend to notice that I was outside, even though she was looking right at me through the pulled livingroom curtains.
Carmody's family stayed in that house long enough to collect enough pity meals and floral arrangements to tide them all over before the insurance money was delivered. I used to be friendly with his youngest daughter Jamie, a crybaby with white blonde hair and a new scooter that I envied. When her dad killed himself, I found myself mad for not taking the initiative in being her friend. Maybe then, I thought, I would know exactly why he took the biggest plunge of all.
After a year and new occupants moved into the house, though, everyone just about forgot about the tragedy that bit into the early taste of that summer. My folks sure as hell didn't mention it in front of me. In fact, when I wrote about Carmody Rodger's death for a school paper in the 7th grade, I couldn't go out for an entire weekend because my turning it in legitimately offended them. They didn't want to raise an insensitive child, they told me. Kind of a mute point, don't you think?
He worked for my father for a while, Carmody did. He was always very pleasant, but very uninteresting and dry. Like a vanilla cookie, I used to think. Carmody Rodgers was a tired vanilla cookie of a man with a soft voice and enough worry lines to sketch out a map. It looked as though his youth was stolen from him by the early onset of a family. My parents mentioned his financial worries here and there. My father needed help filling papers and getting assorted licenses and whatnot, and in acts of sympathy, he always called upon the then-unemployed Carmody to aid him. I might've held a childish conversation out of a mutual politeness once or twice, but I was too young to actually remember it. Carmody died before I actually got to know him.
My first years of life were as contained as my parents could keep them. I was educated by the wise minds behind PBS and went to bed early so I could enjoy day to day outings with my mother. This innocence was a little spurred, though, when suicide came into play. Eighty five degrees at 10am was an already atrocious way to start off the day, but I sat outside and watched with quarter round eyes as a speeding ball of blue and red pulled into the Rodger's relatively unkempt driveway. My mother didn't try to shield me from this. She was still in her robe, too preoccupied on the phone with a girlfriend to notice that I was outside, even though she was looking right at me through the pulled livingroom curtains.
Carmody's family stayed in that house long enough to collect enough pity meals and floral arrangements to tide them all over before the insurance money was delivered. I used to be friendly with his youngest daughter Jamie, a crybaby with white blonde hair and a new scooter that I envied. When her dad killed himself, I found myself mad for not taking the initiative in being her friend. Maybe then, I thought, I would know exactly why he took the biggest plunge of all.
After a year and new occupants moved into the house, though, everyone just about forgot about the tragedy that bit into the early taste of that summer. My folks sure as hell didn't mention it in front of me. In fact, when I wrote about Carmody Rodger's death for a school paper in the 7th grade, I couldn't go out for an entire weekend because my turning it in legitimately offended them. They didn't want to raise an insensitive child, they told me. Kind of a mute point, don't you think?