To Believe in Resurrection

By Jennifer Cochran

Really, it’s the only mercy, that when one begs, the other gives. Only, there never seems to be enough to go between them, save the incessant scratching and prayers for sleep, every hour made more full with the indignity and intensity of their helpless bodies, both so desperately wanting for a certain kind of comfort, simple comforts that they both should have. Hence, three times a day, the boy makes sure the dog is relieved, taking him out whether he wants to go or not. Yet, when the boy wants to go, he often holds it in, literally holding onto himself, for shame of the circumstances.

His mother called the landlord. That was Tuesday. Still, the toilet isn’t fixed.

You can push the handle. You can push it as much as you want. His own father tried over and over, kneeling over the stench filled bowl, with all that American blood rushing to his face, he gasped in disgust, whimpering, “To know the kin inside out is a most awful sin.” The boy remembers his father saying that. He remembers his father’s painful face, the lines, the veins, that look. His father. The young boy hasn’t seen him since that day but he still remembers. So, the boy holds onto himself and, at night, holds onto the dog, promising that he’ll teach the dog everything a dog should know. By now, to the boy’s delight, the mutt gives paw, fetches and barks at command. The only thing left to teach him is how to roll over and play dead. That is, after all, the toughest thing to teach a domestic animal. Surprisingly, though, the boy almost got the pup to do it . If only his mother hadn’t looked in on them that evening, saying, “your father seems to know how to do that better than any damn smelly dog. So maybe you should stop what you’re doing and send that dog out to find him.”

It wasn’t her fault. The day before the car engine ceased. She and the boy went to see if it could be fixed. She told the mechanic it absolutely must be fixed. It was the only thing they had left. His mother proceeded to beg, actually begged for it to be fixed. Her lament was made so adamant that the owner of the repair station overheard her. Just a few feet away, he was talking to a young apprentice. While laughing , he said, “See, I told you, only the poor are stupid enough to believe in resurrection. Can’t that woman comprehend that the car is as dead as a doornail? It ain’t never going to work again...”

The tender boy didn’t understand all the words exactly, but he understood his mother’s face, that look. His mother. He thought about it that very night, about people referring to the car as being dead and about his mother saying his father was playing dead. It all started to make a strange and sad sort of sense. Yes. He could almost taste it in his dog’s hot, fetid breath. For the rest of his life he would be poor. That’s what that man said. Poor. That’s the word. That’s the fate. You can press the handle as much as you want; it doesn’t change anything. The only hope, at best, is for a sort of rude compassion, the kind the boy feels when the dog begins to lick the tears and dirt from his face, a sweet face that doesn’t yet realize the dog is only responding to his own immediate sense of hunger.