By Jason Fisk
Women Seeking Men: I’m an 18-year-old female and I want to take a hit out on myself.
The Reply:
From: Joe Dolsen
To: Craigslist Ad: Women Seeking Men
Hey… Obviously, I’m responding to your ad on Craigslist. WTF? You want to take a hit out on yourself? I’m not saying NO, but I have been depressed and through some shit, too, if you want to talk before you do anything drastic. My name is Joe Dolsen. I’m 20 and not married – not that that matters – just want to help if I can. Email me: joeblackout3117@gmail.com.
Edna Barrett
When Edna was young, she thought her family was happy. Her father used to say that she was an exact copy of him. That delighted her. She loved her father more than anything she had ever loved. She tried to go with him whenever and wherever she could. On this occasion, she’d managed to be in his pickup truck driving along Highway Seven. The warm morning air passed freely through the open window, whipping her hair around her freckled eight-year-old face. They drove past a group of hunters who were loading up their camouflage flat-bottomed boat with oversized bags of duck hunting gear.
“You know why I don’t hunt anymore?” he asked. She shook her head. “I quit hunting when I got serious about your mother.” He looked over at Edna who had squared herself into the corner of the seat, angling away from the wind so she could hear his words. She squinted and nodded; errant wisps of hair flying wildly around her face.
“With her being a veterinarian tech and everything, and my loving her so much, it only made sense. You know, it broke my heart, seeing her face every time I brought home a dead duck. Good God, she really hated it when I killed deer.”
“That’s why we’re hunting with your camera now, right?” she asked, being well versed in this part of the story. “So you don’t have to kill animals, right?”
“That’s right,” he said and turned into the Carver County Forest Preserve. He put the old Chevy in park, and they climbed out and walked to the back of the truck. He lowered the tailgate and pulled out his green canvas bag filled with a camera, film, and other picture taking accoutrements. “You’re going to have to watch where you step, and make sure you don’t make any noise.”
“I’m so excited,” she said and clasped her hands.
“I’ve got a little surprise for you,” he said as he dug around in his bag.
“You do! What is it? What is it?”
“I thought you might want to snap some pictures, too,” he said and handed her a green and white disposable camera. “You press this button to take the photo. Every time you take one, you’ll have to advance the film here, like this. Roll it to the right. Got it?”
“I get it,” she said, taking the camera and looking through the viewfinder. She snapped a picture of a tree.
“Now, be careful ‘cause you can only take twenty-four pictures with that camera. Well, twenty-three now, so you’d best make ‘em all count.”
“Okay,” she said, examining the camera. She took a picture of her father’s back as he bent over the truck. “That one counted,” she said and smiled.
“I hope my backside didn’t crack your lens,” he said as he put the strap around his neck and snugged the bag over his shoulder. “Let’s go hunting,” he said.
They spent the entire morning hiking through the forest preserve, taking pictures of nature. Her dad liked to take pictures of all sorts of birds in trees and on the ground. Edna spaced out her pictures and had one left when they got back in the truck to go home. “Hey dad,” she said while he was driving.
“Yeah,” he said, looking from the road to her.
“I’ve got one picture left,” she said and smiled. He smiled back at her. She snapped the picture right at that moment. “Oh, that one is going to be good! Can we get these developed today?”
“We can drop ‘em off, but we can’t wait around to pick them up,” he said. “We’ll have to get ‘em tomorrow or something.”
“I’m so excited. That last picture was a good one,” she said and smiled.
Two days later, her father walked into the house and handed her a black and yellow envelope filled with the photos she had taken on the hike. She sat down on the couch and opened the envelope. “Look at these with me,” she told her dad and scooted over to make room for him on the couch. He plopped down beside her; his weight caused her to lean into him. She didn’t mind. She thumbed through the pictures, smiling at the shots of birds and squirrels she had taken. She hurried through the stack, looking for the picture of her father she had taken in the truck. It was the last picture in the pile. She went silent as she stared at the picture. It was a picture of her thumb. Tears welled in her eyes, waiting to fall. Her father laughed.
“What? That’s not funny,” she said. “It’s a picture of my thumb.”
“Come one. You gotta laugh at that. You thought you’d taken a great picture of me and come to find out it’s a great picture of your thumb,” he said. “Besides, it’s the only picture of me that I really like,” he said and smiled at her.
“Ha-ha,” she said sarcastically. He put his arm around her and gave her a hug.
Joe Dolsen: A gift from God
It was a Saturday morning, and Joe was awoken by the early-morning sun peeking between his shade and window. He climbed out of bed and went downstairs, thinking that he’d get a bowl of granola cereal and watch cartoons like he did most Saturday mornings. When he got to the kitchen, he saw his mom getting ready to walk out the sliding glass door. “Where are you going?” he asked.
“Oh, good morning, Joe. You’re up early. I’m going to weed the garden. You wanna to help?”
“I was going to watch cartoons,” he said.
“Okay. I’ll be out here if you need me,” she said and stepped out onto the deck and shut the door behind her. Joe got his cereal and went down to the basement to watch the small TV; the only one in the house. After he finished eating, he grew bored and wondered what weeding involved, so he went back upstairs and opened the sliding glass door. His mom heard the door open and looked back at Joe from the garden. “Is everything all right?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said, standing in his Star Wars pajamas. “I just wanted to say hi.”
“Go get your clothes on, and I’ll show you the food we’re growing,” she said. Joe obeyed and returned fully dressed. His mom gave him a tour of the garden, showing him the corn, the peas, the lettuce, the strawberries, and finally, the rhubarb plant in the corner of the garden. The sun had not completely cleared the roof of their house, so the garden was divided into the light half and the shaded half. Joe was surprised at how much he enjoyed being in the garden. He inhaled the rich smell of the soft soil below him. He felt dew from the leaves christen his shins as he walked between the rows of the corn.
“Okay. Let’s get to work,” his mother said and lowered herself to a squat at the edge of the lettuce. She had a red bandana tied over her head and her long black hair flowed out the back.
“When you find a weed, grab it by its base and pull. Try to pull the roots out, otherwise, it’ll grow back. It takes a gentle touch.”
Joe squatted next to her and pulled a piece of crabgrass from the garden row. “Like this?” he asked, holding the weed above his head as if it were a trophy.
“Excellent,” she said, taking the crabgrass from his nine-year-old hand and examining the dirty roots. She looked at him. “I had a dream about you the other night,” she said as she turned her attention back to the row of lettuce.
“What about?” he asked as he lifted the plant leaves, looking for weeds underneath.
“In my dream, I saw you. Only you were a grown man,” his mother said as she threw a pulled weed behind her.
“Really?” he asked.
“Yes, you were an important man. You were a diplomat and you spoke Russian.”
“A diplomat? What’s that?”
“That’s someone who meets with kings and foreign leaders as a representative of the President of the United States,” she said.
“Oh,” he said, trying to grasp the meaning of everything, sensing its importance.
“Do you want to know something else, Joseph?” Her voice dropped to a whisper and she stopped weeding. “That dream came from God.”
“From God?” he asked in awe.
“Yes, from God. He gave me a glimpse of how important you’re going to be when you grow up. I think he did that, so I’d do my best to raise you.”
“You really think I’m going to be important?” he asked, looking up at her touching a dirty finger to his chest. She nodded.
“After I had that dream, I prayed and I prayed, and after I prayed, I opened my Bible, and it fell open to Exodus. Exactly to the part where God was calling Moses to serve him and to free his people. That’s not a chance opening of the Book of God. It’s God telling me that my dream was real, and that it came from him. You, my son, are going to be a great man.” She began weeding again. He tried hard to remember the word diplomat; he knew it was going to be important because he was going to be important.
Then fear crept into his heart. I don’t feel special. Maybe it’s not supposed to be me. Maybe God made a mistake. Maybe Mother made a mistake. She’d be so sad, so disappointed, and it’d all be because of me. I’d be the reason she was sad, he thought.
His heart hammered hard. It was more than his young frame could handle. His teeth clenched. Then he yawned, gasping for air. His heart seemed like it was pushing out of his body; every booming beat, pushing against his rib cage. He didn’t know how to slow it down. He didn’t know what to do.
And then there were little pinpoints of darkness that pierced through everything he saw, and those dark pinpoints grew and joined each other, blossoming together until everything was black. His eye muscles released their hold on his eyeballs, and they rolled back into his head, and there was relief. It was peaceful. He was gone.
He didn’t know for how long, but he was gone. The next thing he knew, he was lying in the dirt, looking at the lettuce leaves hanging above him. He felt his mother on her knees next to him. She moved the leaves aside, and her face filled his world as she leaned over him. “Honey, are you all right?”
He saw fear in her eyes. She didn’t dare touch him. He heard worry in her voice.
“I’m okay,” he said.
“Surely, this is from God,” she said. “What are the odds of me telling you what God told me, and then you passing out. This is certainly a sign. Thank you, God!” She smiled and looked at the sun rising above the roof line. They sat in the row for what felt like an eternity. She wept. “Thank you, God, for this gift.”
Joe got up and wiped the moist dirt from his legs. His mother stared at him for a long time. She had to squint because the sun was so bright. “Wait right here,” she said. She went inside and returned with a bowl and a knife.
“What’s that for?” Joe asked. His imagination ran wild. He knew two things about his mom. One, she was deeply religious, and two, she was unpredictable. Is she going to collect my blood in the bowl and have some sort of communion with it? he wondered.
His mother saw his eyes grow wide. “Relax,” she said. “Follow me.” She took him to the rhubarb plant in the corner of the garden and cut a couple of stalks from the plant. They walked to the deck steps and sat down. “Put your tongue to this,” she said, holding out the stalk of the plant. He did as she did.
“Ewww,” he said. “It’s so sour,” he said. His mother laughed.
“Now dip it into this,” she said and handed him the bowl. It was filled with sugar. She mashed the base of her stalk into the sugar bowl and then ate it. Joe did the same. “See, isn’t that so much better? Isn’t that a treat?” she asked. Joe nodded. They finished eating their stalks and sugar.
“Are you going to help me finish weeding?” she asked, putting the bowl aside.
“Would you mind if I went inside and watched cartoons?” he asked.
“Not at all,” she said and turned her attention back to the garden. Joe watched as she dug her fingers into the earth and rooted out a piece of thistle and then moved on down the row, working from a graceful hunch. He went back inside to watch cartoons.
Related Feature: One Question: Jason Fisk
Jason Fisk lives and writes in the suburbs of Chicago. He has worked in a psychiatric unit, labored in a cabinet factory, and mixed cement for a bricklayer. He currently teaches language arts to eighth graders. He was born in Ohio, raised in Minnesota, and has spent the last three decades in the Chicago area.