Call It Dog by Marli Roode

Author:Marli Roode [Roode, Marli]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857899460
Publisher: Atlantic Books

I laugh, knowing he wants me to. We’re standing halfway across the bridge on the narrow hard shoulder. A truck speeds by behind us, honking.

‘How much would you pay me to take a piss from here?’ my father asks, leaning out over the guardrail.

The forest on one side of the ravine is blackened. Even the rocks are scorched. I wonder how they kept the fire away from the road.

‘Feeling better?’ I didn’t count the empty, crushed cans of beer in the back seat; only four of them were mine, and I knew he’d carried on long after I’d fallen asleep.

‘What?’ He straightens. ‘Ja, sorry. I felt like a dead dog’s asshole this morning.’

I point at the empty trees. ‘For the veld fire project?’ I ask. Last I knew, he was planning to put together a book of photos of wildfires as some sort of political comment. He’ll like that I’ve remembered, that I called it a project.

‘Nah, I’ve given up on that idea.’ He slides his sunglasses from his nose and hooks them onto his shirt.

‘Why?’ I ask. ‘I thought that was the plan.’

‘What’s the point?’ He shrugs. ‘What can art show you that you can’t see in the shops or on TV?’

‘Who are you quoting?’

He reaches out and ruffles my hair. I duck my head, and he takes his hand back to the guardrail, looking at it as though it were a naughty dog that was supposed to wait outside the post office for him but had run off to watch rotisserie chickens instead.

He leans forward on his elbows and looks down. ‘Do you remember when we came out here last time?’ He looks away, I can’t see where. ‘That was one of the best weeks of my life.’

A car passes behind us in the middle of the road. My skirt moves in its slipstream. ‘It was just after she died.’

‘Ja, no, of course,’ he says, straightening. He spits his gum into his hand and drops it into the ravine. ‘It would be so easy for you to push me,’ he says, turning to face the road. ‘Here – I’ll make it easy for you.’ He stands against the guardrail, his arms held out at shoulder height. ‘All your problems would go away.’

I step back into the road. ‘I’m not gonna push you.’

‘Come on,’ he says, leaning back. ‘You won’t even have to push very hard. I promise I won’t fight it.’

‘No.’ A jeep speeds by in the far lane. The driver shouts at me but I can’t make out the words over the noise of the engine.

‘I’m ready.’ My father closes his eyes. ‘Do it!’ he shouts.

I wait. There are cars coming, on this side of the road. They’re already honking their horns.

My father opens his eyes, lowering his arms. ‘Chicken.’ He smiles.

I wait, the cars just fifty yards away. This isn’t part of my plan, but it’ll work.

‘Get out of the road, you moron,’ he says, stepping forward to grab my shirt and pull me back onto the hard shoulder as the car speeds past behind me, the driver leaning on the horn.

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