Spring 2016
Mercy
by Charles Ramsay McCrory
photograph by Lanier Doty
from A Day in Water Valley
from A Day in Water Valley
My sister, Roxie, calls from Miami. Dad’s killed his iguana, and she gives me three guesses how.
“Did he overfeed it?” I ask. “Give it bad water?”
“You’re making it sound like an accident,” she says.
“You didn’t tell me it wasn’t.”
“My bad,” she says. “Strike those guesses from the record.”
I think for a moment. “Dad’s a Buddhist,” I say. “He wouldn’t buy a gun.”
“You’re trying to guess without guessing.”
“Fine. Did he shoot it?”
“No. But Dad does own a gun now, just for the record.”
“Did he drown it?”
“Nope.”
“He didn’t...slit its throat?”
“God, no! That’s something I would do.”
You don’t lose anything from failing all three guesses. The desire to know just mounts, along with the stubborn desire not to be told. I stall by asking why Dad would want the iguana dead in the first place.
“He said it was getting too familiar. Jumping in his lap, scratching around under the couch, trying to climb in bed with him.”
“You’d forgive a dog that,” I say, but I understand. I’ve never had much sympathy for reptiles, or the people who love them. When David left, he called me cold-blooded.
“You there?”
“What?”
“I said he put it in the freezer.”
“The freezer?”
“Apparently it’s the most humane way to do it. They go into hypothermia and fall asleep."
I remember the big freeze last winter. All across South Florida iguanas fell rigid from the trees, like some Mosaic plague. On his way out, David tried to pick one of their carcasses off our driveway so he wouldn’t run it over. The animal jerked back alive at his touch, reanimated by the warming asphalt.
“How are you, anyway?” asks Roxie. “I thought, strangely, this might cheer you up.”
“I’m all right,” I say, digging in my fridge for a beer. Somehow her story disturbs me more than all the zombie iguanas of last winter. Iguanas don’t belong in South Florida. They hitchhiked here from Mexico, the Amazon basin. Skulking around the canals and backyards, chomping people’s hibiscus, they deserved what they got. But Dad chose that iguana as his own, took it into his home. He was all it had in the world.
“Please send my condolences,” I say as I hang up. I take my beer out the sliding door and stretch out in a lawn chair to warm myself up.
“Did he overfeed it?” I ask. “Give it bad water?”
“You’re making it sound like an accident,” she says.
“You didn’t tell me it wasn’t.”
“My bad,” she says. “Strike those guesses from the record.”
I think for a moment. “Dad’s a Buddhist,” I say. “He wouldn’t buy a gun.”
“You’re trying to guess without guessing.”
“Fine. Did he shoot it?”
“No. But Dad does own a gun now, just for the record.”
“Did he drown it?”
“Nope.”
“He didn’t...slit its throat?”
“God, no! That’s something I would do.”
You don’t lose anything from failing all three guesses. The desire to know just mounts, along with the stubborn desire not to be told. I stall by asking why Dad would want the iguana dead in the first place.
“He said it was getting too familiar. Jumping in his lap, scratching around under the couch, trying to climb in bed with him.”
“You’d forgive a dog that,” I say, but I understand. I’ve never had much sympathy for reptiles, or the people who love them. When David left, he called me cold-blooded.
“You there?”
“What?”
“I said he put it in the freezer.”
“The freezer?”
“Apparently it’s the most humane way to do it. They go into hypothermia and fall asleep."
I remember the big freeze last winter. All across South Florida iguanas fell rigid from the trees, like some Mosaic plague. On his way out, David tried to pick one of their carcasses off our driveway so he wouldn’t run it over. The animal jerked back alive at his touch, reanimated by the warming asphalt.
“How are you, anyway?” asks Roxie. “I thought, strangely, this might cheer you up.”
“I’m all right,” I say, digging in my fridge for a beer. Somehow her story disturbs me more than all the zombie iguanas of last winter. Iguanas don’t belong in South Florida. They hitchhiked here from Mexico, the Amazon basin. Skulking around the canals and backyards, chomping people’s hibiscus, they deserved what they got. But Dad chose that iguana as his own, took it into his home. He was all it had in the world.
“Please send my condolences,” I say as I hang up. I take my beer out the sliding door and stretch out in a lawn chair to warm myself up.
May 5, 2016
ESSAYS | FICTION | SPRING '16
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Charles Ramsay McCrory is a senior English major and Gender Studies minor. His writing has received the 2015 Mississippi Review Prize for fiction and the Ella Somerville Award in fiction, and has appeared in Gargoyle Magazine, The Cossack Review, and Plain China: Best Undergraduate Writing.
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