Calling Home by Michael Cadnum

with a paper towel. My father was quiet while he wiped his hands, too, even though I sensed that he was still hungry. The light over the kitchen table was so bright that it was difficult to see the rest of the house. It was all semidarkness, but I knew that there was nothing to see. It was a fairly new house, carpeted with expensive beige plush, but with very little furniture aside from a television and a stack of stereo components. A single chair hulked in the semidark, facing the dead TV screen, and the chair did not look like a chair so much as a scoop, a tilted cup for my father to sit in when he wanted to watch a football game.
    My father folded our paper plates together and stuffed them into a paper bag under the sink. He rinsed the silverware and dropped it into a rack in the dishwasher. He wrapped aluminum foil around the lopped chicken carcass and put it on an otherwise empty shelf in the refrigerator. He took a package of chocolate cookies from the cupboard and fought the cellophane. Utensils rattled in a drawer as he found a long, thin knife and slit the package.
    He lay the ruptured package between us on the table. “What I’m saying is,” he said, selecting a cookie, “that I have come to a point in my life. You never think it will happen to you, but it does. You reach a crossroads and you absolutely must decide what to do with your life. If you ignore the crossroads, or if you decide not to decide, well, that’s a decision, too, a decision to be less of a man.”
    I bit into my cookie. It was too sweet, a punishing chocolate burst that hurt my saliva glands. I coughed the cookie down.
    My father poured us each some milk. He nudged the glass toward me like it was the gift of life. He licked chocolate crumbs from his front teeth and took a long swallow of milk. He squirged the milk around in his mouth, looking at me while he did it, then swirled it over his front teeth so that I expected him to spit it out.
    â€œSo I reached this point,” he said. “And I realized that I should do something to help you. I don’t think your mother has what it takes to really be a parent to you at this point in your life. Or her life.”
    I wanted to defend my mother, but realized that my father was not a real threat. He was tired of my mother, he didn’t like her, but he wouldn’t hurt her.
    â€œWe get along all right. She has a lot of imaginary fears about me.”
    â€œEvery parent has fears about their child winding up in jail.”
    â€œThere are worse things that could happen.”
    He looked at me with a little surprise. “Maybe. The point I want to make is: I want to help.”
    â€œMother makes up stories to tell you. She’s just trying to make you feel bad.”
    â€œShe doesn’t have to work very hard at it. I do feel bad about how I’ve treated you, and I want to make it up to you. If you moved down here, you’d find it a lot more fun. You could have a car.” He waited for a response. “A car. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? And a stereo of your own.”
    I bit into another cookie.
    â€œThese are things that would lift you out of a dismal life in the middle of a crummy town, and put you right into a life of—well, not luxury, but at least—”
    â€œOakland is not a crummy town.”
    â€œOh, Christ. Don’t give me Oakland; I grew up there. There are worse cities, but it’s basically a dull, wasted city full of Chinese and blacks. Now, I have no fight with minorities; minorities are what this country is all about. But after your window gets jimmied a half-dozen times, or the third or fourth old person gets stomped by some kid on welfare, well, it makes you think maybe you don’t want your child growing up in that kind of environment.”
    â€œYou’re afraid it will rub off on me.”
    He looked at me like he was an alley dog and I was a hambone juicy with fat. “I think it already