here - Jersey Devil Press

sitting most days on the couch and drinking beer and watching old
TV programs and not working and living instead off the check that
came once per month on account of Daddy having originally hurt
his back on the job.
A streak of luck, Daddy called that.
And Aldan Jr. set up in the newly empty shed a kind of
museum for his art — the animals he’d resurrected, created — and
over time the museum got plum-full of the little beasts and word
got out and people from around and up in town, mostly cousins
but others as well, heard about Aldan Jr.’s work and would drop
by and ask to have a look inside the shed. When most anyone
walked in that shed and saw what Aldan Jr. had been up to, they
were completely thrilled with it all, tickled pink, and for the life of
me I at times just could not understand it. I mean, as much as
anyone I held a soft spot for my brother, the time and skill that he’d
put into his work, and I was often amazed by the absolute, uncanny
knowledge of skeletal anatomy that he seemed to have simply
earned with birth. But to me, with all those bones, that old shed
was just like a graveyard turned inside-out and I could not for my
own life fathom why anyone would want to spend a second in
there, let alone Aldan Jr., four years younger than I.
Over time, as Aldan Jr.’s collection kept on growing, all the
attention it stirred started, I believe, to go to my little brother’s
head. The sculptures — he’d learned that word at school and that’s
what he called them now — became both more frequently
constructed and, more often than not, larger in their undertaking.
One of his most-proud moments, I remember, was the unveiling of
his six-legged coyote — he claimed coyote, but I was fairly certain
it was just a regular old dog — to our family. Us all standing in the
open doorway of the shed with the evening sun coming down and
spilling over us, the coyote was almost aglow as if the bones had
been heated by fire or, more likely, the thing had just crawled out
from the burning depths of hell.
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