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113 Mar­ tin Hyatt Iusu­ ally don’t admit it. But some­ times I miss him. Some­ times I ­ really miss my ­ father. I don’t know why I feel em­ bar­ rassed to say that. Maybe be­ cause I’ve al­ ways pre­ tended that it has not mat­ tered to me that I ­ didn’t have him for long. And that it never mat­ tered to me that even when he was here, he was only half here. On the Oc­ to­ ber day he died, he was help­ ing build a house for one of Huey ­ Long’s for­ mer body­ guards. My ­ mother was in the ­ kitchen shred­ ding let­ tuce for roast beef po’ boys when we got the call. Until the call, it was just an­ other day, ­ around four ­ o’clock after ­ school. Ap­ par­ ently a short while ear­ lier, he had said, “Oh, God, here it comes,” and ­ dropped dead of a heart at­ tack. I was ­ eleven. j I spent many of the sum­ mers after my ­ father died fly­ ing ­ through the woods on ­ three-wheelers with my cou­ sin Terry. We would spend the days rid­ ing and sweat­ ing ­ through the Loui­ siana heat. And we would cool off in the pond. I never was much of a swim­ mer, but I liked being in the water. We ­ stayed out late at night, sneak­ ing out and roam­ ing the­ gravel and dirt roads and open ­ fields of Uncle ­ Hezzy’s nur­ sery. How to Skin a Deer Martin Hyatt 114 On those ­ nights, some­ times with other ­ friends, we would lie out on the flat­ beds of ­ trucks and stare at the moon, talk­ ing about girls and es­ cap­ ing in ­ eighteen-wheelers or air­ planes. Sev­ eral sum­ mers later, I would get ­ braver and get on a bus ­ headed west. But at that time, I was con­ tent just to dream of break­ ing free. One day, while we were speed­ ing on a ­ three-wheeler, we came ­ across some of ­ Terry’s un­ cles. I could smell it be­ fore I saw it. There was a huge deer hang­ ing from a tree. And they were clean­ ing it. The deer was sort of all over the ­ ground and weigh­ ing down the tree at the same time. I had never seen any­ thing like it. I had never seen a deer so big or an an­ i­ mal so dead. And I had never seen men and boys con­ nect the way those guys were con­ nected. Even ­ though there was ten­ sion in that fam­ ily, the same way there is in most, in that mo­ ment they ­ seemed so ­ united. There was peace. And I ­ didn’t under­ stand ex­ actly what was hap­ pen­ ing, why they would kill such a beau­ ti­ ful deer, why they had to rip it more apart af­ ter­ ward, why I ­ couldn’t truly be part of this group. And it made me angry at my ­ father, that he ­ hadn’t ­ taught me about all of this, about any of this. That he ­ hadn’t ­ taught me how to hunt. How my uncle Ray­ mond had to be the one to teach me how to fish and how to trawl for ­ shrimp. How my shop ­ teacher had to teach me how to use a saw even ­ though my ­ father was a car­ pen­ ter. I ­ couldn’t under­ stand why he had not ­ taught me how to skin a deer. j When I was nine and ten years old, my ­ father ­ bought me a type­ writer. He ­ bought me a dif­ fer­ ent one two years in a row. Those were big Christ­ mases be­ cause he was ac­ tu­ ally work­ ing or had got­ ten some money from the VA. Those years, ­ besides the Sears type­ writer, I got a pin­ ball ma­ chine and a hand­ held elec­ tronic NFL foot­ ball game too. The ­ kitchen table was where every­ thing hap­ pened in our house: food, poker games, ­ fights, laugh­ ter, sad­ ness. And my ­ father would play­ Porter Wag­ oner and Lefty Friz­ zell. And as “A Satis­ fied Mind” ­ poured out of the speak­ ers, I would sit in one of the ­ chairs at the table and type away. I would ­ create and ­ re-create sto­ ries. I would write story se­ quels to The...

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