” There was an erotic painting of ducks bursting breastily out of a bush hanging over the bed, which he took a long moment to appreciate. The bedspread was patterned with a melancholy design of bare branches and puddles of despondent mud, to remind us of how much everything was going to die someday. “Especially deer,” my father whispered to himself with visible anticipation. He felt this was where he belonged, on an icy brown afternoon when the sky looked like rain, or snow, or doom. He was participating in an age-old ritual, where a boy becomes a man and a man becomes a psycho.
