2092 Words

Mama calls me every week since I moved away to give me news and the weekly body count.
The big news for the past few weeks has been the return of my cousin Ben.
Ben never married, and spent most of the last decade in California making his fortune in the technology industry. He’s always been the smartest one of us, and he cashed out of the market before the bubble burst.
“Molly, this can’t go on forever. First law of physics and the markets, what goes up must come down.”
“Really? I thought it was buy low sell high.”
“ Same thing.”
So he converted most of his stocks to real estate. He’s not entirely made of money, but at last count was hovering somewhere around 97%. But he never liked the west coast, so he moved home about a month ago and bought an old farm just outside of Reynolds.
“He’s decided to raise goats, Moll.”
“Well, Mama, that’s his right.”
“They’re goats. He’s got 6 females, and one of them had a baby boy goat.”
“A baby boy goat?”
“Yes.”
I paused, considering the implications of goats. Finally, I said, “Well, what did he name it?”
Mama didn’t miss a beat. “Otis.”
“So he’s got a baby boy goat named Otis.”
“He goes out to their little paddock… their… pen. And if he calls Otis, they all come running.”
“So he has seven goats named Otis?”
“No. Just the one is Otis.”
“But all the goats think their name is Otis.”
“Yes.”
“Do the other goats have names?”
“No. Just Otis.”
I wondered why the boy goat was the only one to get a name, but I didn’t press the issue. “So all of the goats are Otis.”
“No. Just the one.”
“But the others answer to Otis too.”
“Yes.”
“Right.”

Uncle Ricky was the first person I ever knew who died.
Mrs. Rose brought a chicken pie and a banana pudding that I thought was about the best thing I’d ever eaten. While everyone else cried and talked about how tragic it was that Ricky had gone that way, I sat at Nonny’s kitchen table and spooned whipped cream and custard and bananas and Nilla wafers into my mouth, itching and worrying at my Sunday dress.
Nonny came into the kitchen to answer the telephone, and when she hung up, she saw me at the table with the empty casserole dish that had contained the banana pudding.
“Molly, what have you done?” she asked.
I wiped my mouth and sat up straight. I hadn’t eaten the whole thing. Plant, the sock monkey, had eaten a share as well.
Nonny didn’t think it was very funny, and she seemed angry that Plant was kind of a messy eater. I tried to explain to her that everyone knows how much monkeys like bananas, and Plant really couldn’t be blamed for his actions.
She wasn’t interested in what Plant had done.
“That pudding was for everyone.”
I didn’t say anything.
“This is Uncle Ricky’s funeral. And you ate all the pudding that was for everyone,” she said.
I wished she would just send me out to the yard to get a switch, but she didn’t. She took Plant and put him in the laundry hamper. She spent the rest of the day not speaking to me.
A switch would have been better.


My cousin Ben was having some problems with young Otis.
“Neutered?”
“Yes. Billy goats smell and they’re mean. You have to keep them isolated from the rest of the goats,” he explained.
“Sounds like Otis is getting a crap deal. Six girly goats and there he is with his teeth in his mouth and no stuff. Wait. Do goats have teeth?”
“Yes they have teeth, and Otis is really friendly. You’d like him.”
“Ben, he’s a goat. I’m not going to go all gooey about a goat. Ooootis, the friendly goat. The friendliest goat I know….”
“It would be cruel to isolate him from people and from the rest of the goats.”
“Just saying how would you like it if somebody took your stuff away from you and then made you live with six women.”
“Goats aren’t like that Molly.”
“Sure they’re not. Godspeed, little Otis.”