Mr. Mittens by Charlie Pike

Dad didn’t shave for three months after the back left, All-Terrain tire of our 1998 Volvo Station Wagon rolled over the head of Mr. Mittens. It felt like a gourd, or a speed bump built for elf cars. As in elves drove them. As in the bump was small. We were headed to the beach. He parked the car and exhaled (both hands gripping steering wheel). Then he got out and went to the garage. Came back with a shovel and a black, XtraStrength trash bag. I cried into my beachball. Mom cranked the radio and stared out the windshield. 
The stain in the driveway is still there, ten years later. Or at least I can picture it when I go and visit Dad. Mom left, went to Albuquerque, or Dallas, or some place with cacti. She calls me, sometimes, when she’s five GinBlasters deep or her boss asks her for advice on undershirts, because his wife needs some, and Valentine’s Day is coming up, and would she mind showing him how hers fit her, so he could get a good idea? Because the mannequins just don’t cut it these days, they’re not realistic enough? You know, proportion-wise and stuff?
So mostly it’s just me and Dad. Today’s his birthday, so I pick up a card game from the drug store on the way over: “So You’re 50-Fun, Huh?” I sit down on the couch and slit the plastic wrap with my thumbnail. Dad grabs some low-cal, non-alcoholic beers from the fridge. 
“I think the rules are pretty simple,” I say. He sits down next to me. I hand him the instruction card. He hands me the beer. Says he’s trying to lose weight, hence the “no alcohol jazz, otherwise, you know me Johnny, always one for a party.” The bottle is cold and sweating, which makes the label peel a little, at the corners. I take a sip. 
“How’s Betty?” he asks. He reads the instruction card. 
“Julie.” I say. “She’s fine. I think we each start with five cards.” 
“You tell her how you feel?” Dad tilts the bottle to his mouth and spills some foam on his graphic tee (Two giraffes, one saying “Neck Me, Already!” and the other saying, “It’s Been Too Long!”). He shoots me a smile, wipes the dribble with his hand. 
“She knows how I feel,” I say. I deal the cards. Dad picks up his pile. “I want to be friends. We’re friends. It’s good.” I pick up my pile. A pair of “UGotIndigestion,” a “PetLizard,” a “NoYouDoTheDishes,” and a “MidlifeCrisis! Draw2!” 
I play a “UGotIndigestion,” which is supposed to block Dad’s turn. 
“Ah, no! You got me!” he says. “Just kidding.” He laughs and plays an “Antacid,” which counteracts my “UGotIndigestion” and gives him +1 Health Point. 8 Health Points and you become a “YouthfulSoul” and get immune, automatically, to UGI’s (and other turn-blocking cards). 
“Invite her over, sometime,” Dad says. “I got seltzers, CheeseCrispers… you can use the Jacuzzi.” Dad built the Jacuzzi as a high school graduation present, to me. You turn on the grill and flip the TunnelDirector to the left, which blasts the heat into this blue, plastic barrel thing. It’s really a hot-tub, since there are no jets. Dad used to do all sorts of stuff like that. A tennis ball on a zipline was my Light Switch Turner-Offer. Two XL sweatshirts stuffed with tissue paper, hung from the doorframe, was my BoxingBuddy. 
He doesn’t build much anymore, mainly because after Mom ran off to the Desert with Heith he had to go back to Fax-e-Lady, this time as Customer Service (“Hey, yeah, sorry about the zapped fax-machine, we’ll send you a new part pronto, and, while we’re at it, here’s 15% off to have your film developed. You know what, make that twenty. 20% off. Have a Fax-e day!”). 
“What about you?” I say. How’s Marissa?” I play “PetLizard.” Dad sacrifices his first card to give the PetCard InfinityFeed. He names it Larry. 
“Marissa, she’s just -- I’m trying to be active, you know?” He shakes the watered-down, straight-edge beer for emphasis. “I’m going on these walks, everyday, stuff like that. And she likes watching HouseTV and playing Solitaire.” 
“Yeah,” I say. 
“You know what?” Dad says. He puts his cards on the table. “Let’s go for a drive. To the park. Let’s go to the park. A man only turns 58 once, for Christ’s sake.”
“Ok,” I say. I put my cards on the table, down the rest of my beer.
We get into my car and drive to the park. Dad brings a loaf of bread. As we walk to the pond he drops crumbs and soon a line of pigeons hobble behind us, iridescent feathers bobbing up, down, as they nip at the bread on the ground. When the loaf runs out, Dad turns to face the pigeons, stretches his arms out wide, hands spread open, like a Baptist preacher at the front of a pitched tent filled with hundreds of humidified, hopeful followers, as if to say, “That’s all I got.” He smiles and shrugs. 
The pigeons stare back with their red eyes. A few turn and plod off, before, en masse, they start to retreat. Dad waits until each and every one decides to peace. 
Then he looks at me. 
“Sometimes, a few of them stay,” he says. 
He turns and keeps walking toward the pond, where he told me once he saw a “goose the size of six toaster ovens, I’m not kidding you, Johnny. Six!” I follow him with my hands in my pockets, because the sun is starting to set, and there’s a bit of a breeze, and my jacket’s in the car.