The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison Page A

pacing in the front yard, Trev beckons her, and it is I who answer his call. Th e bedroom smells of sweaty feet and turning fruit and the inside of an aspirin bottle. Th e shades are drawn against the sunlight, and the respirator hums on the nightstand beside him. A few dusty shafts of light cut across the foot of the bed. On the sill above his head, stuffed animals are lined shoulder to shoulder: a bear, a penguin, one of those singing grapes from the old commercial. On the wall at the foot of the bed is a Misfits poster, right beside a Nike poster that proclaims, “We are all witnesses.” Th e low dresser is completely bare on top but for a plastic box of pushpins and a folded black T-shirt.
    â€œWhat’s up?” I say.
    His eyes sit deep in their bruise-colored sockets. His lips are cracked. I see no evil genius flashing in his blue eyes. I’m disgusted by the sight of him, repelled not by his condition but by a complex stirring of emotions I can’t process.
    â€œWhere’s my mom?”
    â€œOutside on the phone.”
    â€œMy dad?”
    â€œYeah.”
    He rolls his head heavily to one side, away from me, then rolls it heavily back until he’s staring at the ceiling.
    â€œDude,” I say. “Check it out: I banged an Oompa Loompa this weekend, swear to God.”
    Trev doesn’t offer so much as a smirk or the bat of an eyelid. “Could you go get my mom?” he says. Th ere’s a rasp in his voice eerily like a death rattle.
    â€œDo you want any water or anything?”
    â€œNo. Could you get my mom?”
    â€œI can turn you.”
    â€œI just want to talk to my mom,” he says, unable or unwilling to mask his impatience. “Could you get her? Please .”
    He lolls his head back toward the wall again, looking agitated.
    I know that I shouldn’t take it personally. Somewhere in the Fundamentals of Caregiving textbook there’s a whole paragraph devoted to such matters. But Trev’s dismissal stings like a betrayal. Already I regret the impulse to sting him back. Th is is not about me, I remind myself.
    â€œYou sure you don’t need to go to the bathroom or anything?”
    â€œYeah, I’m good.”
    I turn to leave, then turn back. “Oh, and I was lying, you know. I didn’t fuck shit.”
    â€œI know,” he says.
    From the dining room window, I wave to Elsa, and she begins making her way toward the house. I catch the final snatches of her conversation as she clomps up the wooden ramp and through the back door.
    â€œYes, I promise, I will. Bob, I’m hanging the phone up now.”
    And Elsa makes good, at least on her final promise, replacing the phone in its cradle with a sigh.

three feathers

    S haring a barren and seemingly endless parking lot with Target, the Dollar Store, Papa John’s, and Office Max, the Th ree Feathers Casino projects little in the way of pretense. Its very shape offers no relief from rectangularity beyond a negligible slope in the cedar-shingled awning, and a pair of sad-looking totem poles flanking the entrance like panhandlers. On the outside, the giant gray edifice broadcasts none of the opulence, possesses none of the gaudy flourishes—no fountains, no doormen, no pissing cherubs—that I’ve come to expect in casinos. Just those hard-luck totem poles looking all the more miserable in the rain and a dented yellow cab idling out front.
    Checking my fly and mussing my thinning hair, I enter the lobby, where I’m greeted by the cold stink of conditioned air and stale smoke. Th e riotous clanging of a thousand one-armed bandits, the pulse of garish light from all quarters, the muffled protestations of Buffalo Springfield over the house intercom—all of it is an assault on my senses. Th e worn carpet is a fussy and overworked pattern somewhere between Mayan petroglyphs and art deco. Th e patrons themselves are something out of Nathanael West: a groping horde of