The Big Thaw

by Michael Compton

About the Author: Michael Compton is a screenwriter and novelist from Memphis, Tennessee. His poetry and short fiction have appeared in African American Review, The Baltimore Review, and The Tulane Review, among others. He teaches English at The University of Memphis.

Excerpt

Old Jock Kilabuk watched the approaching forkful of scrambled eggs and kippers with the cross-eyed concentration of a man hoping not to get stung on the nose by a honeybee. The fork paused, a bee in a headwind, inches from his mouth. His shaking right hand could bring it no closer. The harder he tried, the more his hand shook. He could feel his wife, Mae, pretending not to watch him as she sipped her coffee, holding back the encouraging words that only further aggravated him. The fork began to list, eggs dribbling off the edge of his plate. He lunged forward—the very thing he’d been told a hundred times not to do—and the fork slipped from his grasp, clattering onto the tabletop in a rain of egg and fish bits.

Mae braced herself for the curse words—Jock always cursed in English—but they didn’t come. Instead, there was only a grunt, the kind that comes from a man who is very old and very tired. Reaching across the plate, he picked up the fork with his left hand.

“The therapist said you should only use your right—” She bit the sentence short, wishing she had just kept quiet, even though it was for his own good.

“Maybe when I’m not so hungry.”

His left hand was steadier, but unpracticed. When he shoved his fork into the eggs, they nudged the kippers right off the plate.

Mae drowned a smirk in her coffee cup. Jock pretended not to notice and slapped the confounded utensil onto the table. He picked up his own cup—again, with the left hand—and held it as if making a toast.

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