FARNHAM
X 3
fiction by Caitlin Myer
1
It’s 7:30 on an April morning, one of those spring mornings that weigh you down with longing,
for the summer day when you caught a lizard with your older brother, or for the first girl you
ever kissed, the way she smelled just behind her ear, right at the roots of her red hair, or for
your old bike, the BMX with the stickers on the frame, or just to be able to take off your jacket
and hang around in your shirtsleeves for awhile.
Farnham, though, isn’t weighed down; he’s only eleven and doesn’t have anything to regret,
except maybe the stupid shirt his mom made him wear for school pictures last year, or not
swinging back at the kid who beat him up, or for being a ghost just like Alvin Bates for
Halloween instead of a cowboy, which is what he really wanted.
He’s just about to head out for school, but his mom, who’s sitting at the table putting cubes of
cheese in her mouth like she’s a cheese-eating machine, his mom asks him to get her
something from the garage. Maybe it’s a package of meat from the deep freeze. Maybe it’s
the cordless drill or some light bulbs. Whatever it is, Farnham will forget all about it when he
walks into the garage and sees his dad sitting in the car, sleeping maybe, and the motor
running, like he was all set to go to work, but decided instead to take a little snooze first.
Farnham walks over to the car, putting his hand on the glass, and leans in for a closer look at
his dad, slouched down against the back of the seat, his head rolled back and his mouth
open, a little trail of shine showing where he drooled down his chin, his dark hair fanned out
on the headrest behind him.
This is what happens next:
Farnham pulls at the handle of the door, not seeing the hose stuck into the window where it’s
cracked at the top, not until it pulls loose when he opens the door and clatters to the floor of
the garage while a warm breath of rotten air moves out and around him.
“Dad,” he says, a little bit quiet, he doesn’t want to startle him, but when he doesn’t open his
eyes he says it louder, “Dad. Dad,” and finally he puts his hand on his shoulder, shaking it
just a little, then more, but when his dad’s head starts to bobble around with his shaking he
lets go and backs away an inch, the head swinging down onto the chest but then, like
someone’s pulling at the top of his head with a string, it swings up and back, and then
Farnham’s dad’s eyes squint open, his mouth shuts and his forehead wrinkles up, like he’s
trying to remember where he put his keys. He blinks at Farnham for a few seconds, then
opens his mouth again to swallow a big breath, his eyes open so wide now that Farnham can
see white all the way around the iris, his dad’s looking at him hard, and he sucks in another
breath, and even though Farnham’s never seen it before, he realizes his dad’s about to cry.
Or, this happens:
Farnham thinks it’s a little weird, the way his dad’s head is leaning back against the headrest,
and decides he better not bug him, maybe he’ll ask Mom about it instead, so he backs away,
then turns around and heads back into the house, to the kitchen table where his mom’s still
feeding cheese in, he’s wondering now if maybe both his parents stayed up too late and they’
re both just really tired, but he says to his mom, “Um,” he says, pointing toward the garage
door, “Dad’s sitting in the car in the garage, but he has the car on, I don’t think he’s awake,”
and his mom slows down for a half second, there’s a little gagging sound that comes from her
throat, but she flattens one hand onto the table and reaches for another cube with the other
and just like that she’s back in her rhythm again, only now instead of looking straight ahead
her eyes are looking down, and off to the right, like she’s ashamed or trying to remember
something, and Farnham’s hairs stand up all up and down his arms and his chest shudders
like he’s going to cry, but he clamps it back and pivots on the rubber sole of his high-top and
runs back out to the garage. He pulls open the car door and doesn’t hear the hose clink onto
the floor, he reaches in and grabs at his dad’s arm, “Dad, Dad, wake up, Dad, please,” but
his dad’s head just flops around while he shakes him, like he’s a big doll, his face bright red,
and now Farnham’s crying and the snot’s running down his face and into his mouth, “Daddy,
Daddy, please.”
Or, this happens:
Farnham’s looking in the window at his dad, and he doesn’t notice that he’s standing on a
hose that’s lying on the floor of the garage. He pulls open the door and his dad starts to fall
toward the door but jerks awake suddenly, a laugh punching out of him while he catches
himself, looking up at Farnham. Farnham’s dad runs a hand through his hair, looking around,
and then he sees Farnham standing on the hose on the garage floor, and he starts to laugh.
He looks back up at his son, laughing, then pulls him roughly down and puts both arms
around him, holding him tight.
2
Farnham is riding the bus home from work. It’s already dark out, the inside of the bus lit up
like a space capsule speeding through the dark of the universe. He looks at his shoes, high-
tops just like he wore when he was a kid, but splattered with paint, the color of the house he
did today freshly blotched on top of a hundred other colors, his hands stained too. Min will
want him to take a shower before sliding in between the clean white sheets.
A woman gets on the bus, sits down near the front. She’s over six feet tall, wrist bones like
peach pits, hair in badly kempt dreadlocks. She balances a shopping bag on her lap, open
container of hummus in one hand, the other diving into the bag for chips, dipping into the
hummus before chomping down. She is doing this mechanically, grab, dip, chomp, her
enormous eyes wandering all over the bus while she shoves in one chip after another, often
before swallowing the one already in place.
Farnham can’t look away. In a second he’s hurled twenty years backward, he’s eleven,
standing in the kitchen of the house he grew up in, his mother moving cubes of cheese to her
mouth so much like the woman on the bus – or the other way around, really, the woman on
the bus so like his mother – Farnham stares openly at the stranger. He’s trying to remember
what she had asked him to get for her from the garage. Was it a roast, wrapped in white
butcher paper, tucked in the bottom of the deep freeze?
He shakes his head, wondering why he’s thinking about this now. All that matters is what
followed, what happened next, and all the years after that, but he’s stuck on this one moment,
he hasn’t thought about it in years, his mom at the table, dressed – she was wearing a skirt
and a blouse, like she was going out – with a bowl of cheese cubes. Why were there cheese
cubes anyway? Those were for parties, and Farnham didn’t remember his parents throwing a
party the night before. Unless there had been one planned for that night. But whatever was
planned for that night was forgotten, lost, along with the thing his mom had sent him to get in
the garage.
Farnham closes his eyes, rubbing his hands over his face. Everything changed after that
day. Farnham would never know everything that led to it, to his father getting dressed for
work, then attaching a hose to the exhaust, starting up the car, and settling down for the long
sleep. But changes came fast after – a new house, a new town – and maybe, maybe if his
dad hadn’t done that, Farnham wouldn’t be where he is now. Maybe, he wouldn’t have met
Min, her dark eyes and slow smile, Min dressed in scrubs, her hair back in a ponytail. Min with
a new life growing inside of her.
Farnham couldn’t begin to put himself in his father’s place. To imagine a dull decision that no
tomorrow is better than any tomorrow he could see. Farnham woke up every morning, feeling
Min’s little feet on his legs, like she was standing on him to get a better view, and his first
breath of the day was sweet with her sleeping smell and gratitude.
Farnham closes his eyes again, and he is eleven, standing in the garage, the sound of the
car’s engine amplified in the close space, bouncing back off the walls and beating at him like
a shriek. He walks closer to see his dad in the driver’s seat, head rolled back against the
headrest, and Farnham puts his hand on the glass.
Caitlin Myer is a writer living in San Francisco, and her blog is Chemical Billy.
COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE!
X 3
fiction by Caitlin Myer
1
It’s 7:30 on an April morning, one of those spring mornings that weigh you down with longing,
for the summer day when you caught a lizard with your older brother, or for the first girl you
ever kissed, the way she smelled just behind her ear, right at the roots of her red hair, or for
your old bike, the BMX with the stickers on the frame, or just to be able to take off your jacket
and hang around in your shirtsleeves for awhile.
Farnham, though, isn’t weighed down; he’s only eleven and doesn’t have anything to regret,
except maybe the stupid shirt his mom made him wear for school pictures last year, or not
swinging back at the kid who beat him up, or for being a ghost just like Alvin Bates for
Halloween instead of a cowboy, which is what he really wanted.
He’s just about to head out for school, but his mom, who’s sitting at the table putting cubes of
cheese in her mouth like she’s a cheese-eating machine, his mom asks him to get her
something from the garage. Maybe it’s a package of meat from the deep freeze. Maybe it’s
the cordless drill or some light bulbs. Whatever it is, Farnham will forget all about it when he
walks into the garage and sees his dad sitting in the car, sleeping maybe, and the motor
running, like he was all set to go to work, but decided instead to take a little snooze first.
Farnham walks over to the car, putting his hand on the glass, and leans in for a closer look at
his dad, slouched down against the back of the seat, his head rolled back and his mouth
open, a little trail of shine showing where he drooled down his chin, his dark hair fanned out
on the headrest behind him.
This is what happens next:
Farnham pulls at the handle of the door, not seeing the hose stuck into the window where it’s
cracked at the top, not until it pulls loose when he opens the door and clatters to the floor of
the garage while a warm breath of rotten air moves out and around him.
“Dad,” he says, a little bit quiet, he doesn’t want to startle him, but when he doesn’t open his
eyes he says it louder, “Dad. Dad,” and finally he puts his hand on his shoulder, shaking it
just a little, then more, but when his dad’s head starts to bobble around with his shaking he
lets go and backs away an inch, the head swinging down onto the chest but then, like
someone’s pulling at the top of his head with a string, it swings up and back, and then
Farnham’s dad’s eyes squint open, his mouth shuts and his forehead wrinkles up, like he’s
trying to remember where he put his keys. He blinks at Farnham for a few seconds, then
opens his mouth again to swallow a big breath, his eyes open so wide now that Farnham can
see white all the way around the iris, his dad’s looking at him hard, and he sucks in another
breath, and even though Farnham’s never seen it before, he realizes his dad’s about to cry.
Or, this happens:
Farnham thinks it’s a little weird, the way his dad’s head is leaning back against the headrest,
and decides he better not bug him, maybe he’ll ask Mom about it instead, so he backs away,
then turns around and heads back into the house, to the kitchen table where his mom’s still
feeding cheese in, he’s wondering now if maybe both his parents stayed up too late and they’
re both just really tired, but he says to his mom, “Um,” he says, pointing toward the garage
door, “Dad’s sitting in the car in the garage, but he has the car on, I don’t think he’s awake,”
and his mom slows down for a half second, there’s a little gagging sound that comes from her
throat, but she flattens one hand onto the table and reaches for another cube with the other
and just like that she’s back in her rhythm again, only now instead of looking straight ahead
her eyes are looking down, and off to the right, like she’s ashamed or trying to remember
something, and Farnham’s hairs stand up all up and down his arms and his chest shudders
like he’s going to cry, but he clamps it back and pivots on the rubber sole of his high-top and
runs back out to the garage. He pulls open the car door and doesn’t hear the hose clink onto
the floor, he reaches in and grabs at his dad’s arm, “Dad, Dad, wake up, Dad, please,” but
his dad’s head just flops around while he shakes him, like he’s a big doll, his face bright red,
and now Farnham’s crying and the snot’s running down his face and into his mouth, “Daddy,
Daddy, please.”
Or, this happens:
Farnham’s looking in the window at his dad, and he doesn’t notice that he’s standing on a
hose that’s lying on the floor of the garage. He pulls open the door and his dad starts to fall
toward the door but jerks awake suddenly, a laugh punching out of him while he catches
himself, looking up at Farnham. Farnham’s dad runs a hand through his hair, looking around,
and then he sees Farnham standing on the hose on the garage floor, and he starts to laugh.
He looks back up at his son, laughing, then pulls him roughly down and puts both arms
around him, holding him tight.
2
Farnham is riding the bus home from work. It’s already dark out, the inside of the bus lit up
like a space capsule speeding through the dark of the universe. He looks at his shoes, high-
tops just like he wore when he was a kid, but splattered with paint, the color of the house he
did today freshly blotched on top of a hundred other colors, his hands stained too. Min will
want him to take a shower before sliding in between the clean white sheets.
A woman gets on the bus, sits down near the front. She’s over six feet tall, wrist bones like
peach pits, hair in badly kempt dreadlocks. She balances a shopping bag on her lap, open
container of hummus in one hand, the other diving into the bag for chips, dipping into the
hummus before chomping down. She is doing this mechanically, grab, dip, chomp, her
enormous eyes wandering all over the bus while she shoves in one chip after another, often
before swallowing the one already in place.
Farnham can’t look away. In a second he’s hurled twenty years backward, he’s eleven,
standing in the kitchen of the house he grew up in, his mother moving cubes of cheese to her
mouth so much like the woman on the bus – or the other way around, really, the woman on
the bus so like his mother – Farnham stares openly at the stranger. He’s trying to remember
what she had asked him to get for her from the garage. Was it a roast, wrapped in white
butcher paper, tucked in the bottom of the deep freeze?
He shakes his head, wondering why he’s thinking about this now. All that matters is what
followed, what happened next, and all the years after that, but he’s stuck on this one moment,
he hasn’t thought about it in years, his mom at the table, dressed – she was wearing a skirt
and a blouse, like she was going out – with a bowl of cheese cubes. Why were there cheese
cubes anyway? Those were for parties, and Farnham didn’t remember his parents throwing a
party the night before. Unless there had been one planned for that night. But whatever was
planned for that night was forgotten, lost, along with the thing his mom had sent him to get in
the garage.
Farnham closes his eyes, rubbing his hands over his face. Everything changed after that
day. Farnham would never know everything that led to it, to his father getting dressed for
work, then attaching a hose to the exhaust, starting up the car, and settling down for the long
sleep. But changes came fast after – a new house, a new town – and maybe, maybe if his
dad hadn’t done that, Farnham wouldn’t be where he is now. Maybe, he wouldn’t have met
Min, her dark eyes and slow smile, Min dressed in scrubs, her hair back in a ponytail. Min with
a new life growing inside of her.
Farnham couldn’t begin to put himself in his father’s place. To imagine a dull decision that no
tomorrow is better than any tomorrow he could see. Farnham woke up every morning, feeling
Min’s little feet on his legs, like she was standing on him to get a better view, and his first
breath of the day was sweet with her sleeping smell and gratitude.
Farnham closes his eyes again, and he is eleven, standing in the garage, the sound of the
car’s engine amplified in the close space, bouncing back off the walls and beating at him like
a shriek. He walks closer to see his dad in the driver’s seat, head rolled back against the
headrest, and Farnham puts his hand on the glass.
Caitlin Myer is a writer living in San Francisco, and her blog is Chemical Billy.
COMMENT ON THIS ARTICLE!
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