overshirt

by Dane Rook

It’s a ratty denim overshirt. Chore-scarred and sweat-skunked. His wife outlawed it inside – told him the only place it’s allowed in the house is the fireplace. Which is why, for Father’s Day, their son tried soaking it outside, in a puddle so twitchy with larvae that the dog kept rushing out to bark at it, even after it evaporated.

Now the shirt shrouds the dog. To keep deerflies off, until he’s ready to go inside and bring his son out to see.

The tractor is still running, engine idling. A Field Boss 31, open seater with red pinstripes, the sort of tractor he used to doodle in crayon when he was his son’s age. He’s standing close enough that its hot fibrillations make him feel like he’s shivering. Hitched behind is a jaundice-yellow mower with an eczema of rust – a brush hog, raised like a drawbridge. The three rotary blades on its underbelly are no longer spinning: he
punched down the lever to stop them before leaping off.

Died like a dog. That’s something nobody ever says in the ER: not him, not other doctors, not nurses, nobody. But he’s heard politicians say it – Senators, even Presidents – whenever they’re hooting about terrorists, or gang members, or various other people they’ll never be slathered in, and then need to scrub off before informing the family.

They didn’t suffer. ER docs tell that lie to the family, sometimes. More often, they tell it to themselves. That’s what he did last Monday, when that young woman was brought in. Some guy had forced her to push the muzzle of a 10-gauge up inside herself. Guy pulled the trigger. Her own uncle.

Redwing blackbirds are coming up from the marsh, picking off newly homeless grasshoppers in this swath of field he’s just mowed. He got five passes done, up and back, raising the brush hog after each pass to turn around. Hadn’t mowed all summer, the turkeyfoot tall enough to hide deer, let alone dogs. His son must’ve let it out on accident. Their first inside dog, always wanting out.

Bought the farm. That’s another saying never said in the ER, except about himself and these 45 acres of pinewoods, fields, and marsh – bought the year they got married. Definitely a stretch to call it a farm, when the only real crop is his sanity. The drive to work is an hourlong moat, down I-75 into Detroit. He needs that hour to switch between selves, day to night, then the reverse. He works nights to spend more time with his son, while his son is young enough to want to spend time with him.

ERs are worst at night.

The uncle made the woman’s kids watch. Guy’s own nieces, 6 and 3. Both girls had frequented the ER: lacerations, contusions, fractures – staircases always to blame. Very little he could do as a doctor. Dial the number, log the report. That, and let them pick out shoes that actually fit, from the box he started in the cafeteria. He gave them mittens too.

He splays his fingers. The gloves are his wife’s. Her gardening pair. Thin canvas with blue gripper pimples everywhere. Ruined. She won’t miss them, that’s why he borrowed them for mowing, when he couldn’t find his cowhide ones: most likely their son played with them and didn’t put them back. If he asks, the boy will tell him the truth – always does. That’s why he’s going to answer the boy honestly, no matter what gets asked.

The shirt is over-saturated now. Deerflies are frenzying at the smell – mustier than human blood, a scent like when their son sifts through the penny jar, counting them by years. Their son, honest as the man on the coins: always checking that ‘In God We Trust’ is inscribed in the proper place.

I must not play God. He promised that, in taking the Hippocratic Oath. Over his career, how many has he saved? How many abusers, murderers, rapists. All of them children of God – a god – something his wife won’t believe in anymore, says she lied about ever believing – shrieked that at him, back in May.

Back in December was the first time he treated the uncle, after the guy set himself on fire, drunk past incoherence. That same night a fourteen-year-old was ditched on the sidewalk, outside the ER’s doors, in premature labor. Died waiting while the uncle slapped and spit at him.

He’ll need to find his cowhide gloves, to build the box. Plenty of scrapwood in the shed, but he’ll get splinters without those gloves. He’ll make a cross too. One more to join the two on the hill overlooking the marsh. The two his wife demanded he take down.

You shall surely die. Old Testament there. Truest words in the book. True for all god’s children.

The cops finally caught the uncle two nights ago. They came straight to the ER, with the uncle near-comatosely stoned. The two officers nodded to him and cuffed the guy to the bedrail. And he nodded back. They left the room and came back ten minutes later, and he informed them of the time of death.

He goes over and cuts the tractor’s engine. Deerflies become the loudest thing. Then the chit-chit-chit of redwing blackbirds.

His own dad died back in May. He told their son that Grandpa went to heaven. His wife didn’t contradict him then, but after the boy fell asleep she combusted. No more bullshit. No make-believe happily-ever-after brainwash. Or else she’ll leave, with the boy.

The boy will ask if the dog is with Grandpa now. Then other questions. Questions that deserve truth. Not his wife’s truth. His truth: the truth he needs, to keep going.

Til death do us part. Never thought about it that way before.

He punches the tractor’s huge rear tire. Then punches it again. He sags forward and plants both hands flat on the steel fender and prays. For the little boy who prayed for this tractor.

Photo of Dane Rook

BIO: Dane Rook is an award-winning author and researcher at Stanford University. Connect with Dane on social media at:

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