fiction – Kelly Yandell

Little Coyote

Little Coyote. A Short Story.

They call me Little Coyote, like Ki and Ote, but my name is Quinn. It’s an awfully serious soundin’ name for where I’m from. I have a brother named Bubba and a sister named Joe. And even though we’re the same age, both of them are bigger than I am and have been kicking my butt since the day we were put together in this world. So not only am I small, but I’m named Quinn. Doesn’t bode well for a dog.

I have one brown eye. It’s apparently unremarkable. My other eye is as blue as the ocean around Mexico. A stranger lady wandered into Maw’s Pick and Choose looking for treasures of a non-dog sort, and she said that. She said she could go diving in my eye, that lady. She said she was from Dallas. Whatever that is. She used the word transfixed and I think that’s a good thing. She said darling…about me. She didn’t say that about Joe or Bubba. I almost had her. But, no matter how much doe-eyed begging I did, while being a very, very, good boy, it didn’t work. She held me like a child and cooed and purred at me. But then she said she didn’t like boy dogs because they smelled like Fritos and humped everything. Do they think we don’t understand them?

Falling Back

I rolled up in front of John’s house to pick him up for the funeral. I love a man in starched cowboy duds, I do. I hope everyone comes to my funeral in starched jeans because it shows a certain awareness of the importance of the occasion. He looked great. Dad would have been so pleased. Or maybe Dad would have called him a damn quitter. John gave up drinking a few months ago and really seems to have his shit together this time. It’s nice to see. He was not a pretty drunk and he wore it like a mean vagrant now and again.

Mom owed us a debt of gratitude for even going to her service at all though. She disliked both of us to the core. It gave me chills to even think of her. The condescending glare. Always looking so damned disappointed. Kind of like Stacy, John’s perennial girlfriend, who was standing behind him.

Stacy didn’t even bother to dress up like a two dollar whore. She had on flip flops for the love of all things good and holy. It matters not a tiny speck of dust that there were rhinestones on the straps. And on the thighs of her jeans, on her bag, and you can call that a tunic all damn day long but we all know it’s just a long ass t-shirt. I rolled down the window.