The Heaven of Animals: Stories (33 page)

He had worked steadily for an hour. When the kitchen was clean, he’d stepped outside, his stomach still writhing. He could see the beach, and he walked to it.

He’d left without a word, Marcus collapsed at the table, a sentry over the dead.

Dan pushed through water, following the shoreline. The beach was not like the beach back home. The gulf ran to sand, but, here, the shore was crowded with stones, outcroppings of rock and reef. He walked until he hit a rock wall, the water too deep to go around. Steps were carved into stone, and he followed them to a ledge where he found megaphones and signs and people gathered.

“Save the seals,” one woman shouted. And a man: “Let them live in peace.”

Dan pressed through the people, past a brass plaque that announced his arrival at
THE CHILDREN’S POOL,
to an iron banister skirting the ledge. The towering rock on which he stood reached into the ocean where it met a concrete wall, the wall an arm, the arm beckoning water into bay. Below, a sandy cove lay carpeted with seals.

The seals numbered fifty. He counted them, then he counted them again. Half of the seals dozed. The others rubbed their sides and snouts with flippers or raised their heads to watch the waves. Their hides were white and black and brown, cloudy, the colors running together. Just like marble. Just like Jack had said. They were small, the seals, each no bigger than a sleeping child, and their bodies threw long shadows over the sand. A boy and girl, teenagers, sat, legs crossed, not far from the seals and holding hands.

A staircase traced the ledge and wound down to the cove, but, at the first step, a woman blocked his way. The woman wore a T-shirt, white with a blue seal silhouette across the chest.

“What’s the cost?” he said.

The woman laughed, and he saw all of her fillings.

“Only your soul,” she said.

“I’m sorry?”

“I’m not charging admission,” she said. “I’m telling you why you need to leave the seals alone.” Her hair was long, held back in a thick braid that swung when she spoke. “One foot on that beach, and you break nature’s contract.”

Dan looked down. Beyond the seals, following the wall, footprints crossed and recrossed the beach, the autograph of an impossible dance.

“We need to preserve nature’s delicate balance,” she said.

He hadn’t meant to make her flinch, but now Dan found his hand on the woman’s shoulder. He squeezed the shoulder gently, then brought the hand to his side.

“Sweetheart,” he said. “Nature has no balance. You can stand here all day. You can keep as many people off that beach as you want, but, one way or another, those seals, all of them, are going to die. You and I are going to die. Because, you know what? You know what nature is?”

The shake of her head was so slight, the braid hung still.

“Nature is a fucking monster.”

The woman hugged her chest. She stepped aside, and Dan made his way down the stairs and onto the beach. The couple holding hands looked up, then returned their attention to the seals. Twenty yards away, the animals yawned and turned in the sand. One of the largest watched the sky, its head bobbing, as though forcing something down its throat.

Jack had said how sometimes seals swallowed stones. “For ballast,” he said. “The way a diver wears a belt to keep him down.” Weight controlled a dive. Men weighted belts with lead. Seals ate stones. In this way, buoyed otherwise by fat or air, both animals sank.

Dan imagined filling up his gut. He’d start small, grains of sand, pebbles polished ocean-smooth, before he wore his teeth down chewing rocks. He’d obliterate the interloper, fill himself so full of stones the fish inside him would have no place to swim, then he’d swallow more—just watch, just wait and see—more and more, enough to grind the motherfucker out of existence. Then no more churn, no fiery, twisting thing.

He watched the seals, the couple on the beach. The girl stood, and the boy brushed sand from her pants. Then the boy stood, and, hand in hand, they climbed the stairs.

Dan watched the seals awhile longer, then looked past them to where the water met the sky. A line, pencil-thin, marked the place planes touched, so faint it almost wasn’t a line at all. The end, the way he saw it, would be when that line lifted and the two halves crashed, a cosmic collapse. It would come, the end, when blue met blue.

Acknowledgments

Thank you:

My first teachers and earliest encouragers: Sandra Meek, Lawrence Baines, Marc Fitten, and Jack Riggs.

The MFA program at the University of Arizona, where I had the good fortune to work with Aurelie Sheehan, Buzz Poverman, Jonathan Penner, Elizabeth Evans, Bob Houston, Fenton Johnson, and Jason Brown. Thank you, Jason, for teaching me the meaning of the word
revise
. And thanks to my fellow students in the program, especially Rachel Yoder, Mark Polanzak, William Bert, Donald Dunbar, Joshua Foster, and Patrick Burns. It was a pleasure to write and learn with you.

Cara Blue Adams, for years of friendship. Yours was the best pen I’ve ever borrowed.

The PhD program at the University of Cincinnati: I could not have asked for better professors than Michael Griffith, Leah Stewart, Brock Clarke, and Jennifer Glaser, or better friends than Mica Darley-Emerson, Soren Palmer, Peter Grimes, and Christian Moody. Christian, you’ve always been there for me.
Gracias, mi amigo.

For their support of my work along the way, I’d like to thank Lauren Groff, Ron Rash, Laura van den Berg, Holly Goddard Jones, Kevin Wilson, Claire Vaye Watkins, Clyde Edgerton, Matthew Pitt, Shannon Cain, Alissa Nutting, Erin Stalcup, David Scrivner, Lance Cleland, and Rachel Cantor.

Bret Anthony Johnston, patron saint of young writers, you’re an inspiration.

Adam Stumacher, for the big assist.

Ashley Inguanta, for perfectionism behind the camera lens.

Justin Luzader, for your friendship, and for wisdom beyond your years.

Laurie Uttich, who read and commented on many of these stories in earlier incarnations.

Nicole Louise Reid, model citizen among writers, thank you for your friendship, endless encouragement, and good example.

All of my colleagues, students, and friends at the University of Central Florida. You keep work from feeling too much like work.

Ryan Rivas, Jared Silvia, Nathan Holic, John King, Pat Greene, Jocelyn Bartkevicius, Susan Lilley, and Phil Deaver, for making Orlando feel like home.

The Tin House, RopeWalk, Sewanee, and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conferences, for the kind financial support. For their mentorship, thank you to Lee Martin, Joe Meno, Christine Schutt, Robert Boswell, Brad Watson, and Karen Russell.

Serenity Gerbman and everyone at the Southern Festival of Books.

Christopher Burawa and everyone with the Clarksville Writers Conference.

Joanne Brownstein and Jody Klein, for helping my stories find good homes.

My agent, Gail Hochman, for your patience, persistence, and the tireless advocacy you demonstrate on behalf of all of your writers. You continue to amaze.

My editor, Millicent Bennett, for believing in these stories and for never letting me settle for
good enough
. This collection could not have come together in the way that it has without your guiding hand. Working with you is a gift.

Everyone at Simon & Schuster, particularly Sarah Nalle, Maggie Higby, Mara Lurie, and Susan M. S. Brown.

The anthology editors who gave these stories legs: Kathy Pories and ZZ Packer; Jason Lee Brown, Shanie Latham, and John McNally; Murray Dunlap and Kevin Morgan Watson; Natalie Danford, John Kulka, Dani Shapiro, and Richard Bausch.

The magazine and journal editors who made these stories better, stronger versions of themselves: C. Michael Curtis; Alice K. Turner; Samuel Ligon; David Daley; Elizabeth Taylor; Steve Almond; Shara McCallum and Paula Closson Buck; Jeanne Leiby; Kathleen Canavan and William O’Rourke; Hannah Tinti and Karen Seligman; Matthew Salesses; Ann McCutchan, Miroslav Penkov, Barbara Rodman, and Hillary Stringer; Christine Larusso, Daniel Hamilton, and Ed Winstead; Linda B. Swanson-Davies and Susan Burmeister-Brown.

For their generous support of my work, I would like to thank the National Society of Arts & Letters, the Charles Phelps Taft Research Center, the UCF Office of Research and Commercialization, the UCF College of Arts & Humanities, the Arizona Commission on the Arts, and the Tucson Pima Arts Council.

Jeanne Leiby and Barry Hannah. You are missed.

Ken and Debbie, Chris and Jenny, Jon and Nicole: Thank you for your love and for welcoming me into your families.

My Grandfather George, Uncle Dave, and Aunt Sherrie. Every grandson and nephew should be so lucky as to have people like you in their lives.

Carrie Emmington, longtime reader and longtime friend, thank you.

Chad Swiggum, your friendship means the world to me.

Jonathan Jones, for reading these stories and never holding back. But, mostly, thank you for friendship beyond compare.

Chris and Naomi, for your warmth and loving-kindness.

My parents, for your unwavering love and affection. Without your support, this book would not be.

My sweet, hilarious, darling girls, Ellie and Izzy. Your lives are my pleasure.

Marla, my inspiration, first reader, best friend. You have my heart.

Earlier versions of stories from this collection previously appeared in:

“Me and James Dean” (as “Between the Teeth”),
Willow Springs,
2006

“Venn Diagram” (as “The Geometry of Despair”),
The Chicago Tribune,
2006

“Knockout,”
Redivider,
2007

“Lizard Man,”
Playboy,
2007

“What the Wolf Wants,”
West Branch,
2010

“The Baby Glows,”
The Southern Review,
2010

“The Heaven of Animals,”
The Atlantic,
2010

“100% Cotton,”
The Southern Review,
2011

“How to Help Your Husband Die,”
Notre Dame Review,
2011

“Refund,”
One Story,
2011

“The Disappearing Boy,”
The Good Men Project,
2011

“Wake the Baby,”
American Literary Review,
2012

“Nudists,”
FiveChapters,
2012

“Last of the Great Land Mammals,”
Washington Square,
2013

“Amputee,”
Glimmer Train,
2013

“The End of Aaron,”
Printers Row,
2013

Stories also appeared in the following anthologies:

“Venn Diagram,”
Best New American Voices 2008

“Lizard Man,”
New Stories from the South 2008

“Lizard Man,”
Best New American Voices 2010

“Me and James Dean” (as “Between the Teeth”),
What Doesn’t Kill You,
2010

“Me and James Dean” (as “Between the Teeth”),
Press 53 Open Awards Anthology 2010

“The Baby Glows,”
New Stories from the Midwest 2012

SIMON & SCHUSTER
READING GROUP GUIDE

THE HEAVEN OF ANIMALS

D
AVID
J
AMES
P
OISSANT

The Heaven of Animals
, award-winning author David James Poissant’s debut short story collection, packs a devastatingly human punch. The book comprises stories that speak of heartbreak, divorce, failure, betrayal, guilt, and loss, yet hope is often not as far off as it seems. The people who populate Poissant’s universe somehow emerge from unbelievable emotional wreckage and devastating loss with spirits intact—though rarely do they emerge unscathed.

The precarious relationships that connect us as humans—romantic, friendly, familial, or even those between strangers catching each other in a tense or desperate moment—are what interlace these stories. And it is the characters’ perceptions of one another, and of themselves, that make this book an important, heart-wrenching read.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Which story resonated with you the most? What do you think it is about that particular story that most appeals, or feels most important to you?

2. After reading the final story in the collection, did your opinion and understanding of Dan Lawson change from your introduction to him in “Lizard Man”? If so, how? Was he able to redeem himself in your eyes?

3. How is Brig changed by his short but poignant night with Lily in the collection’s second story, “Amputee”? Do you feel hopeful for his future after this night, or is he doomed to repeat his mistakes?

4. Precarious romances run rampant in this collection. Some couples make it through their obstacles, like the couple who fight to keep it together after the death of their daughter in “The Geometry of Despair.” Other relationships are beyond repair. In your opinion, what qualities must a relationship have in the world of
The Heaven of Animals
in order to last?