Orange so isn't my color.
Picture a 5-year-old girl. She is sitting in the crisp, brown grass beside the white, wooden porch of a small, dusty blue farmhouse. Although the sky isn't visible, the late-autumn weather is obvious. It's early afternoon, and low, thick clouds blanket the sky - not quite snow clouds, but close. It's just chilly enough to be considered cold if spending more than a few minutes outside - a gray November day reserved for eating grilled cheese dipped in tomato soup and watching the Steelers. Bundled in a blue, hooded sweatshirt, the child smiles for the camera as she hugs the severed deer head resting on her lap - her tiny hands grasping the huge antlers.
Turn to the next photo and she's still clutching the smooth, sharp points, but her eyes are closed and her tongue hangs from the side of her mouth, mimicking the buck. Behind the camera, her father, dressed in a camouflage jumpsuit, his face smeared in black paint, beams at his daughter's excitement at his kill. All she knows is that he's proud of her.
She rarely sees her father - every other weekend and holidays - and while she loves him, she cries for hours before going to visit him. She hates it there. Hates the lectures, the silent treatments, watching Jeopardy. The weekends are only made better by Sunday dinners at her grandparents'. But she can never tell him that.
She watches his deer-hunting videos - a form of porn for her father - and leafs through the hunting magazines. She knows how to handle a rifle and how to shoot a bow and arrow, even if she can't physically lift them. She plays with the gadget that makes grunting noises, marvels at the jar of doe-pee, and understands that perfume and scented candles during this time of year are forbidden. She oohs and aahs at his yearly prize shootings, meticulously counting the number of points on the antlers and congratulating her arrogant parent.
As the years pass, he still calls her home when he "gets one" and carries her to his truck's flatbed to see it. She's now eight - 10 - 13. By age 16, she mocks him about his obsession as she sits by the fireplace in a recliner in her late-grandparents' basement. The walls are lined in mounted deer heads, and soon there will be another. She barely sees her father at all that day; he's in the garage cutting up the venison for that winter's meals. Hell, that year's meals. Occasionally he passes through the television room carrying a slab of perfectly carved flesh. She laughs and rolls her eyes, but she knows not to act indifferent.
At age 21, she reminisces. He does not call her anymore, and she has not seen a deer carcass, besides the usual roadkill, in nearly four years. But the late-autumn weather triggers a memory. Bundled in a gray, hooded sweatshirt, she sits in front of her computer and wishes for the weight of a head on her lap, imagining the smoothness of the polished antlers in her still tiny hands. The sudden surge of nostalgia will puzzle her, and she'll think about a photograph of a 5-year-old girl. She has grown to love "buck season" almost as much as her father does, but she never understands why.
Turn to the next photo and she's still clutching the smooth, sharp points, but her eyes are closed and her tongue hangs from the side of her mouth, mimicking the buck. Behind the camera, her father, dressed in a camouflage jumpsuit, his face smeared in black paint, beams at his daughter's excitement at his kill. All she knows is that he's proud of her.
She rarely sees her father - every other weekend and holidays - and while she loves him, she cries for hours before going to visit him. She hates it there. Hates the lectures, the silent treatments, watching Jeopardy. The weekends are only made better by Sunday dinners at her grandparents'. But she can never tell him that.
She watches his deer-hunting videos - a form of porn for her father - and leafs through the hunting magazines. She knows how to handle a rifle and how to shoot a bow and arrow, even if she can't physically lift them. She plays with the gadget that makes grunting noises, marvels at the jar of doe-pee, and understands that perfume and scented candles during this time of year are forbidden. She oohs and aahs at his yearly prize shootings, meticulously counting the number of points on the antlers and congratulating her arrogant parent.
As the years pass, he still calls her home when he "gets one" and carries her to his truck's flatbed to see it. She's now eight - 10 - 13. By age 16, she mocks him about his obsession as she sits by the fireplace in a recliner in her late-grandparents' basement. The walls are lined in mounted deer heads, and soon there will be another. She barely sees her father at all that day; he's in the garage cutting up the venison for that winter's meals. Hell, that year's meals. Occasionally he passes through the television room carrying a slab of perfectly carved flesh. She laughs and rolls her eyes, but she knows not to act indifferent.
At age 21, she reminisces. He does not call her anymore, and she has not seen a deer carcass, besides the usual roadkill, in nearly four years. But the late-autumn weather triggers a memory. Bundled in a gray, hooded sweatshirt, she sits in front of her computer and wishes for the weight of a head on her lap, imagining the smoothness of the polished antlers in her still tiny hands. The sudden surge of nostalgia will puzzle her, and she'll think about a photograph of a 5-year-old girl. She has grown to love "buck season" almost as much as her father does, but she never understands why.