Armadillo

 The armadillo trundles by at dusk, just as Journee takes her last hit from the joint. The waddle, the smooth oval of animal is the backyard groundhog snuffling for greens until the perk of ears and the tiny horseface silhouettes its profile. Journee flexes forward, feet slipping onto the splintery slats of back porch. The ripples of shell slide through the shadows until the armadillo disappears into the rustling cornstalks.

“Arm—” The word catches in her dry throat.

Her brother stirs in the other plastic chair. “Huh?”

She rasps, lifting her finger to point. “Armadillo!”

Jordan barks laughter. “Nah.”

“Really!” she insists, standing.

“In Illinois?” Disbelief rises in his voice.

Journee moves carefully to the porch steps, but the armadillo is gone and her brother does not trust her vision. She stands for a minute, squinting at the leaves on the cornstalks that undulate even without a breeze, hoping the creature will emerge. It doesn’t.

Seated again on the sticky lawn chair, she stares at the pink polish on her toes. The pedicure is badly chipped, but it doesn’t matter now whether she has pretty feet.

The armadillo is a football abandoned on the berm of the highway, its feet curled against air, its tail a horseshoe crab’s. Journee slides her feet from the dashboard to the floor and twists to look out the passenger window. The football is a shrinking exoskeleton balancing upon the asphalt. The seatbelt cuts into her neck, and she shifts back to face her brother, whose left hand rests atop the steering wheel.

“Armadillo!” she says, heart thumping.

Jordan snorts, not moving his eyes from the road.

“It was,” she insists.

The truck rumbles onward, the imperfections of the asphalt ticking under the tires. Journee rubs her neck, pushing down frustration, while Jordan reaches for the beer bottle between his thighs and lifts it to his lips. One for the road, he said as they left the house. Mom will smell it on you, she countered. Nah, he replied.

Her childhood bedroom is the opposite of safety. The ceiling is stained with damp, and a spider web of cracks laces the upper pane of glass in her window. Bird hit it, her brother said. More like you and that air rifle, she retorted. He grinned at her. Nah.

It’s hot even in October, but she opens only the lower half of the window for the hope of a breeze. A box fan makes too much noise for her to hear her mother calling from the living room. Jordan insists on sleeping on the back porch, but he’s too drunk or hungover to help during the night.

She pulls the battered red Converse high tops out of her closet when it’s cold enough to need shoes inside. Stars and peace signs and amoebas decorate the dingy white rubber edges where sole meets canvas. The boy she liked in senior year of high school had drawn the amoebas during biology class. All I need is an amoeba, he wrote in angular script. Her foot had rested in his lap as he bent over her shoe with his pen.

The television drones from the living room as she makes scrambled eggs, no salt or pepper. She rips the foil off a single-serve container of apple sauce. She carries the food from the kitchen, wondering how much her mom will eat.

By spring she and Jordan are driving back to the hospital, her behind the wheel because even Jordan admits he’s no good at this hour. She wears her hair in a high ponytail held by a navy scrunchie, hoping to draw a smile from her brother. Glancing over, she sees he has his eyes closed against the morning sun as his fingers drum his knee.

The truck jumps. Journee looks in the rear-view mirror and sees the cone of animal motionless on the road. “I hit something,” she yelps.

“So?” Jordan’s eyes are still closed.

“Should I stop?” She glances in the mirror again.

“Fuck no.”

She pulls over on their way back. Jordan’s glance at her is pointed.

“I want to see,” Journee says defensively.

“A dead raccoon?”

“It’s not a raccoon.”

Sliding off the driver’s seat, she jogs across the highway. Other vehicles have flattened the animal in the hours since she killed it, leaving a mass of blood and gristle and, yes, scales. Glancing down the lane, she sees a semi approaching. She straightens and nudges the dead armadillo toward their truck with her shoe. The stodgy carcass moves reluctantly, clinging to the black cinders. The semi blares its horn.

“For fuck’s sake!” Jordan shouts, when she dangles the carcass by two fingers at his passenger window. Miraculously, the tiny horsehead is intact.

“Told you,” Journee says, dropping the armadillo into the foxtail and knotweed and tire scraps edging the asphalt. Her hand stinks, and she scrubs it against the floor mat before climbing back into the driver’s seat.

“You’re losing it,” her brother accuses, glaring at her.

She raises her eyebrows. “Nah.”

After the funeral, neighbors and relatives come to the house, still wearing their somber dresses and collared shirts. The aunts lay out casseroles and cold meats on the dining room table. Six-packs nestle into the ice heaped in a neighbor’s kiddie pool.

By dusk Journee is drunk, sprawled in a lawn chair with bare feet and her skirt hiked up to her thighs. Someone found a frisbee and the cousins keep losing it in the cornfield. Journee watches the plastic disc arc across the backyard and hit the side of the house. Her uncle jogs over and pauses at the porch, then leans down. “Something’s dug under the house here,” he calls.

Others drift over to examine the damage. Journee leans her head back and gazes into the deepening blue sky. She smiles.

Armadillo.