There are birds, picking around the bench at the gravel near Mutton’s feet. He’s looking at the shadow of the tree. No one can see what he’s thinking. Not even if we imagined a cross-section of Mutton’s head cut away to reveal his thoughts.
Oh no! He sits up! Mutton's lost the old journal he keeps with him! It has, in its front cover, the last picture he has of his daughter! Its not in his front jacket pocket, where it has been for fifteen years! He’s not even wearing his jacket!
Mutton’s running around town, checking every spot he thinks he’s been. Behind the post office, in the alley by the convenience store. Nowhere! He’s stuck in confusion and his head hurts. Stop getting fucked up! Stupid Mutton!
He runs across the street jarring two lanes of oncoming traffic to a halt. People honk and regard him like they would a deer with one antler dragging on the ground, its head crooked. He gets to the other sidewalk and grabs his head, runs his hands over his sideburns, which drip an oozy sweat onto his palms. Whimpering, he’s whimpering.
Suddenly a fairy appears from the pizza shop. She floats majestically over some picnic tables and glints trails of stardust behind her in the harsh afternoon sun. The sun reflects off a man's mirror-shades as he ducks into his car. The fairy smiles at Mutton and looks at him like a poor dear man.
Mutton, here is the photo of your daughter, she says warmly. Her breath is sour like she just now woke up. She is black and her dress is seafoam and sequined, high-hemmed, Motown. Her voice makes his stomach warm but her eyes are worn subway eyes, saying nothing, staring into more snow
Mutton squeaks and holds himself. He reaches out and takes the photo. His daughter, at the time of this photo, is two days old. She tilts her head to the side, her eyes not quite open and her face still red from birth. A pink, soft, stretchy band is on her head and her hair looks like the most intimate parts of flowers that must, necessarily, be curled inside the petals, away from everything. Her hands and dumb little balls of fingers, held at her temples.
When Mutton looks up, the fairy is gone and a few children standing by their fallen bikes are looking at him, crying in the pizza shop parking lot and clutching his picture.
A boy with a red Yankees hat floating on his head points and says ‘Faggot.’
The kids laugh and Mutton slinks to the back of the parking lot toward the tall grass where he will sit with the photograph and say everything, again, he has to say.
