An Advisor

            The squirrel stood upright to accommodate its two-fisted feeding frenzy.  On the arm of the wooden bench, tail in a perfect “S,” it devoured the apple core, its nibbling the only sound traveling through the quiescent suburban morning.  Dew drops began to sparkle as the sun broke over the ridge behind the house, pouring morning over the yard in luscious oranges and reds, colors with depth and texture, colors that one felt rather than saw.  The spreading light also revealed a silhouette on the screen door, growing larger by the second; the squirrel dropped the remnants of its morning meal and turned to the door, hands splayed on the bench.  Eyes narrowing as the dark shape approached, the squirrel tensed in anticipation of this interloper come to usurp its breakfast nook.

            Albert paused on the other side of the screen door, tea in one hand and wheat toast covered in an amalgam of margarine and marmalade in the other, to watch the squirrel, staring towards the door with apprehension.  What was it thinking?  Was that stance indicative of aggression?  Would it consider attacking him?  Did it even have the capacity to consider?  Did it still harbor some grudge, genetically encoded over generations, against human beings for obtruding upon its territory?  Did squirrels have a concept of territory like other animals?  Shifting the plate to balance it on top of the mug, Albert opened the door deliberately, at a pace just slow enough to avoid creaking.  The squirrel bolted anyway.  Albert sighed.

             He sat on one of the plastic, stackable chairs on the concrete porch, pressing his knees close enough together to balance the plate with his toast and lifting the tea to his mouth carefully, as if he’d never taken a sip without being burned.  The silver writing around the outside of the mug – “RVE Investments: Spring Conference, 1996” – reflected and distorted the morning, presenting a stretched and curved variant of the yard drenched in exaggerated spectrums.  Slowly, he inclined the mug to his lips, one degree at a time, eyes squinted against the rising steam.  With a slurp, a small measure of tea escaped the mug, and Martin’s whole body shuddered as, at the same moment, the screen door slammed open.

            “What’re you doing?”  The man approaching Martin held one hand in the other, dabbing with a paper towel at a still suppurating wound between his thumb and forefinger. 

            “Breakfast,” Albert replied, directing his sneer out into the world rather than at his uncle behind him, and saying a silent prayer that he could achieve solitude again in five words or less.

            “Well, never let it be said that you’re not succinct.”  His tone struggled between mocking and familial.  He grabbed another of the plastic chairs and positioned it next to Albert’s; the sound of plastic scraping on concrete made Albert shiver.  “But I meant it the grander sense, as in ‘What are you doing today?’  Look like you ain’t seen the sun in a month; y’oughtta spend the whole day outside.  Maybe we can hike out to that creek and do some fishing.”  He pulled the paper towel away from his hand and inspected the results before spitting into the yard.         

            “Hm.”  Albert chewed reflectively on the crust of his toast, still gazing out and away.

            “And that ain’t no kind of breakfast, neither.  No wonder you’re the smallest polliwog in your class.”  Albert’s uncle rubbed his unshaven chin and cheek, an action that produced a sound exactly like what Albert imagined “grating on one’s nerves” would sound like. 

Albert blew steam from the lip of his tea mug out into the morning.

“Lemme see if I can put this in words you’d understand: that breakfast is not exactly the most salubrious for a growing boy.  Supposed to be growing, anyway.”  He eyed the boy, not quite suspiciously, but as if at any moment antennae might sprout from his forehead, and such an occurrence would be more expected than unexpected.  “Got bacon in there – real bacon – and some eggs.  What say I make you something to help them growth spurts along?  That’d be the ticket – a big breakfast’ll help turn you into a big man, like your dad was.”

            The final sentence seemed to silence all the other backyard sounds for a few awful seconds.  Albert lifted his mug again, with the same deliberateness, and after taking his miniscule sip, shook his head, eyes still on the unfolding sunrise.

            His uncle stood, looking out in the same direction, opened his mouth, thought better, and retreated inside.