Flogging the Dog
By Ian Wrisley
	It wasn't Roger's day. Actually, most days weren't, but this one flogged the dog, as his dad used to say. He didn't know what it meant, flog the dog, but now he found himself saying it. It used to sound kind of obscene, like "beat the meat," still did, but he said it anyway, "This day just flogged the dog." To understand this day you had to go back to the day before, Tuesday. On Tuesday morning he got into a fight with his brother-in-law while they were having coffee and rolls at the cafe. Words had been exchanged, which wasn't unusual, and by the time he'd gotten into his truck to head off to work, he'd forgotten what they were mad about. All he remembered was that Sam was an asshole. Always had been, always would be. In the middle of the day, right after lunch, Roger bent over to pick up a piece of sheet metal and felt a sharp pop in the small of his back. Since he wasn't a girl, he stretched it out and kept working. By the time they knocked off at 5:30, his whole universe had been reduced to nothing but back and pain. There was never any life before the pain and there was no thought of a future without the pain. Marlene was a real piece of work that night. Apparently, Sam, who was an asshole, didn't work that day and had gone straight home and told Louinda about something he'd said two weeks ago, long before their little disagreement in the morning. Why even bring it up? And, anyway, it was both true and funny, what he said. What he'd said, to a table of truckers, machinists, farmers and an insurance salesman, was that Marlene and Louinda's mother was so ugly she couldn't get a job dancing naked in a prison, since that would be considered cruel and unusual punishment. Sam, who needed to get a job and stop shooting off his mouth, had laughed along with everyone else. He knew it. The woman was ugly. Marlene was so mad at him she ruined supper even worse than usual. He was half tempted to go out for a burger, but he didn't like the thought of getting in the truck again. So he laid on the couch with a bag of frozen tator-tots shoved against his back, held in place by his underwear. Roger slept fitfully that night. His dreams all ran along the theme of various hot, sharp objects being driven into his lower back. With each one he'd wake up, grab a few aspirin, and try to get back to sleep. By the time the clock radio numbers flipped over to 6:00 and crackled to life, warning him of traffic delays in places he wasn't going, he'd been awake a good hour, staring at the ceiling. He was sitting at the kitchen table, having a pop-tart and a cigarette. He really needed to quit, since tobacco in the morning shorted out his wiring and made him have to crap. Immediately. Right there at the breakfast table he felt it coming on. He knew it was a problem, usually had his first on the can. But not today. There was nothing he could do about it. Sitting at the table, Roger shit himself. A grown man. Angry, he hobbled upstairs to change, dropping his plate of half-eaten pop-tart on the top step. Marlene was in the bedroom, so he squeezed into the bathroom. As soon as his pants were down, she was at the door, asking him when he was going to be done, and didn't he just get out of there, and did he know what time it was and she needed to work today, did he remember that? He got cleaned up, rolled the soiled shorts in a towel, and headed out, commando style. Marlene, who he was sure had some kind of bladder control problem, was still jabbering at him when he got to the top of the stairs. He turned his head to yell at her to shut her big mouth. He didn't see the plate until he was riding it down the stairs. He hit his head once or twice. His thumb got jammed against the wall. Then Marlene was yelling was he alright. He stared at the ceiling. His back felt better. He twisted slightly. No pain. The pain was gone! As he jumped to his feet, he felt the warm sticky wetness fill his pants. Again.
	Tired of the Dakota winters, Ian Wrisley recently moved his family to the Western Slope of Colorado. His work has appeared in the South Dakota Review, and he portrayed "the Father Dolly" in his first grade Christmas play.
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