Inheritance
by Chris Dodds
Author's Note: I think this fits well in Pennell’s ‘failed schemes’ bucket and is very Texan in flavor (at least the Texas I grew up near). It’s admittedly not one of his bar ensemble things, but maybe the kid version of one of his characters who is destined for the bar.
Grandpa still recognized me although he never said my name. He asked about school. I told him it was going well. It was not, but I didn’t feel like repeating it. My jaw ached. I was grinding my molars.
We sat beside one another in twin recliners that were at least twice my age, their fabric worn to tough burlap and thin in the shape of bodies. I remembered him flicking me into the air with the levers of the foot rests, broken for years now. He had trouble turning door handles lately.
Mom said Grandpa kept telling her he was taking his money out of savings and burying it in jars on the treeline of his property. She laughed when she first re-told it to me, but joked about it less and less. The silliness of it curdled into worry. He didn’t mention it to me. I didn’t ask either, but I noticed how he stared out the windows at the row of cedars behind the house.
He wondered if I’d seen my cousin, John, recently. John died before I was born. I said, no. He said that’s too bad. I brought Grandpa bowls of ice cream, as many as he asked for. It was all he asked for.
I went home.
A storm rolled in that evening. I sat on our front porch watching the rain come down in sheets. It showed no signs of stopping. My foot tapped without rhythm as I thought. The constant pounding of water on the roof felt like a block of lead pushing down on my shoulders, like it would anchor me there forever. I hesitated when I stepped off the porch, but was immediately soaked, all in. I slogged out to my truck, head pulled in like a turtle, a folding shovel under my arm.
I made my way out of town, squinting through the wiper blades, then down the county road that led to my grandfather’s house, stopping a quarter mile past the driveway. Turned off the engine. The rain had only gotten heavier. I let my eyes adjust to the dark, my breath steady. The night outside the window turned from black to a muted blue.
The truck door slammed shut behind me. I pushed against the barbed wire and jumped the fence, sinking ankle-deep into the mud. My boots suctioned into the ground. I stumbled, fell. A few yards at a time, half crawling to the back of the property. My clothes grew heavier, adding a new layer of thick, gravelly mud to them each time I hit the ground. Cedar branches scraped my skin as I climbed over another fence and through the trees.
The tree line was drier than the field. I could see my grandfather’s house through gaps in the boughs. The blue-green glow of the TV in the living room lit two windows and cast murky eyes onto the lawn. I felt around and found where the roots began to spread out and started digging holes. The first few were careful, the rest were not. The chill of the water soaked through me. My arms and legs were slow to follow directions.
The shovel clanged against something hard under the last tree in the line. I tried to dig around it, to get more sense of the shape of it. The hole was twice as dark as the rest of the night. I couldn’t tell anything by feel. I wedged the shovel head underneath the shape to lever it free. Put my weight on the handle. The handle snapped.
The jolt hit my chest, and the numbness in my hands evaporated. All the cuts and scrapes across them came alive. I threw the handle into the field behind me and dug with my hands. The shape continued along in the dirt, longer than any jar. A long pipe partially encrusted in broken concrete that added more cuts to my hands.
I staggered back through the swampy field, breathing hard, crying. After running the heater on MAX for several minutes, my skin itched and tightened as the thinnest layers of mud dried. It sloughed off in flakes and chunks into the floorboard. I tried not to think about how hard it was going to be to get the seats clean.
I drove past two cars abandoned in ditches. Then strobes of red and blue at an intersection where a big dually had slid into a minivan. The tow truck honked at me when I drove too slow in front of it.
At home, I stripped down to my underwear before going into the house. I took a shower and watched a slurry of mud and blood gather at the drain. The hot water ran out. I stood shivering in the dim fluorescent light. Near dawn, still not asleep, I heard the front door rattle when Mom came home from work.
The rain did not stop until late in the afternoon.
I visited Grandpa a few days later and brought him a gallon bucket of Neapolitan. He asked me about school. I told him it was fine. He didn’t seem to notice the band-aids and scabs on my hands. I tucked them under my legs as we talked.
Eyes brighter than usual, he told me about getting in a fist fight with another mechanic when he was stationed in Britain. When he got back home, he told Grandma he lost the tooth because he ran into an airplane wing in the dark.
He stared out at the trees until I told him I had to go and hugged him goodbye. The skin of his forearms thin, like it would tear if he stretched out too far.
He died three weeks later. I did not cry at the funeral. Mom told me after that he had willed what was left in his bank accounts to me.
Chris Dodds lives in Oklahoma City. His debut, Necessary Cuts, won Miami University Press’ 2026 Novella Prize. His work has appeared in Pithead Chapel, BULL, and Marrow Magazine, and is forthcoming in Wordgathering. Find him at chrisdodds.net.
by Chris Dodds
Author's Note: I think this fits well in Pennell’s ‘failed schemes’ bucket and is very Texan in flavor (at least the Texas I grew up near). It’s admittedly not one of his bar ensemble things, but maybe the kid version of one of his characters who is destined for the bar.
Grandpa still recognized me although he never said my name. He asked about school. I told him it was going well. It was not, but I didn’t feel like repeating it. My jaw ached. I was grinding my molars.
We sat beside one another in twin recliners that were at least twice my age, their fabric worn to tough burlap and thin in the shape of bodies. I remembered him flicking me into the air with the levers of the foot rests, broken for years now. He had trouble turning door handles lately.
Mom said Grandpa kept telling her he was taking his money out of savings and burying it in jars on the treeline of his property. She laughed when she first re-told it to me, but joked about it less and less. The silliness of it curdled into worry. He didn’t mention it to me. I didn’t ask either, but I noticed how he stared out the windows at the row of cedars behind the house.
He wondered if I’d seen my cousin, John, recently. John died before I was born. I said, no. He said that’s too bad. I brought Grandpa bowls of ice cream, as many as he asked for. It was all he asked for.
I went home.
A storm rolled in that evening. I sat on our front porch watching the rain come down in sheets. It showed no signs of stopping. My foot tapped without rhythm as I thought. The constant pounding of water on the roof felt like a block of lead pushing down on my shoulders, like it would anchor me there forever. I hesitated when I stepped off the porch, but was immediately soaked, all in. I slogged out to my truck, head pulled in like a turtle, a folding shovel under my arm.
I made my way out of town, squinting through the wiper blades, then down the county road that led to my grandfather’s house, stopping a quarter mile past the driveway. Turned off the engine. The rain had only gotten heavier. I let my eyes adjust to the dark, my breath steady. The night outside the window turned from black to a muted blue.
The truck door slammed shut behind me. I pushed against the barbed wire and jumped the fence, sinking ankle-deep into the mud. My boots suctioned into the ground. I stumbled, fell. A few yards at a time, half crawling to the back of the property. My clothes grew heavier, adding a new layer of thick, gravelly mud to them each time I hit the ground. Cedar branches scraped my skin as I climbed over another fence and through the trees.
The tree line was drier than the field. I could see my grandfather’s house through gaps in the boughs. The blue-green glow of the TV in the living room lit two windows and cast murky eyes onto the lawn. I felt around and found where the roots began to spread out and started digging holes. The first few were careful, the rest were not. The chill of the water soaked through me. My arms and legs were slow to follow directions.
The shovel clanged against something hard under the last tree in the line. I tried to dig around it, to get more sense of the shape of it. The hole was twice as dark as the rest of the night. I couldn’t tell anything by feel. I wedged the shovel head underneath the shape to lever it free. Put my weight on the handle. The handle snapped.
The jolt hit my chest, and the numbness in my hands evaporated. All the cuts and scrapes across them came alive. I threw the handle into the field behind me and dug with my hands. The shape continued along in the dirt, longer than any jar. A long pipe partially encrusted in broken concrete that added more cuts to my hands.
I staggered back through the swampy field, breathing hard, crying. After running the heater on MAX for several minutes, my skin itched and tightened as the thinnest layers of mud dried. It sloughed off in flakes and chunks into the floorboard. I tried not to think about how hard it was going to be to get the seats clean.
I drove past two cars abandoned in ditches. Then strobes of red and blue at an intersection where a big dually had slid into a minivan. The tow truck honked at me when I drove too slow in front of it.
At home, I stripped down to my underwear before going into the house. I took a shower and watched a slurry of mud and blood gather at the drain. The hot water ran out. I stood shivering in the dim fluorescent light. Near dawn, still not asleep, I heard the front door rattle when Mom came home from work.
The rain did not stop until late in the afternoon.
I visited Grandpa a few days later and brought him a gallon bucket of Neapolitan. He asked me about school. I told him it was fine. He didn’t seem to notice the band-aids and scabs on my hands. I tucked them under my legs as we talked.
Eyes brighter than usual, he told me about getting in a fist fight with another mechanic when he was stationed in Britain. When he got back home, he told Grandma he lost the tooth because he ran into an airplane wing in the dark.
He stared out at the trees until I told him I had to go and hugged him goodbye. The skin of his forearms thin, like it would tear if he stretched out too far.
He died three weeks later. I did not cry at the funeral. Mom told me after that he had willed what was left in his bank accounts to me.
Chris Dodds lives in Oklahoma City. His debut, Necessary Cuts, won Miami University Press’ 2026 Novella Prize. His work has appeared in Pithead Chapel, BULL, and Marrow Magazine, and is forthcoming in Wordgathering. Find him at chrisdodds.net.
