CNF: Just Cos
by Eddie Cassidy
We lived in a yellow house on top of a hill. It was old and steadily losing ground in a battle with the woods around it. It was pretty in the conventional sense when we moved in. Azaleas lined the stairs. It was pretty in an unconventional sense thereafter. The azaleas and everything else gave way to green overgrowth. My father tended to everything until he felt the place was his. My mother came to believe the house was cursed, the source of all our problems.
One day, old enough to feel shame, I mowed the lawn of my own accord. Before I had finished, my father came out and watched me from above, saying nothing. I felt his presence and let go of the gas. He shrugged as if to say, “what for?” I shrugged as if to say, “just cos.” He went back inside. Before I took a shower, I ran into my mother. She asked me why I mowed the lawn. I shrugged as if to say, “just cos.” She smiled as if to say, “thank you.”
My father died a couple years after that. We had no insurance and no savings. To impress potential buyers, I did my part and mowed the lawn. I ran out of gas shortly into it. I went upstairs to check the red container of gasoline we kept under a bush. The liquid within splashed when I shook it. My father must’ve filled it sometime before he passed. At the top of the stairs, I saw a patch of cut grass and what our home used to be.
A quarter way through the lawn, the mower died. The lawn and everything around looked conventionally uglier than it already had.
I managed to borrow a lawn mower from an acquaintance. He asked me if I needed extra gas, but I told him I had plenty. Halfway through the front lawn, I needed the red container.
I filled up the mower, primed it, pulled the cord, and continued. Five steps in, the mower died. I tried everything. I emptied the cut grass. I played with the primer. I unwound the blade. I took a cursory look at the motor.
I went upstairs with the red container and placed it where it belonged. I looked at it for a minute before unscrewing the top. When I smelled the contents, I did not smell gasoline. I smelled nothing. The container had been filled with water.
I felt his presence, looked to the sky, and shrugged as if to say, “what for?”
Eddie Cassidy is a high school English teacher who lives with his wife and newborn son in the Bronx. When he isn’t planning lessons, he stops overanalyzing art for just enough time to produce his own. This is his first published work.
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What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “Just Cos”? I wrote “Just Cos” lying in bed while my son slept in his crib across the room. My wife and I always point out which of his features belong to either of us. My eyes, her lips, a combination of our hair. We hope he grows into his ears as I eventually did. In the dark, with no features to look at, I wondered what of my personality he’d inherit. Every now and then my wife points out unconscious habits that, until then, I didn’t know my parents had planted in me. The habits are quirks at best and flaws at worst. When she points out the latter, she usually does it in the form of a question. “Why do you do that?” It feels like an accusation. Growing up, I tried not to be like those people as much as possible. Grown up, I am those people in ways I didn’t think possible. Then, before I say anything in response, the guilt floods in. At the end of the day, my parents weren’t those people. They were simply people. And they were mostly good people, albeit flawed and quirky. I project my youthful disdain towards my parents into my wife’s question. I feel attacked. The bullet goes through me and hits them, too. It’s neurotic and insecure and, rather than unpack the baggage unearthed by the question, I diffuse everything with a shrug. “Just cos,” I say. With the story, I tried to communicate how much went unsaid in my family, how lack of communication between too proud people led to unnecessary strife. And, I suppose, by writing it I hoped to pave the ground for a more communicative home for my son to grow up in.
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