Anatomically Correct

A short story about 12 inches

photo from this artist

About a week after Michael’s father’s funeral, the statue arrived. Still covered by a big white sheet, the delivery men installed it on the front lawn of his father’s house, a common three-bedroom suburban box in a neighborhood where homes don’t have statues on the front lawn. Michael didn’t know why his father wanted a statue. He figured it was just a decision made in a chemotherapy and pharmaceutical haze - the dying cancer patient equivalent of drunk online shopping. But when the delivery men pulled off the white sheet, he had a better idea why: The statue was a life-size replica of his father, fully nude, a big grin on his face, a beer in his hand, and a 12-inch, fully erect marble penis projecting from his crotch. At the base of the statue was a plaque that read: FRANK “BIG FRANK” LOWERY (1970 - 2025) IT’S ALL GOOD!

Michael’s head was full of questions - none of which really managed to get through the confusion in his brain for him to consciously consider. He just stared at that foot-long hog emanating from his father and wished this wasn’t happening.

One of the delivery men tapped him on his shoulder and handed him a clipboard to sign.

“You know that guy?” he said.

“I thought I did,” Michael said.

The front door smacked open. He turned around and saw his mother walk out, dressed in mourning black with a matching bottle of Johnny Walker Black in her hand.

“Now everyone will know what a great man my Frank was!” she said, took a swig, and stumbled back inside.

Michael decided to let her sleep it off. Tomorrow was going to be a big day, just like Big Frank intended. He was dead, but the man everybody tolerated until he went too far, which he always did and then had to work hard to make everybody tolerate him again, was continuing his problematic reputation from beyond the grave.

---

The next morning, Michael woke up, helped his wife, Tina, get their 9 and 7-year-old for school, went for a run, and drove to work. He did all this with his phone off the entire time because he knew that once he turned it on, he would have to deal with his father one last time.

Michael loved his father, but he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t always felt just a little tinge of resentment for the man, and due to this, a little relief that he was gone. Growing up, Michael was always cleaning up Frank’s messes. The time when Frank couldn’t pay his bar tab and Michael had to clean the bar’s bathrooms for a year to help his dad sort it out. And then there was the time Frank got caught stealing a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon (not even good beer!) at a convenience store, which Michael fixed by agreeing to mow the store owner’s lawn for two years so he wouldn’t press charges.

But Michael also knew that if it wasn’t for his father, he wouldn’t have had the ability to get as far as he did in life. On paper, Michael was self-made - the poor, scholarship kid who made good. But he did get an inheritance of sorts.

Big Frank didn’t give him a financial fortune, but he instilled in him an ability to solve problems, deal with people, find ways to connect even when there’s little chance of it, and use that to get what you want out of them. And this was, of course, because his dad didn’t know how to do any of that. Big Frank went through life as a freewheeling, late stage hippy, always down for a drink, not always down for a job, and never down for any of that “Leave it to Beaver bullshit,” the phrase he used to describe family get-togethers, parent-teacher conferences, and his son’s baseball games. Michael knew that that was why he got into great schools, became partner at a top law firm by 30, married a beautiful and brilliant doctor, had perfect kids, too big of a house, enough money in the bank to buy another one - the cliche American dream and complete opposite of his father, but the result of his father’s negligence, nonetheless. It’s a strange feeling to be grateful for such a thing, but he knew it was what made him. Hugs and encouragement are not for everyone.

Michael parked his car. He sighed knowing his assistant would have a long list of people who have been calling all night and all morning. He’d have to face them, unlike his dad who would have said in that that scratchy, cigarette-strangled voice saying “You know what? Fuck ‘em, that’s what.” He missed dad, even if the crazy bastard was about to make his life miserable because he wanted everyone in the world to see him with a forearm-sized frankfurter.

Michael turned his phone on. It got hot in his palm from all the notifications coming in. Immediately, the phone rang. His mother. He answered.

“Where the hell have you been, Michael!?” she said.

“Mom, sorry, I -”

“Get over here now! They’re protesting in front of the house. They want to pull down your daddy’s statue! But I ain’t letting them. I’ll shoot the sons of bitches before I do that.”

Michael tried to calm her down as he pulled out of the garage. He could tell she was already on her second bottle of wine and it was only 10 am. He was about to put his phone down and step on the gas when he got a text from his boss: “This makes us look very bad, Mike.”

Michael thought of his dad saying “fuck ‘em.” Thought about texting that back to his boss. What did that silver spoon brat know about this kind of thing? But Michael didn’t do that. Instead he texted: “Taking care of it.”

---

Michael pulled up to the house and saw a sizable crowd of people, maybe two dozen or so, standing in front. His mother, a tall, hefty woman who moved, dressed, and acted half her age, stood defiantly in front of the statue, arms crossed, big thighs in short black shorts spread far apart. She looked mad. Michael knew this was mostly because she wanted another drink.

As made his way through the crowd, people called out his name - Michael, you gotta do something. Michael, you know this isn’t right. Michael, W-T-F, buddy? (some asshole actually saying the letters). Although Michael resented his father for putting him in these situations, he resented the people more for thinking he was on their side just because he wasn’t like his dad. They didn’t know he thought less of them than they did of his dad.

Michael went up to his mom and gave her a hug.

“I ain’t gonna let them take down that statue,” she said. “Your daddy wanted this statue. He wanted to show everyone his gift. He wanted people to know he was special, too, not just a drunk with no job. He had a gift!”

She looked at the crowd.

“He had a gift, goddammit! And y’all are gonna appreciate it!”

Michael thought the statue was an exaggeration of his dad’s endowment, but he could tell in his mother’s voice that it was real - and one of the few hardships his dad didn’t pass onto him. Of course.

She put her arms around Michael and cried on his chest.

“Don’t let them take down that statue,” she said.

Michael came here with the intention of convincing his mom to take the statue down, maybe just put it inside. But seeing how serious she was (he had never seen her so passionate about anything before other than believing she was overcharged at Waffle House), he realized this was something he had to side with her on. This was about giving his dad a shot at redemption in his own unorthodox way and giving his mother the sense that she still had control of her life despite losing the man she had been with for 40 years - ever since she was 15 and pregnant in high school.

Michael hugged her tight and thought about how, despite never having money, she and his dad were so happy together. Sometimes thought what he had with his wife wasn’t as special as what they had. Not all the time, but sometimes. Like at dinner. When he was a kid, his mom and dad would get drunk and crack jokes at the dinner table. They had fun. He and Tina? They talked. Rarely drank. Looked at their phones more than laughed. He loved her. She loved him. But it was different. Quieter. They didn’t get up in the middle of the meal to dance and sing to the lyrics of whatever song came on the radio. They didn’t dance.

“This is my property and if I want a statue of my Frank and his big ol’ thing on my property, I’m gonna have a statue of my Frank and his big ol’ thingon my goddamn property,” Mom said. “You know what your daddy would say if they tried to pull this with him around. Fuck ‘em - that’s what he’d say.”

Michael hugged her again. She was all alone now. She was used to raucous fun. Now she would have to spend holidays with him and his wife, who weren’t much fun, he’d admit, and listen to them about the stock market and trips to Europe. He saw her looking and depressed at their dinner table, so bored she wished she died with Frank.

As his mother was hidden from the crowd in his arms, he watched her pull out a flask from her pocket. Dad’s flask. She took a long pull, and let the booze mellow in her head, looking out at the people in front of her house. He could see her waiting for the booze to tell her what she should do, tell her what to say to set them all straight, every last goddamn one of them. When you grow up with drunks, you can read drunks’ minds. So Michael knew he had about 30 seconds to solve this.

He went to the guy who said “W-T-F” by the letters. He didn’t remember his name, but he remembered who he was. He was the guy who owned the convenience store his dad tried to steal the six-pack of Pabst from.

“Hey, can you all just give my mom a little bit of time?” Michael said. “I know this statue is offensive, but she just needs some time. She’s grieving. Please understand.”

WTF guy was a rotund man with a face that looked like mashed potatoes covered in gravy sweat. He rolled his eyes and sighed like a fed-up teenager, the juvenile gestures on such a large, unfortunate-looking man annoying Michael to his bone.

“The statue is more than offensive,” WTF guy said. “It’s disgusting and outrageous. We don’t stand for that kind of low class culture here. I know you understand this, Michael. You’re a family man. How are we supposed to explain this to our families?”

Michael had a perfectly good response in mind. As a trial attorney skilled in the art of persuasion, handling WTF guy was something he could do on LSD with a stutter. But as soon as he was about to demonstrate his verbal mastery, his mother ran up and pushed WTF guy down on his big AF ass.

“You want that statue down because it reminds you know Frank was screwing your wife all them years!” she said.

A collective gasp from the crowd as WTF Guy struggled to lift his corpulent body off the ground. He looked up at his wife, a bowling pin shaped woman wearing her body weight in makeup.

“That’s not true, honey,” he said in a pleading voice. “That’s not true.”

Bowling Pin looked away, unable to look at WTF Guy’s mashed potato face.

“Honey?” he said.

With her silence providing the answer, WTF guy teared up.

“The town drunk, honey? Why?”

Unwilling to let her husband outcry her, Bowling Pin opened her floodgates.

“He was NICE to me!” she said.

“I’m nice to you!”

“He was NICER!”

An elderly man in a golf cart a few feet away from the crowd, an unlit cigar in his mouth, spoke up. Michael didn’t remember his name, either. But he knew he owned the bar he cleaned the bathrooms of when his dad couldn’t pay his tab. Looking at the man, Michael could smell the stale urine in those bathrooms and see the Rorschach tests of shit in the toilet bowls.

“She wasn’t the only one Big Frank was nice to,” the golf cart man said. “He shtupped my wife every time I went fishing.”

The man’s wife was sitting next to him in the golf cart looking unphased. She spoke to the crowd like she was bored.

“I mean, look at the man,” she said, pointing to the statue. “He may have been a drunk, but he sure could operate heavy machinery.”

Her quip broke the seal. The crowd went from strongly perturbed to outright wrathful. Suddenly everyone was screaming insults, accusations, threats - and confessions. Apparently, there wasn’t a wife in town that Big Frank hadn’t been nice to. While the town’s men laughed at him for being a dumb drunk always behind on his bills and begging for more time to not pay them, Big Frank was showing their wives he wasn’t such a loser after all.

After several smoldering minutes, the crowd turned its attention back on Michael. WTF Guy, apparently the spokesman for the mob, his now a bright red glob of ketchup, got in Michael’s face.

“Take that statue down now!” he shouted. “It’s an insult to our town. It’s an insult to us!”

Michael felt his phone vibrate. He took it out and saw a text from his boss.

“Stop this nonsense or we will have to disassociate from you” it read.

He looked at his mother. She looked pleased - a content smirk on her face as she looked at all the panicked, angry faces of the people who, for so long, treated her like she was nobody, talked about her behind her back, laughed at her for being married to Big Frank.

He looked at the mob. They were the people he grew up around, not with. They wouldn’t let their kids hang out with him. They ignored him at the baseball games his dad didn’t come to. And although they had intentionally forgotten their names because he wanted them to take as little mental space as possible, since they gave him none of theirs, they still took some space. He hadn’t forgotten. And no matter what Michael accomplished with his life, he was still Big Frank’s son, which made him just a little less shiny, a little less.

But now, there was this statue.

“Are you gonna take it down, or are we gonna take it down for you?” WTF guy said.

Michael considered punching him in the face, but that wasn’t his style. Maybe scaring him with a bunch of legal talk, make it sound like even thinking about taking down the statue would result in prison time and financial ruin.

Instead, he looked at his mom.

“Fuck ‘em,” she said.

And they went inside to toast Big Frank.