The Full Bull

The Full Bull

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The Full Bull
The Full Bull
King of the Road

King of the Road

Short Story

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Bull Garlington
May 05, 2025
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The Full Bull
The Full Bull
King of the Road
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It’s November in Alabama and my favorite uncle is dying. I come from a family with nothing but uncles on both sides of the wedding cake. They’re a blue collar Rushmore and to a man they glare down at my doomed relative, the half-truck-driver-half-fast-food restaurant-manager, the joker, the partier, the gray sheep, the one who borrowed money to go to culinary school but couldn’t finish, the one who married the stripper named Lucky who wore high heeled shoes that light up when she walks and boomeranged in and out of county jail for petty theft; the mad uncle who used to make me fried baloney sandwiches then take me drunken night fishing at the dam where we shot 44 magnums into the sky; the one who killed a perfect eight point buck out by the papermill with his Mac truck and earned the nickname “Deerhunter;” Paul, the youngest, who was dying, who was already dead.

I am in the car with my sister watching my mother drive, watching her beautiful, resigned smile propelled west out of Birmingham in silence to bring me to the grim bed of her baby brother whom she has loved like he was her own son his whole life and especially these last ten hard years. A whole ten years and more of helping, of loaning, of selflessly assisting and praying, all punctuated by his stroke, a blind fist to the side of the head that laid him out, stole his tongue, and left him cooped up inside himself like a scared dog under a bed.

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