The Red Cover

Kim Chinquee

The book with the red cover read ‘You Can't Threaten Anyone’. After my dad died, I found it on his table. I found a lot of things on his table – every card I sent him, along with all my letters.

The book with the red cover only listed items. It was a notebook. The first page read ‘Fireman’, the next ‘Stroller’, the next ‘Bow Tie’, and the next was ‘Hump’. They were all in his handwriting.

The rest of the pages were sketches of men and women with big eyes and small faces.

My dad died alone, in assisted living. When his social worker came to open the lock box and give him his meds, the social worker found him dead on the floor, his feet just inside the door.

I heard he ate breakfast that morning at the cafe across the street. He ate a lot of pancakes and kept asking for more water.

I didn’t know what kind of care he had. The last time I saw him, weeks before, his skin looked yellow. He was unshaven. His shirt was soiled. His eyes were glossy. But his eyes were always glossy, at least since his breakdown in church so many years ago, when I was sitting next to him and he yelled for God to help him. I was thirteen then, and sometimes I feel stuck at that age because that moment changed me.

I wasn’t sure if he was a threat or he was afraid of a threat. I wondered what his voices told him.

He died a long time ago. I look at pictures of him as a boy. He smirks, as if he knows what's ahead of him.

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About Kim Chinquee

Kim Chinquee's eighth book Pipette was published with Ravenna Press. She has three books forthcoming in 2025 with MadHat Press and Baobab Press. She's Senior Editor of New World Writing Quarterly, Associate Editor of Midwest Review, Chief Editor of ELJ (Elm Leaves Journal), and co-coordinator of SUNY-Buffalo State University's writing m