Of Course There's No Monster in the Butcher's Closet

The oldest nephew claimed he could not sleep because of the noises coming from the Butcher's closet. Not the noises from the TV, which was so loud that I had to call the Butcher on the phone and tell him to turn it down. Not the noises from the dog, who was making every bark she could think of to alert us to the arrival of the recalcitrant brother. But the closet. The problem is, and the reason the men in the house had no sympathy for him is, that the Butcher's closet is full of crap and the space in front of the Butcher's closet is packed with more crap. If there's anything in there, it's died from lack of food. Fine, of course he should just lay down and go to sleep. But the fact was, I was already laying down and going to sleep, and so his constant, "Daddy, there's a noise in the closet" and the return holler of "No there isn't. Now go lay down." was keeping me awake. So, I went in there with my wiggly dog for protection, and sat down on the bed and listened. And sure enough, after a few seconds of sitting there quietly, I could indeed here a strange ass noise coming from near the closet. "Nephew," I explained, "the interstate is right out my window. And right out the Butcher's window, across the railroad tracks, is a huge metal building. What you're hearing is the sound of large trucks rolling by echoing off the building in some weird way, and coming in that window." I felt like a genius. Of course, his father had the brilliant idea of turning the bathroom fan on so that the nephew couldn't hear the noise, which actually let him fall to sleep, but I figured out what it was! Ha, I think, maybe, that's a difference between my brother and I. I come up with explanations that let me live with the things that bother me. He comes up with ways of covering them up so he doesn't have to pay attention to them. Still, I must tell you that, upon seeing that little boy sleeping in the Butcher's bed with his butt all up in the air and his legs tucked up under him, my uterus made a noise--"awlwuwlwulw," or something similar--which means, I think, in uterine "I could coax something like that into being for you" and though my heart said, "Holy shit, that'd be fucking awesome," it was my brain who said "One, you already have a house full of things that depend on you. Two, do you not read your own writing? And three, you're going to trust an organ that looks like a weird space ship? Has anyone ever made a horror movie about the uterus? No, I don't think so. Stick with me, B. Make some wise choices for once."