The God Apollo Guided the Arrows

by Chase Troxell

My son Ethan is building a shrine to the god Apollo, and his mom who still calls him by his dead name, Leona, asks him what about Jesus. You know, the one that died for our sins. Ethan is pretty cheeky though, says fuck Jeebus, like I care about that hippie. They fight, he hangs up and blocks her number. I don’t know any of this is going on (other than the shrine to the god Apollo, as he took one of my poetry books and two of my candles to make it). I get a phone call from his mom, the normal kind of stuff: what is wrong with your daughter [son], I’m her [his] mother, you need to talk to her [him]. Okay, I say. I go back to playing Astrobot on my Playstation because who wants to jump straight into that fire? Ethan comes downstairs with the relative haste of a teen to explain to me that his mom is acting like a bitch, and he fucking hates her. I say, she is still your mom, so you shouldn’t say fowl things about her. He says, I don’t care, she is the one that cheated on you and left when I was six; I don’t have attachment to her anymore. This is a lie, of course, one he tells himself when he is mad at her questioning his sense of reality. I tell him, your mom just wants you to love Jesus. He repeats the same thing about Jeebus but goes on a bigger rant about the Catholic faith that kicked him out of school because he had pronouns on his backpack that said he/him. Apollo is better anyway, he explains. Apollo is the god of more than just the sun: he is the god of poetry and music and gay love. I did not know that about Apollo. I had recently read he guided the arrow that killed Achilles, which made me wonder how much that must have hurt him to have a vendetta against Achilles, who famously loved Patroclus. Like the god Apollo, Ethan does not waste time. He unblocks his mom’s number and fires an arrow straight for her heel: I’m mad at you for what you did to Dad; and one to the heart: I’m mad at you for leaving; and one for good measure: I don’t feel attached to you anymore. She cries. He feels bad. His mom proceeds to text me about how I compromised their relationship. Ethan was right: his mom does suck sometimes. Something is missing in her brain; Jesus died for our sins, sure, but I don’t think she knows which sins to offer up to him. Ethan is a bit rattled, as one would expect when looking at your victim on the battlefield, bow in hand. His mom wants me to punish him, but instead I take him to Walmart to buy some fake flowers for his shrine. I massage the back of his head and tell him, she does love you. She really does. It’s just that love looks a little different from different people. He is worried he might have done some permanent damage. I look down at my phone, which is blowing up with texts about how much of an asshole I am for twisting her [his] mind. I say, don’t worry kid, looks like I’m taking the bullets for this one. The next day, they call and make up, the sun just barely peaking over the horizon on a new day, but her texts vilifying me take till the third day to die. I can finally sigh with relief.

BIO: Chase Troxell graduated with his B.A. from the University of Findlay where he was also the first managing editor for Slippery Elm. He has since earned his MBA and works as an Operations Manager. He has poems published in GNU Journal, Mochilla Review, Sheila-Na-Gig Online, Eunoia Review, Coffin Bell Journal and others. He lives in Findlay, OH with his two kids.