“How many times have I told you, you take them squirrels out to the woods?” Slade cuffed him, rattled his jaw. “Your mama she don’t want to see dead squirrels. She don’t want to know about dead squirrels.”
Slade told you how much he hated a goddamned stinking garbage can—bits of slithering fat, spoiled meat, dead putrefying tomcats. The BB pistol was no longer yours. From now on Slade would take care of the squirrels. In two more hours, in two days tops, Slade would be ancient history.
Danny took the squirrel to the woods in a Kmart bag. He followed a path that led to the creek where his father would take him when he was five. They were living in a house then, on the other side of the woods. His father would sit down with him. His father would play the harmonica awhile. They’d sit on one of the rotting logs and look down at the creek awhile. There was a log bridge and they would sit on it, let their feet hang towards the water. His father would play the harmonica, one song, “The Streets of Laredo.” That was the song his father liked most. Danny wanted to learn the song on the guitar, but now he didn’t have a guitar. He had learned it on the harmonica.
The weight of the squirrel, a dead thing now, made him consider dropping it anywhere. But he thought if he dropped it in the creek it would foul the creek for others. That way they would be kept away. He wished his father had been put in the creek. He would have liked to have had his father cremated. He’d have taken the ashes to the creek, in the helmet his father wore on the line trucks. The bright yellow helmet would be in the garage, with his father’s power tools, shotguns, and fishing rods. You ever get hold of a hot line, Danny, you will be blown to kingdom come. Slade had gotten rid of the helmet.
Little Ben was already there. Dirt bikes lay on their sides like some sort of parody of languor. Little Ben sat on the log bridge. His pants were around his ankles. Little Ben’s little friends were jerking off. Penthouse Forums were still in the guitar case. Jerk-offs! Danny was swinging the squirrel. He heaved the squirrel after the dirt bikes. He groped for the C harmonica. It was buried under a crumbling log, lichened, almost a part of the soil. Light slanted through the tall pines; bright pennies peppered the creek. He had to open his knife and pry loose the dirt that had collected inside the mouth holes. He held it, the harmonica, put it slowly to his mouth. In and out, blow notes and draw notes, bending the draw notes, good sound. He imagined he was his father. His father was playing for him. He was playing “The Streets of Laredo,” a certain young cowboy I happened to see.
Uncle Walton hadn’t finished repairing the car, but Billy Hudmon had a gun for him. disaster area had been replaced with a sign that said a man’s home is his castle.
Colt .45 automatic—you can have it for ninety-nine fifty. The door to the trailer was open once he counted out the money. The welcome mat draped on the concrete block welcomed Danny, a paying guest. Inside, Lou Ann was sprawled on the couch. Billy opened a Budweiser before he showed him the gun.
“This piece weighs a ton when you fire it.”
There was another path from Billy’s trailer, through the woods to the creek. Danny wasn’t willing to go that far and Billy Hudmon wasn’t able to. Billy Hudmon handed Danny a clip and showed him how to load the clip. With the heel of his left hand, he shot the bolt, flicked the safety off with the flange of his thumb.
He put the beer bottle in the fork of a tree. Danny gripped the .45 with a two-handed grip. He put pressure on the trigger, but the trigger wouldn’t give. He had to use both forefingers to pull the trigger. The kick knocked his hands up, deafening.
“Let me show you how it’s done.”
Beer breath, Billy’s sweat in his face, Billy stepping around behind you, leaning around you to grip your left hand, goat beard scratching the back of your neck, but you could take that, his body, the smell of him, his hands cupping yours like a slimy toad. “You got to keep putting on pressure slow. Keep your elbows locked. Let the recoil bring the weapon back.”
Bark spattered off the fork of the tree.
Billy stepped back, let Billy take the .45, let Billy demonstrate his marksmanship. The third shot shattered the bottle.
“Now you see how it’s done.” Billy held out the .45; he had to get close to take it from him. The box of cartridge clips, he took that too.
After Billy went back to his trailer, Danny followed the path to the creek. He pushed back the log and laid the .45 down without looking at the harmonica. He set the box of clips beside the .45.
He picked up the car a little later. Uncle Walton had done the best he could do. The front end had half a header, the other half twisted metal like someone with half of his face gouged out. The right headlight stared back at him, the signal lights hanging down like an ear. You could put your hand on the radiator. His car was parked all by itself, in back of Uncle Walton’s paint and body shop. He had walked all the way from the trailer.
Uncle Walton was on the telephone. He was talking to Dee, yes I’ll be there Dee, looking off at the paint on the wall.
How many times do I have to tell you get rid of that goddamned piece of junk? I don’t want to see it anymore, Slade had said to him. And you take them dead squirrels out to the woods. He saw Slade coming out of Knott’s Tavern. Wait till he’s about to get in his car. Put the pressure on slow, squeeze the trigger. Head shot, blow out his goddamned brains. Uncle Walton, still talking to Dee.
Uncle Walton wouldn’t have anything to say to him because he wouldn’t know he had a gun. Watch where you’re driving next time. Don’t head south to Florida yet. Don’t do it, Danny, I’m telling you! Keep talking, you’re just wasting your breath. Danny stared at the blood in the water cooler, blood squirting out into paper cups, Slade’s blood, his goddamned stepfather’s. Pipe blood in from the bathtub, from Slade’s body, knees up, throat slashed big. Little snort out of the cooler, Slade. Count Dracula’s premium brew for you.
Danny was parked outside of Knott’s Tavern. He watched a line crew moving a hot line. There were two bucket trucks, a bucket for each lineman. Rubber hoses sheathed the secondaries, clothespinned rubber blankets encased the insulators. Knock you to kingdom come. The linemen worked deliberately, aloft, aloof in their buckets. They were moving the line to a new pole, numeral plates flush with the secondaries catching bits of unapproachable light.
He waited another hour. The linemen tied in the primaries, came down, the elbowed lifts folding in on themselves, setting the linemen on the pavement again. They peeled off their tool belts and hung them up on a rack in the back of the truck. The ground man taped up a coil of copper wire, rolled up the rubber blankets, stashed the hoses, gathered up pulley lines. One lineman went to the water cooler embedded in one side of the truck. Clear cold water for this good man, for all the good men in the line crew.
That night they got into it about the goddamned squirrel with its throat slit with his mother’s carving knife. All they could do now was drink and fight. His mother burned the frozen pizza. Dragging it charred from the oven, she stepped on little Ben’s skateboard. She skidded across the linoleum. The pizza sailed up off the cookie sheet, splattered in Slade’s pig face, his ape hands thickened with cheese, blackened anchovies, tomato splotches, then Slade’s pig face behind the network of hands. Danny was swinging the frying pan, trying to get to Slade’s pig face. He felt it wrenched away in Slade’s big hands. He heard the frying pan clang against the stove. Something crashed in his head and he went down.
When he came to Slade wasn’t there anymore. His mother couldn’t get up. Bits of cheese were stuck to his mother’s face. She put her hands on pink rollers. Danny breathed in the acrid smoke. He went to the door and opened it, letting warm air in to thin out the smoke. He was running now, down the path to the creek. The creek was overlaid with shadow. He couldn’t help his mother anymore. He pushed the log back, picked up the harmonica, puckered his lips on a mouth hole, blowing a sustained, soothing note. The .45 and the box of cartridges were where he’d left them, beside the harmonica now. His fingers touched metal. He would leave the harmonica under the log, where he had kept it all these years.
It was dark when he left the creek. He went to his car first and put the