Charlie Huston - The Shotgun Rule

– Fuck you. It’s my favorite shirt.

Paul pushes harder.

– You can get a new shirt. Get in there.

The fingers of Andy’s right hand slip off the window ledge and he flails his arm, grabbing the shower curtain. Two of the curtain rings pop loose. His upper body hangs in the air.

– Fucking stop it, I’m gonna fall and rip the shirt. Unsnag it.

Paul starts to push again.

– Fuck the shirt.

George grabs his brother’s ankles and tries to pull him back.

– Stop being a dick, unsnag his shirt.

– I’m not being a dick, he’s being a pussy.

Hector jumps up, grabs the corner of the window frame with one hand, wall walks two steps, reaches in and unsnags Andy’s shirt with his middle finger before dropping back down.

– Fags.

Paul and George let go of Andy’s legs and he falls headfirst, the curtain rings popping off the metal rod, a stack of titty magazines on the back of the toilet slapping to the floor. He puts his arm out and jerks the last few rings free, the bar coming down with them, crashing down into the chipped tub and ringing off the cracked wall tiles.

They all freeze. A car drives past out front.

George hauls himself up and sticks his face in the window.

Andy is on the floor, half of the curtain draped over his legs.

– You OK?

Andy looks at him, a little blood on his lower lip from where his teeth sliced it when his face hit the floor.

– Yeah, thanks, fag.

– It wasn’t me, it was Paul.

Paul punches George in the back of his leg.

– Fuck off.

George kicks at him.

– Stop being a dick all the time for a change.

Hector heads for the glass door.

– If he’s OK, tell him to let us the fuck in.

George adjusts his grip, pulls himself up a little higher.

– You cool to let us in?

Andy is getting off the floor, looking at the hole in his shirt.

– I’ll be there in a sec.

Still inspecting the hole, he opens the bathroom door and Fernando is standing there and he punches Andy in the face and starts kicking him when he hits the floor while George screams and tries to claw his way through the window that’s far too small.

Geezer untwists the neck of the paper bag and looks inside.

There’s a word for this. The moment he sees the jewelry he knows there’s a word for what has happened and what will happen as a result.

– Un something.

Jeff blinks.

– What?

– An un word. Un something. When there’s just no fucking excuse whatsoever for it. The kind of thing you cut people’s eyes out for.

Jeff runs a hand down the length of his ponytail.

– Unconscionable?

Geezer looks up from the bag.

– That’s it. Unconscionable. That for which you cut some fucker’s eyes out.

He rubs his nose.

– Kids?

– Yeah. Teenagers anyway.

– The ones you got crawling around your trailer all the time?

– Yeah.

– One of them knows somebody or something. What’s the deal on that?

– One of them, he.

– One of them he, what?

Jeff looks at the bullfighter in black velvet hung over Geezer’s head.

– He was running Amy Whelan’s shit for a while.

Geezer upends the bag in his lap. He picks out an engagement ring he doesn’t remember being with the rest of the jewelry when he told the spics they could keep it.

Amy Whelan.

Could have swore she was clear on the concept. Went over there and made a point of showing her that Oakland holds this town, that as far as that’s concerned, he’s Oakland’s hand here. Showed her how the Oakland boys handle shit. Thought she was clear. Should have known better. Doesn’t matter how together a person seems, how well they got their priorities in line, they start seeing drug money roll across their table and they get greedy and stupid. The two being pretty fucking much…fuck.

– The word?

Jeff shifts from foot to foot.

– The word?

– When two things mean the same thing? Two words got the same meaning. Not when they’re spelled the same but mean different things, the opposite of that.

– Synonymous.

Geezer rubs at the small stone in the engagement ring.

– That’s it. Synonymous. When two things look different, but they’re the same.

Greed and stupidity. Synonymous. Amy Whelan’s done gone and got greedy. Got stupid. Got some kids involved in his shit. Fucking up shit for everyone. Upsetting his personal applecart, creating friction with Oakland, interfering with supply and demand. The supply of cash that Oakland demands for staying out of his ass.

Unconscionable bitch.

– Where they now?

– My place.

– This all they got?

– One of the guys, this kid Paul, the big one who’s over there the most, he said he might have something else.

Geezer runs his palm over the slick nylon of his shiny gold sweat suit.

– More jewelry?

– No. I don’t think so.

– Guns? He pick up a couple pieces somewhere?

– Maybe. Sounds more like he got his hands on someone’s stash. A bag of coke or something.

Geezer wraps his fingers around the handle of his grabber, squeezing, making the plastic claw at the end of the aluminum pole into a fist.

– Yeah. Coke. Crank, maybe?

– Um, I don’t. You know, that’s your thing, man. I don’t know where they’d get crank that didn’t come from you.

– Said one of ’em works for Amy Whelan?

– Used to.

– So maybe she wants to get some new business going?

– I don’t think so, man. I mean, everyone knows that’s your deal. No one’s gonna mess with you, Geez.

– Sure. Of course. Kid got his hands on a couple eight balls, wants to move one of them.

– Yeah, probably.

– OK, look into that.

Geezer scoops the jewelry out of his lap and back into the bag and sets it next to him on the black leather couch.

– How much they want?

Jeff looks at the bullfighter again, looks at the gilded plaster sconces that bracket it dripping plastic grapes.

He shrugs.

– Shit, Geez, they’re kids, you know? They’ll take whatever you give and be happy with it.

Geezer smiles, leans back, the couch creaks as his fat rearranges.

– And you, you gonna be happy with whatever you can get?

– I’m just doin’ them a solid. Shit ain’t mine, they just brought it to me.

Geezer looks him over.

Loser. Guy should have it stapled to his head. Stapled to his head. Could you do that? Probably not with a regular stapler. A contractor’s stapler, a big industrial one that would go in the bone, the kind they use to staple into concrete and shit. Use one of those, you could staple a dead cat to a guy’s head and it’d stick. Or a live cat. Or a weasel. Staple a live weasel by its tail and watch and see what it does. Or one of them…long and wormy…like a weasel, but?

– Like a weasel, but different?

– Um.

– Long and skinny and furry, a rodent, but it hunts other rodents.

– A ferret.

Geezer closes his eyes and laughs.

– Yeah. That’s it. Ferret. A ferret by the tail. That’d be something.

He laughs until he coughs.

Jeff takes a step closer.

– You OK?

Geezer waves him off. Choking, he reaches over his stomach for the glass of juice on the coffee table, squeezing the grabber’s handle, the claw closing around the glass.

He brings it close, removes the glass from the claw and takes a sip.

– Pluck your eye out with this thing. Best five bucks I ever spent.

He puts the grabber back in its place.