Charlie Huston - The Shotgun Rule

That’s what it’s like being the little brother.

He’s made out twice in his life so far. Both times with girls that were older than him. Both times at parties where everyone was drunk and stoned. Both times they found out he was at least a year younger and ignored him after and told their friends it didn’t happen.

He picks up a brush and tries to run it through his hair, but it snags and pulls at his scalp. He gives up and leaves it in a tangle.

In the kitchen he finds some of last night’s fruit salad and sits at the table in his underwear. He studies the bowl and estimates how much more fruit is in it than was in his bowl last night. He remembers the total numbers of each type of fruit he had in his bowl because he counted them all and he multiplies that number based on his estimate and calculates the odds of selecting any particular type of fruit if he were to do it blindfolded.

He remembers catching his dad watching him pick through the fruit. Remembers the look on his dad’s face. He gets that look a lot, the where did this weird kid come from look.

It’s not like he’s trying to be different, like he wants to be weird. He just is. Not like it’s easy being this way. He’d rather be like George. He’d rather be like his dad. He’d rather be like anyone else. But he’s not. Because no one else is like him. No one else is this weird. And that’s just the weird stuff people know about. They don’t know about the stuff inside his head.

Dreams where soldiers attack their house and he sneaks around with a toy gun that shoots real bullets and he kills them all. Moments in the middle of the day where he’s by himself doing homework and suddenly sees himself with a knife, walking up behind some jock who picked on him in school and sticking it in his eye while he’s talking to his jock friends and then just going crazy and cutting them all up. Things inside his head that he doesn’t know where they come from and he can’t tell anyone because they scare him so much.

He looks into the bowl. Apples are the most likely. He closes his eyes and reaches into the bowl. Apple. He drops it back in the bowl and fishes out a strawberry.

He wishes George and Paul and Hector hadn’t taken off without him. Being alone sucks.

He finishes the fruit salad, washes the bowl, and rinses his hands and wipes them on a paper towel and uses it to blow his nose.

Making sure one more time that the guys aren’t lurking somewhere in the house waiting to ambush him and scare him shitless, he goes to the stereo and puts on Madman Across the Water, one of his mom’s favorites. He turns the volume up and goes to his room and takes out a fresh piece of graph paper.

He starts to draw a new map, ignoring the grid of lines this time, drawing jagged twisting lines, caves and tunnels and dead ends. A labyrinth with more monsters in it for the guys.

After a couple minutes he stops drawing and goes back in the drawer and finds the picture of Alexandra that was in Timo’s things. He looks at it, covering Te quiero, Timo with his thumb.

“Tiny Dancer” plays in the livingroom.

He pictures hitting Timo with a battle ax.

ImsuchadildoImsuchadildoImsuchadildo.

– Chester. Muchacho, it’s Geezer. Got a minute? Not bad, no complaints. Well, that’s a fucking lie, course I got complaints. Man ain’t got complaints ain’t alive. Man that can’t open his mouth to bitch is…the word? The word when someone’s out of it, asleep, knocked out, but forever? No, like that, but the other one. Someone gets hit by a hammer they go in a coma, but if the hammer hits you then you’re what? Comatose. That’s it. Man ain’t got something to bitch about, he must be comatose. Yeah, yeah, then he’d really have something to bitch about, just couldn’t, yeah. Hey, Chester, can we pass the fucking time later, I got something. A bond? Why the fuck else do I call you? Yes, a bond. A big fucking bond. Two big fucking bonds. Yeah, them. No, two. The little one is a minor, they released him to his parents. Too bad for him, what I hear he’d be better off staying in a cell. His old man’s gonna beat the shit out of him. That’s sure as hell what I’d do I was his dad. So his older brothers. Yeah, it’s a load. No. No. Tell you what, no, you just put it up. Fuck do I care that’s not the way you do business? That’s not my problem. You, no, you put up the bond. They’re not going anywhere. Only place they’re going is to do some work for me. They take off, we can talk. Till then, just bond their ass out of jail. Fuck do I care how you make money? I care about you bond the fucking Arroyos and tell them to get their asses over to my place. You worry about making money off some useless cocksucker out there who isn’t gonna have someone come in your office one night and hit you with a fucking hammer until you’re fucking comatose.

Geezer hangs up the phone.

Fucking people. What are they thinking some times? Guy asking him, How am I gonna make money if I don’t get my ten percent? If there was ever someone else’s problem, that’s it. Go around expecting other people to take care of your business for you, you get what you deserve.

He should know. Look at this shit with the Arroyos. What he gets for trusting a litter of spic puppies to take care of shit in a responsible manner.

Now it’s all about doing a job yourself if you want it done right.

Gotta get the spics out on bond. Gotta get them over here and tell them some bullshit story about how it’s all gonna be OK. How he’s gonna set them up with a real deal lawyer who’s gonna get them off. Yeah, right. Get a bunch of spic thugs off manufacturing and possession with intent to distribute and all that other shit. Fuckers are lucky the judge set any kind of bail. So, gotta tell them that fairy tale. Then gotta have them deal with these punk kids and get the rest of the stash back and…fuck. You ever get a break? And after the kids, gotta deal with that bitch Amy Whelan sticking her tits in his area of commerce. His markets. Knew she was gonna be trouble when she started in with the pills. Thought she got the message about not expanding her product line, turns out she’s just plain stupid. Runs in that family. Seeing the experience he’s had with Whelans, should have taken that stupidity into consideration with her in the first place. Well, that shit’s gonna get sorted out with everything else. Gonna make a clean sweep of everything.

Including the spics.

Gonna have to take care of that before they get it through their thick spic skulls that they’re fucked for life.

And do it all without pissing up Oakland’s tree any more than it’s been pissed up already. Fuckers don’t care to hear about legal troubles or what shit your employees drop you in, just want to see the envelopes with the dollars inside. Fuck they care a lab gets busted? Rent on the town is due, pay up. The half key the brothers say was missing from their fridge will cover it. Give some space to think, get the new lab going.

Running your own business, is there anything worse?

He leans as far forward as his gut will allow, puts one hand on the coffee table and the other on the edge of the couch and pushes himself to his feet, taking the grabber with him because he won’t be able to bend for it once he’s standing.

Making a short mental list, a list that starts with gun and ends with garbage bags.

Hector comes back to the Whelans’ with his mohawk reestablished. He hears Elton John playing but doesn’t say anything, just turns it off, tunes the radio to KSAN, and “Baby’s on Fire” comes on. He goes into Andy’s room, watches him drawing one of his dungeons, and sits on the floor and looks through a pile of old comic books until he finds one with the Guardians of the Galaxy in it.