Charlie Huston - The Shotgun Rule

Andy barely notices him, rolling dice, sketching twisting lines, exploring probabilities, deep inside a world of small things.

George and Paul get back from the record store.

George turns off KSAN and puts the copy of British Steel he bought at the record store on the turntable. He drops the needle on “Breaking the Law” and turns it up.

Paul goes in the kitchen and finds a pair of scissors and sits at the table and cuts the sleeves from his new shirt so his arms will show when he’s wearing it. He tosses the dismembered sleeves in the garbage and puts on the shirt and goes into the bathroom and looks in the mirror. It looks badass, the Diary of a Madman cover on the front and the picture of Ozzy lifting Randy Rhodes in the air on the back.

He remembers how he locked himself in his room when he heard the news that Randy had died. The best guitar player to come around since Jimi, dead at twenty-five. Just wanting to sit in his room and listen to Blizzard and Madman all day long, but his dad kept knocking on the door and asking if he was OK, ruining everything. Again.

It feels suddenly hotter in the bathroom. The spike digs between his eyes and knocks the air out of his lungs. He chokes and bends over the sink and presses his forehead against the cool countertop. The spike goes a little deeper. He fumbles with the cold water tap and sticks his head under the faucet and tries to breathe slowly as water runs over the back of his scalp and his neck. The spike pulls out, slowly.

He stays bent at the sink for a few minutes, turns off the water, and looks at himself in the mirror, pale, red eyed, hair dripping.

He makes sure the door is locked and drops to the floor and does a quick set of pushups and looks at himself in the mirror again with his chest and arms pumped.

Badass.

They hang around the house until it’s too hot to stand it and then they ride to the bowling alley and blow a joint out back and go inside and eat lunch at the counter and play some video games. Andy mostly watching because he’s so bad at the games it just makes him feel like he’s throwing his quarters away.

Suchadildo.

They’re late getting back to the Whelans’ for dinner because George hits a new level on Missile Command and goes for the high score and gets it.

Mr. Whelan gives them a ration of shit and tells Paul and Hector that the kitchen isn’t a restaurant where you eat whenever you want to and if they want their dining privileges to continue they can damn well be there when the family sits down. George and Andy he just gives a look and asks them if this is going to happen again any time soon and they tell him no. He tells them to empty the ashes from the Weber and get some coals going and scrape the grill, and goes inside to make the burger patties while his wife cuts tomatoes and chops iceberg lettuce and peels slices of American cheese from a yellow stack.

They eat in the backyard, sitting around an old picnic table Mr. Whelan salvaged from a building site. Right after the meal he’s walking around the yard with his fourth beer in his hand, kicking stones from the ground he’s going to rototill the following day, giving his sons and their friends a bad time, asking them if they have their back braces ready for the Sunday rock haul. Telling them to start drinking water now, gonna be hotter than hell. Warning that he’ll be getting them up at the crack of dawn on Sunday to try and beat the heat. Laughing at the looks on their faces as they think about how much it’s going to suck.

Paul helps Mrs. Whelan clear the plates. Something he always does.

– I thought Sunday was the Lord’s day, sir.

Bob Whelan yanks one of the weeds he let grow over the last couple weeks.

– Young Mr. Cheney, if Jesus can get up on Easter Sunday to move a rock, you can do it this Sunday.

They have popsicles for dessert and the boys say they’re going back to the bowling alley and they get their bikes and take off.

Bob Whelan comes up behind his wife at the kitchen sink and reaches around her and puts his hands on her tits.

– Looking good, baby.

– Stop it.

– Mmm, feeling good, too.

– You’re drunk.

– Drunk? On five, six beers? Baby, the day I can’t knock over a sixer and keep my wits is the day I give up beer.

– Uh huh.

– It’s Friday.

– I know what day it is.

– Date night.

– I know what it is.

– Empty house.

– Not for long.

– That’s my point.

– Let me wash these dishes.

– Let me help.

He presses against her back, slides a hand, cold from his beer can, down the front of her cutoffs.

– Stop it. Bob! Stop it, your hand’s cold. Stop it!

He doesn’t stop. And they go to the bedroom.

– Cops impounded my car, vato.

– Fuck do I care about your fucking car. Ain’t your fucking vato, neither.

Fernando raises his hands above his head.

– Hey, no shit you ain’t my vato. Don’t worry about not being my vato. Worry about the cops having my car. Worry about when I finally get it back and it still has that hole you put in the window.

– Send me a bill.

– A bill. Ese, I give a shit about the bill. I care about you broke my rear windshield.

He pulls Hector’s chain out of his pocket.

– A fucking chain you threw at my car. My car. Fuck you and the bill, you broke my glass.

He lashes Hector’s face with the chain.

Hector folds in half, hands over his face, face between his knees, eyes squeezed shut, mouth closed tight around the shriek that comes up his throat. He opens his eyes and watches the blood that runs out of his face and between his fingers and trickles down to pool on the warped hardwood floor between his feet while Fernando whips his shoulders with the chain, the Levi’s jacket on his back the only thing that keeps his skin from being ribboned.

– Save a little for me, big brother.

Fernando stops beating Hector and looks at Ramon coming in the front door.

– What’s up?

Ramon knocks the door closed with his crutch.

– Cheney got away.

– Got away? Get Timo and go find him. What if he calls the cops?

– Kid’s got a half kilo of meth. Ain’t calling the cops.

Fernando drops the chain on the floor.

– Hope he don’t, little bro, fucking hope he don’t.

Ramon leans against the wall.

– You hope he don’t, man, I been in prison. Shit don’t touch me. I can do that shit I have to. Worry ’bout how you handle a little real time. Where’s Timo?

– Yo, ese.

Timo comes down the hall, joint between his lips, trailing smoke.

Ramon lays out his palm and they trade skin, Timo slipping him the joint.

He takes a toke.

– Thanks, bro. What’s up?

– Whelan and his kid bro are out cold.

– Want to wake those bitches?

– Let’s do it.

Fernando holds up a hand.

– Don’t wake shit. I say to wake shit?

Ramon holds out the joint.

– Bro, take a hit, chill out. Ain’t nothing. Just gonna wake them up. Ask some questions. Find out where the shit is.

– Nobody asking questions. Nobody asking questions till the man gets here.

Ramon and Timo bug their eyes at each other.

Timo smiles big at his big brother.

– Get all jefe on us, ese? What’s with that? This your thing all a sudden? We all not in the same shit? We all not takin’ the same bust?

Fernando takes two steps and pops Timo in the nose he broke two days ago in their last fight.