Charlie Huston - The Shotgun Rule

– You kids, you don’t know it, but you just saw a hell of a shot.

He digs an extra round from his pocket and drops it in the empty chamber and snaps the little two shot gun closed.

– Hitting someone in the head from across the room with a gun like this? That’s some shooting. That’s marksmanship.

George is pulling up the tail of his ruined concert T, wiping his face.

Hector is using his feet to push Jeff’s body away from them.

Geezer places the gun on his massive thigh and takes off his hat and wipes his head.

– Ever see a dead body before? Like that, messy and fresh? No, course you haven’t. George. I’m talking to you. You listening?-I?

George gives his face a final wipe. Opens his eyes, the lids sticking together slightly.

– I’m listening.

– Good, get attentive. ’Cause this body, if I don’t get answers to my questions, it’s going to be the first of many. You’re going to see a lifetime’s worth of corpses in no time. ’Nando! Get the fuck back in here with the kid’s brother.

George starts to get up.

– Hey, leave Andy.

– You wanted to see your brother, kid, you’re gonna see him. ’Nando!

– We don’t. It was just his bike, man. Sir, it was. They stole his bike.

– Save it. And sit the fuck down. ’Nando! There you are, what the fuck?

– He ain’t there.

Geezer picks up his gun.

– What?

– Kid’s gone.

Bob takes the long way home, covering streets he missed before. Coming around the back way, he sees Kyle Cheney’s car parked two blocks from where it should be. Man’s car maybe broke down on his way to work. After five now, could be he’s up. For that matter, could be Paul’s home. Could be Andy and George are the only ones missing

He passes his own house and parks in front of Cheney’s.

There’s no answer when he knocks.

He walks down a couple houses to Hector’s. Mrs. Sanchez will be up for sure. Getting breakfast together. Just ask her if the boys have been around. And watch her get as panicked as Cindy. No, not yet, there’s no need for that yet.

He turns and walks to his truck, stands with his hand on the door, looks down the street to his own home.

Go down there and tell Cindy.

Can’t find them. Don’t know where they are. I don’t know where our sons are.

He lets go of the door and squats, dips his head between his shoulders. God. Don’t know where the boys are. Don’t know where they are. Don’t know if they’re safe.

A nightmare of fathers.

Man’s first job, keep his family safe. No reason to be if you can’t do that.

A car turns the corner and he stands, rising quickly so he won’t be seen like this. The car goes past, a stranger at the wheel.

He wishes he’d had a real drink at the Rodeo instead of a beer.

He opens the door and climbs inside the truck and starts the motor and puts it in gear so he can drive down the block and tell his wife.

Across the street, something gleams behind a bush.

He gets out of the truck and walks over there and finds two bikes stashed behind one of the huge pampas grass bushes the new couple put in when they bought the corner house.

One bike is Paul Cheney’s Redline.

The other is George’s Mongoose.

He turns and stares at Kyle Cheney’s house.

It’s exactly like being invisible.

Being in a room of people, almost in plain sight, and none of them seeing you, that’s exactly like being invisible.

Andy clenches his teeth.

No, that’s not right, it’s not exactly like being invisible. Well, it could be, but he’s in no position to say. Never having actually been invisible. It’s more precise and accurate to say that it’s exactly as he imagines being invisible would be.

There, no one could fault him for that usage.

The fat guy stops yelling at Fernando.

Something’s happening.

He wants to look up, lift his face from where it’s tucked against his chest and take a look at the room. But he knows the movement will expose him. The trick to it, to folding up here on the floor just at the end of the couch, the trick is to be still. That’s why he hides his face, even the movement of his eyes would draw attention.

It took forever to get here.

Getting from the bathroom to the kitchen hadn’t been that hard. Using all the stuff going on in the livingroom, moving down the hall and across the edge of the room while the fat guy was arguing with Fernando, that had been pretty easy. But getting out of the kitchen and in here had been really hard.

Once Jeff showed up it happened fast. Everyone focused on Jeff. It was like a magic trick. Legerdemain. Everyone is watching one thing, while what’s important is happening somewhere else.

And once Jeff and the fat guy started talking, it was so easy to stay perfectly still, not to move at all. Just to listen to the story of their father.

When the fat guy said the thing about his dad hitting people with a baseball bat with galvanized nails in it, he knew right away why the nails were galvanized. It’s exactly the way he would do it, too. He thinks about making a bat like that. You’d also want to make sure the wood was well sealed so the blood didn’t seep in and make it swell. If that happened, it would eventually crack. That’s probably the way their dad did it, he’s good at making things.

He pictures hitting someone in the head with something like that. You’d have to be pretty strong, it’d be heavy, and the nails would get stuck in the bone and it would be hard to pull free. And, yeah, the fat guy is right, blood would spray out of those holes in your cheek if you tried to talk, the air pressure inside your mouth would make that happen.

It sure sounds like a real story, like something that really happened. And if it did, that might mean he’s not as weird as he thinks he is. Well, still plenty weird, but maybe not so scary weird. Because he’s thought about doing stuff like that, but it sounds like his dad really has done stuff like that. So maybe it’s not so bad to have those things in your head. Or, at least, maybe there’s a reason for them getting in there.

When the gun goes off he only moves a tiny bit. Just enough to look and see what’s happened to Jeff. Then he closes his eyes again. Because it’s not his brother or Hector, and he can deal with that. Plus, having his eyes closed keeps the room from spinning. Sure his head still hurts and his left eye still feels loose in its socket, but as long as the room doesn’t spin around like he’s been drinking Thunderbird all day long he can deal with it.

Now the fat guy is talking again.

– Get that loser out of here.

He opens his eyes and the room stays still. Fernando is right in front of him, pointing at Jeff’s dead body.

– I’m gonna get stuff all over me.

– There’s garbage sacks in the bag I brought. Wrap him and put him in the garage. And when you’re done, you’re going and finding Timo and the big kid and drag their asses back here.

– Geezer, maybe it’s time.

– ’Nando, I just told you what time it is. I put a bullet in that loser’s face. That told everybody what time it is. It’s time to start taking me very fucking seriously and giving my words a little…shit…a little…shit! Word? For what holds us to the ground. Totally basic word. Someone say it before I go crazy.

George whispers.

– It’s gravity.

– Yes! Give my words some gravity. Jesus. Is that so hard? What else do I have to do?

They all watch Fernando wrap Jeff in the bags.