Charlie Huston - The Shotgun Rule

He should move now. Too long in one place and he’ll become visible again.

So he leans slowly to the side, unfolding into the space between the back of the couch and the wall, the space he didn’t hide in because he knew they’d look there, and he worms to the other side, careful not to rub the bulge in the back of the couch that is made by the fat guy, and they’re all still watching Fernando, and he gets on all fours and crawls quickly into the front hall that spins around him and he squeezes between a big dead plant in a big pot and a couple stacked cardboard boxes and when Fernando drags the bagged body into the garage and leaves the door open he follows him and settles next to a rusted out old bathtub with claw feet and stays there until Fernando goes back in the house and closes the door and leaves him alone with all the chemicals and stuff that are just like the ones Fernando and his brothers had back in their garage and everything spins and he goes asleep again.

– Bob Whelan. Bob Goddamn Whelan.

Geezer scoots his ass around on the couch, trying to ease the rash on his sweaty buttocks. He watches Fernando tromp around the house and out to the back yard, looking for the comatose kid. He looks at the two huddled against the wall.

– If I’d been smart, smarter, I would of told the Oakland crew not to listen to him. He decided to get out of the trade, decided he didn’t want to take it any further than running the grass and acid and all that hippie shit, told the Angels the town was theirs he just wanted out; when that little negotiation took place, I should have told them not to listen, told them a head case like Bob Whelan will never leave the life, never get tired of kicking the shit out of people, should have told them to do everyone a favor and put him out on the train tracks. Now look what I got. Got his kids on my hands. His kids.

He makes the grabber into a fist and bangs it on the floor.

– Kids! Fucker. He made, you know, he made a speech? Went over the hill, made me and Jeff go with him so it’d be like an official peace conference the way those bikers like it. Made us go with him even though we didn’t want to give up the town to those fuckers, even though he knew they might just say fuck the cease fire and start breaking bottles on our heads the second we walked into their clubhouse.

He takes the grabber by its aluminum shaft, raises one butt cheek and scratches it with the claw.

– Goddamn rash. Goddamn house. Goddamn no AC. My place, I got a swamp cooler. Ever been in a trailer with a swamp cooler? You haven’t. Like a fucking ice box. I love it. Turn the thing off for maybe two months in the whole year. Meter man comes around from PG amp;E, his eyes spin around in his head. Tells me there’s an energy shortage, I should conserve. I tell him, I pay the damn bill, how I use the energy I pay for is my fucking business. Got that swamp cooler, what else I got, I got a 32 inch color Zenith with HBO and Showtime. You know anyone else got both HBO and Showtime? No. Got the Spice channel, too. All the Playboy specials and the Emmanuel movies. Got the fridge full of cold cuts and sourdough rolls and sliced Swiss cheese. Got a freezer full of frozen sausage pizzas and Häagen-Dazs. The cupboard full of pork rinds and Funions and Ding Dongs.

He raises the other cheek and scratches.

– Love my trailer. Never get a heat rash in that thing. Never break a sweat. My whole life in this town I’ve been sweating and itching till I got that trailer and that swamp cooler. And now, now it is at risk, my castle is at risk because fifteen fucking years ago I was stupid and didn’t tell the Angels not to listen to your dad’s fucking speech about how he was done forever with the business. Kids! All his crap about his three year old he doesn’t want around this shit, his new baby boy in the hospital he wants to be with. Bullshit! And here, what do we have here? Here we are finding out how much his kids mean to him. They mean he got to raise his private little gang to send to fuck me up and bust my lab and put me in the shit with Oakland! Fucker! Should have killed him myself!

He throws the grabber on the floor.

– Fuck.

He waves his hand at the boys.

– George.

– Yeah.

– Come here and pick that up for me.

George gets up, stumbles, takes a couple steps and picks up the grabber and holds it out to Geezer.

– Our dad didn’t tell us to do anything. He wouldn’t do anything like that.

Geezer takes the grabber.

– Kid, you got no clue what your old man would do for money, a piece of pussy, or just to fuck someone up because he thinks it’d be fun.

He holds out his hand.

– Help me up. Maybe get some air on my ass, stop this itching.

George takes Geezer’s hand and pulls him to his feet, lets go and wipes his palms on his jeans.

Geezer plucks the seat of his sweat pants away from his ass.

– So, your friend, he gonna come back with my half key so I can salvage something here? Say he got away from Timo, he the kind gonna call the cops, knowing it’ll mean you guys are gonna be dead? He gonna call your dad?

George shakes his head.

– He won’t call my dad.

– Cops?

– No.

– Good. Now go sit down and keep your mouth shut because when I hear you I think about you and I get pissed and I can barely keep from shooting you.

George goes and sits down next to Hector and takes his hand. Hector doesn’t move, his eyes are open, looking at Ramon again, but he doesn’t move at all.

Fernando comes in from the back yard.

– He’s not out there.

– You sure?

– I went all around the house, looked under all the bushes. Timo and Cheney took a couple bikes. The other two are out there.

– Where is he then?

– I say he’s in the house.

He kicks a pile of carpet remnants.

– He’s somewhere in all this shit. We put the bathroom window back together after they got in. It’s still together. The other windows are all locked. He didn’t come through here, walk out the front door.

Geezer holds out his arms.

– OK, so?

– He’s a scrawny brat, he’s hiding under something. Behind something.

They both shut up. They look at the couch.

Geezer cocks the derringer, waves Fernando toward the couch.

Fernando looks at the floor, picks up Jeff’s wrench, runs across the room, jumps on the couch and throws the wrench into the space behind it.

– Fuck.

Geezer comes over.

– Get him?

Fernando reaches behind the couch and comes up with the wrench.

– He ain’t back there.

– Hey, hermano.

He drops the wrench, looks at Ramon.

– Ese.

Ramon sticks out his tongue.

– Got some water?

– Hang on.

He heads for the kitchen.

Ramon pokes his leg, watches blood leak out of the hole. He picks up the blood crusted pencil from his lap and looks at Geezer.

– Yo, boss, want your pencil back?

Paul looks better.

Without those torn up jeans and that bat eater’s heavy metal T shirt, he looks much better. He looks almost like a boy again. Like he did when he’d run around in his shorts all the time. Always barefoot. Never wanting to put on a shirt. Used to be so much trouble getting him properly dressed for dinner someplace out.

Kyle Cheney sits on the floor, leans his back against the front of the couch, and puts his son’s head back in his lap.

Paul coughs and gags, but he doesn’t throw up again.

Kyle pats his cheek.

– See, it’s getting better, isn’t it? I can tell. I can always tell when your migraines are getting better because you stop throwing up. Soon, you’re going to be thirsty and then hungry. That’s how it’s always been. Now we know, know we can get through it, know it will pass. But when they first started, I was so scared. And in fairness to your mother, she was scared, too. You know it’s hard for me to talk about her at all, let alone to say something nice, but it is true. She was scared. You crawled under your bed and wouldn’t come out, and when I touched you, you screamed. And then when you started throwing up, we didn’t know what to do. When we moved your bed so we could get to you, I thought you would try and run away. Your mother wrapped you in a blanket and I drove to the hospital. It took forever to get a doctor. And months before they could say what was wrong. I thought the worst, of course. That’s your father for you, thinking the worst. I thought a brain tumor. I thought I was going to lose my son forever. Migraines were a relief. And I know that’s not what you want to hear, but considering what I thought it was, migraines were a relief. Coming out of nowhere like that, never a sign until you were almost eight. And every one was a major event at first. Getting you into your bed, drawing the curtains, getting a towel and a bowl of ice water. Keeping the house as quiet as possible. Your mother, well, fair is fair and this is the truth too, she couldn’t keep at it for long. Help to get you into bed and then go somewhere else when she got tired of helping. Not that I minded. It was nice to have time alone. Have you all to myself.