Charlie Huston - The Shotgun Rule

On the floor, Fernando lunges and wraps his fist around the shaft of the grabber as Geezer moves to snatch up the fallen derringer. He wrenches it free of the fat man’s sweaty hand and throws it across the room and curses all the saints as George flops on top of the gun.

Geezer looks at the floor, at the bag spilling his meth, at his favorite gun disappearing under Bob Whelan’s son, and at his grabber across the room. He doesn’t even try to bend and pick anything up. Knowing he’ll never be able to rise without help, he heads for the door.

Paul sees Geezer running. He wants to hurt him. Hurt him so bad for sending him to get the meth, for sending him home. He runs past Hector and George, struggling on the floor; going after the fat guy, crying.

George covers the derringer as Fernando comes down on him, driving his elbow into the back of his neck. George’s face goes into the floor and he feels Fernando’s hands digging under his chest, going for the gun, grabbing his thumb.

Fernando wrenches, and George’s thumb breaks.

Geezer’s hand slips off the doorknob. He screams and wipes the sweat off on his chest and twists the knob as the big kid comes charging after him. He swings his arm and catches Paul in the balls with his huge fist and the boy folds and falls and Geezer is out the door.

He chugs to his Seville, gets in, fumbles the key into the ignition and the AC comes to life with the engine. He hits the gas and the engine roars, and he almost plows head on into a 4×4 rounding the corner. He cuts down the street, thinking about money and where to get some.

Hector has one end of the chain in each hand, stretching it across Ramon’s neck as Ramon sprawls on top of him, one forearm shoved under Hector’s chin as his other hand feels for his dropped hacksaw.

George goes blind from the pain of his thumb breaking, he can feel it as Fernando grabs his other thumb, but this time he just pulls George’s hand to the side and worms his fingers around the derringer.

Curled around the pain between his legs, Paul watches as Andy comes through the door from the garage, something dangling from his hand.

Ramon has the saw. He twists his head, trying to keep Hector’s chain from biting through his throat and plants the blade on the back of Hector’s wrist. But he never draws it across the skin to shred the tendons. Instead he goes limp as something impossibly heavy hits the back of his head, and his body falls away from him.

Fernando pulls the gun from George’s hands and rolls off and flips over just in time to see the little Whelan kid put his foot in the middle of Ramon’s back and twist an iron bar and pull it from the hole in the back of his brother’s head, something heavy and red dragging at the end of it.

Andy stumbles backward as the rebar jerks free from Ramon’s skull. Everything is working pretty much the way he thought it would. He turns, but Fernando isn’t on top of his brother anymore. So that was a miscalculation. One of the risks of entering a situation that is inherently chaotic. He watches Fernando point the derringer at him. He looks at the two barrels, and watches the hammer snap down. And nothing happens. And he knows this is not random chance, remembering the sound of the gunshot he heard, he knows this is a product of order, of things working as they should. And he moves to maintain this order.

The kid is coming at him. He’s running, hefting the iron bar, raising it above his head. Fernando pulls the trigger again. But the hammer isn’t back and the gun doesn’t go off again. He pulls the hammer back as the kid gets closer and pulls the trigger and the gun still doesn’t go off. And he realizes that you must have to pull it back further to fire the second barrel. And then the kid is in front of him and the iron bar hits his hand and shatters the bones and the gun is gone and the kid is raising his bloody weapon over his head.

It looks different, which is obvious, but it also feels different, which is less obvious. When the chunk of concrete at the end of the bar crushes Fernando’s face, it both looks and feels different from when it crushed the back of Ramon’s head. Less resistance. More blood.

Coming onto the porch, dragging Timo Arroyo behind him, Bob stares through the open front door and watches as his young son brings the bar down. His strange and incomprehensible boy. The boy he changed everything for, the boy he has nothing in common with, nothing to share with, killing a man twice his size.

He watches the teenager next to him watch his brother murdered.

He takes him by the throat and squeezes, and slams him into the side of the house.

– Keep your fucking mouth shut.

He releases him.

– Run.

Timo doesn’t move.

Bob slaps him.

– Run.

Timo runs.

And Bob Whelan walks into the house and he gets the boys on their feet and makes them help Andy out to the 4×4 and he finds the Coleman fuel in the garage and he spills it over the blood and the bodies and he sets it all on fire, burning the house the boys came to rob.

The phone rings.

– Hello. Yes? Hello.

– Cindy.

– Yes. Yes, what is it, what?

– Cin, it’s Amy.

– Amy. What? Amy, Bob’s.

She remembers what Amy’s job is.

– Amy, why are you calling?

– It’s OK, honey, it’s OK. They’re here at the hospital, but they’re OK.

– Oh, oh.

– Sweety, listen to me, don’t jump in a car. Wait for.

– Are they, what’s wrong with?

– Honey, listen, don’t drive yourself. You have no idea how many parents kill themselves rushing to the hospital. Get a neighbor to. Cin? Are you there? Cindy?

The phone dangles from its cord. Cindy Whelan is already outside getting into her car.

Bob knows the cop.

The cop that comes to the emergency room to file a report when he shows up with four beaten boys, Bob’s ridden in the back of his car. Old timer. One of the ones who knew him when.

– What’s the word, Bob?

– Same shit, different generation.

– What’d they get into?

– My oldest, George, tells me they scored some acid from some guys that were hanging around the bowling alley.

– Acid dealers are over at the Doughnut Wheel.

– Older guys, from over the hill, they all had Raiders gear.

– Black guys.

– Yeah.

– Probably from Alameda.

– Don’t know.

– So?

Bob takes a sip from his coffee cup and looks down the hall to see if his sister is coming back with any news. Hector’s mom and little sister are still sitting across the room, heads bowed, rosary beads passing through their fingers. No sign of the kid’s dad or brothers.

– George said it was just plain blotter paper, no acid on it. They got pissed. Rode around looking for the guys’ car and found them getting drunk in May Nissen Park. Started talking shit and saying they wanted their money back.

– The Cheney kid, right? Fucker’s got a mouth on him.

– I don’t know.

– Yeah, I’ve had him in the car. He likes to mouth off.

– Well, whatever it was, these dealers beat the hell out of them.

– And you?

– George called from a pay phone and I went and got them and brought them here.

– They didn’t call us.

– In a fight with some guys that ripped them off on a drug deal, they didn’t call the cops.