Jackson Bell - Trigger Finger

My eyes widened. “Uh, no.”

A proud smile. “You want to hear about it?”

Proud? Proud of getting mugged? Why would anyone smile proudly after announcing they got mugged last night? “You’re damn right I want to hear about it!”

On the table, a half-empty pitcher of Budweiser stood beside a fully empty sibling. I leaned forward to hear better over the Linkin Park piece playing on the jukebox. Bobby’s face glowed red from his time in the sun.

“So I’m tired,” he said, still grinning, “been running around in the woods all day, sweating my balls off. Not getting enough to drink, water discipline. Finish up the march, and I’m like, take me to the river. I’m gonna stick my head in and suck it dry.”

He paused to stare at the bouncer who had just walked by, slowing as he eyeballed us with absolutely no attempt to conceal it. Bobby wore a golf shirt neatly tucked into his khakis, but his haircut screamed “jarhead.” I, fresh off the barber’s chair only yesterday, realized that I’d cut my own hair so short that I probably looked like a Marine, too. One bouncer had probably said to another, there’s two Marines in here. Keep an eye on them, lest they raise Hell.

The bouncer thought I was a Marine just like Bobby. This idea, as much as the titanic amount of beer I had consumed in a relatively short period of time, brought an excited flush to my face. I stared back at the bouncer and thought, what are you looking at, asshole?

The bouncer moved on.

“What’s his problem?” I muttered.

“I know, right?” Bobby snorted. “Punkass. Anyway, where was I?”

“You were going to stick your head in the river and suck it dry.”

“Right. Okay, so I pound all this water, then I get me a Gatorade for the ride home to Wilmington. I don’t even hit the back gate before my dick’s, like, Bobby, I gotta piss. I say, hold it. Dick says, okay, Bobby, I’ll hold it, but you have to move that ass. So I get through the back gate, and I’m on Highway 172, and my dick pipes up again. Bobby, he says, find a gas station or something. And I’m like, goddamn, we’re on 172, there’s nothing out here. Dick says, look, man, you skipped your salt tablet, I’ve got no sodium backing me up, you need to find a gas station or someplace where I can let go of all this water. I say, chill. I figure I can make it to Holly Ridge. My eyeballs will be floating by that point, but I’ll make it.

“So anyway, by the time I hit Highway 17, not only are my eyeballs floating, but it’s leaking out my ears. I’m sweating piss. My dick says, change of plans, here, Devil Dog, pull over. I’m like, you can’t be serious, someone could see me, and my dick replies, find cover. You got thirty seconds, then you’re wetting your pants. Seriously, man, I have never had to take a leak so bad in my life. And there’s nowhere for me to go. I’m in BFE.”

Bobby chuckled, shaking his head.

“But I have to do something, you know? So there’s this abandoned gas station there on the right not long after you turn onto 17 South. It’s pretty dark by now, not as dark as I’d have liked, but this place is abandoned and has no lights. Windows and doors all boarded up, gas pumps gone, weeds as tall as you are shooting up through cracks in the concrete. There’s an old algae-covered boat on a trailer that’s been parked there ever since I got stationed at Lejeune, next to a broken-down old Buick packed to the gills with some redneck hoarder’s shit. Other than that, nothing, nobody. So I pull the Mustang right up alongside and hop out. I waddle around behind the building. I whip out my dick. I start to piss all over this wall.”

The lead singer from Linkin Park had tried so hard and come so far, but in the end, it didn’t even matter. I could have cared less; I listened with rapt attention.

“And I mean piss . It’s the deluge, man, it’s like, yo, Noah, hurry up and get the zebras on the Ark, you know what I’m saying? I piss, I piss and I piss some more. And as I’m pissing, I hear this engine approaching.”

He poured himself another beer. His powerful forearm flexed as he filled his glass. His hands shook not at all.

“I hear brakes, I hear the rpms drop, and I’m like shit, somebody’s stopping. Sheriffs? Highway Patrol? Some shitbag that wants to jack my rims and my radio? I finish up as fast as I can, shake it off, zip it up. Trot around the building. I see the car, and I’m like, awww, fuck .

“It ain’t the sheriffs. It ain’t Highway Patrol. It’s one of those mid-eighties Cadillacs with the tinted windows and those stupid wheels with the thin tires and humungous shiny rims. Gangsta-mobile, you know what I’m saying?”

I nodded.

“Guys that drive cars like that? They don’t stop to help motorists. They don’t stop to help anybody. So I double-time back to the Mustang just as the Caddy comes to a stop behind me. Passenger door opens, this guy gets out and says hey, stickman, where you going? I ignore him and jump in the car. I crank the motor. But my starter’s beginning to wear out, right, so it doesn’t catch until Homeboy shows up at my open window and sticks a gun in my face. He says, ‘Break yourself, motherfucker!’

“I’m like, ‘Easy, buddy.’ He waggles the gun and hollers, ‘I ain’t your buddy, cracker, break yourself! Cash, checks, credit cards!’ Then he adds, ‘And cigarettes!’”

“And you can tell, now, that this guy is on something. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s got that gun right there against my head, maybe two inches from my temple, he has actually stuck his hand and gun inside my car. One twitch of that finger, and I’m dead. No more Bobby Swanson.

“Homeboy screams, ‘Wallet, motherfucker!’

“I’ve got my hands in the air, you know, palms open, one on either side of my head. I’m like, ‘Easy, man, I’ll get you my wallet, okay? It’s under my seat. I’m gonna drop my right hand and reach under there to get it. You cool?’

“Homeboy’s shaking. He’s like, ‘Get that fuckin’ wallet, bitch!’

“So real slowly, I reach down under the seat. I don’t have any wallet under my seat, now. That shit was in my right hip pocket. What I’ve got under my seat is my Glock. I grab it, then I shoot my left hand out and pin Homeboy’s gun hand to the steering wheel. Then I pop out the Glock, and BAM! BAM! BAM!”

He turned to one side to show me how he did it. Holding an imaginary gun in his right hand, he twitched his trigger finger three times.

“Homeboy lets go of his gun and falls backwards onto the highway. I crank the Mustang and peel a wheel. Whip around in a circle. Meanwhile, Homeboy’s shitbag friends saw the flashes and they’re getting out of the Cadillac. So I unload as I drive by. BAM BAM BAM! BAM BAM BAM! BAM BAM BAM!”

His trigger finger contracted repeatedly, the hand moving from side to side to show the shot pattern.

“These shitbags are diving for cover, hitting the deck, diving back into the Caddy; there’s one there in the back seat, waving his arms around like he’s in church and just got the Holy Spirit. I knew I couldn’t get away with actually bagging any of these guys, but I wanted to keep their heads down, you know what I’m saying? I shot the rest of the magazine over their heads. Then I hauled ass up 17 to Jacksonville and called 911 from the nearest pay phone.”

“What happened with the guy? The one you shot?”

“No idea. Cops found the blood on the road, but no car. But listen, there’s a point to this.”

He leaned forward.

“I could have given the guy my wallet, okay? Maybe he wouldn’t have shot me. Maybe everything would have been okay. But maybe not, because this world is full of shitbags. A man that’s asshole enough to rob another man on the side of the road would do about anything.”