Ryan Thomas - The Summer I Died

“I don’t see anything interesting,” I told him.

“Neither do I. I have to get out of this place. And soon.”

He was “California dreaming” again and I’d walked right into it. I’d kind of figured by now that Tooth’s summer mission was to get me to move to the west coast with him, and since I had no intention of going, it was going be a long summer. He popped the tab on one of the beers and handed it to me, took another himself and chugged it down in one gulp. When he was done he looked me in the eye and I could see he wanted to say something. I figured he was going to ask me to move again, but instead he punched me in the shoulder and yelled, “Let’s shoot something, you pantywaist!”

Any pain that had dissipated from my arm was now back in full force. I’d have returned the punch but quickly realized the futility of it. Tooth always got this way when he drank; I was used to it. Hitting him back would only encourage him and fuel his energy.

He walked to the tree line, put the empty beer can on a low tree limb and backed up to where I stood. “Bet you an ass-kicking I make this shot,” he said. Aiming the gun, he squared his feet and fired.

Bang!

The report wasn’t nearly as loud as the.44 had been, and the recoil was mild at best. The beer can flipped up in the air like a gold medal gymnast and landed on its side a little ways in the woods. He looked at me and smiled. I flinched.

“Here.” He handed me the gun. “I’ll have to owe you that ass-kicking. I hurt my hand last time I hit you. You’re a bony little fucker.”

I hefted the gun while he went and put the can back on the limb. When he was walking back he pretended to dodge bullets. And that was the first moment in my life I scared myself, because I felt how easy it would be to shoot someone in the head, dump the body in the woods, and walk away scot-free. The simplicity of it shook me.

Or maybe I’d just read too many comics and seen too many movies where the only time someone had a gun was when they were blowing another person’s head off. Because, somehow, despite knowing the feeling was wrong, it felt like that’s what I was supposed to do.

I handed the gun back to Tooth.

“I can’t shoot. My arm hurts from when you punched me,” I lied.

“You pussy. Suck it up and squeeze the trigger. This gun is so light a baby could shoot it.”

Forcefully, he pushed the gun back in my hand, placed his own hand over mine and made me grip it firmly. He didn’t back away until I faked an air of confidence, though what I really did was clear my mind of any thoughts that would land me in the loony bin. Across the field, the beer can reflected the sun so it appeared a train was coming out of the woods. I relaxed my grip, sighted down the barrel, and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

The noise was more like a firecracker than a cannon, and perhaps because of this I felt less nervous. My shot landed square and sent the can cartwheeling backwards to the ground. Tooth ran over and picked it up and brought it back.

“Damn, you’re a natural.” He fingered the bullet hole.

The bullet had gone through dead center, a bit below Tooth’s hole. I didn’t tell him I had pictured the can as a man’s head when I shot, though I doubt he would have given a shit. Then again, maybe I didn’t tell him because I didn’t want to hear myself admit it.

By midday we’d shot so many holes in the cans they were unusable even as targets. At twenty yards my aim had gotten so I could hit my mark about seventy percent of the time. Tooth’s accuracy was a much better. Even drunk he could shoot the ass hairs off a gnat. After we’d grown bored, he wobbled around picking up the empty shells.

“I can reuse these,” he told me.

I wasn’t so sure homemade bullets were a good idea, but for all I knew the ones we’d shot hadn’t come from a store anyway.

We rolled another joint and sat and looked out over the forest. Not much had changed in the past couple hours, except maybe some clouds had reshaped themselves. Off in the distance, a bleak gray was spreading over the blue sky and I figured by supper time we’d be in for rain.

Tooth passed me the joint and said, “Want to go to O’Conner’s tonight?”

I sucked in the stale smoke and coughed, then drummed my fist on my chest, apelike. “I’d just as soon not go back there.”

“Yeah, but they’re the only ones that don’t check IDs.”

Getting carded was the least of my worries. The last time we’d ventured into O’Conner’s was on Christmas break and I’d ended up with a fat lip and piss-drenched pants and Tooth had ended up with a broken nose. O’Conner’s was a local hangout for some bored skinheads who had nothing to do and no one to take it out on, these parts being primarily white. As a result, an unsuspecting soul who happened to remark about a film starring a black man was like a gift from the gods.

No sooner had I mentioned the Wesley Snipe film Blade to Tooth than a fist the size of the moon hauled me out of my chair and brought me face to face with a suspender-wearing gorilla with two lightning bolts tattooed on his skull.

“We don’t discuss eggplants in here,” he breathed. “You want to proliferate the spreading disease that is the black man, you do it somewhere else.”

Had I been alone, I would have thanked the man for leaving my neck in one piece and slinked out the door like a frightened mouse. Unfortunately, I was with Tooth, who never passes up an opportunity to land me in jail or a hospital bed. He came around the back of the skinhead and put his arm around the guy like they were best buddies.

“I say we lynch this little fucker,” he said.

Naturally, my eyes went wide and I hoped Lightning Bolt Head understood the joke. He gave Tooth a serious stare, as if he might pick him up and use him as a toothpick. The owner of the bar came over, carrying a golf club, and told us to knock it off or he was calling the cops. But like hyenas trapping two lion cubs, the other skinheads gathered around to support their friend-who could have easily taken both Tooth and me with one finger.

“We’re just talking movies,” Lightning Bolt Head said.

The other patrons in the bar, mostly drunks and a few college students home on break, stopped all conversation and started salivating for blood. Normally, I’d have been just as eager for some violence, but my heart just wasn’t in it this time, what with my face likely to be the first target and all.

As the owner walked back behind the bar, Tooth gave me his famous glance, the same one he’d shot me in the liquor store, the one that always made my scrotum shrivel, and I suddenly knew I was very likely leaving the bar with missing teeth. It was kindergarten all over again. Tooth was setting up for a distraction and I was going to do something on the sly. But what? There was nothing to swipe from these guys and I sure as hell wasn’t going to blindside one of them.

“So what do you say?” Tooth continued. “Let’s take this nigger-lover out back and show him what it means to live in the white man’s world. Maybe we can get points on our community service, eh?”

“I know you,” Lightning Bolt Head said. “You’re that guy who got run over by his daddy. What do they call you, Mouth or something?”

“Tooth.”

“Yeah, Tooth, nice name. Well, listen here, Tooth, why don’t you fuck off before I stamp my name on your forehead.”

He raised his other fist and proudly displayed a three-fingered silver ring that was more brass knuckles than jewelry. Beveled in reverse were the words Brody was here. I almost laughed. Almost.

“Nice ring,” Tooth replied, “I got one, too. It says ‘Once you go black you never go back.’ Put it right where I had that epiphany. Want to see it?” He pretended to unzip his fly, and it was at this moment I realized Tooth had stepped over the line of safety. We were in for it now. As the skins stood in stunned silence, waiting to see if Tooth had a cock ring on, I slowly put my foot against the back of Lightning Bolt Head’s knee-and prayed.