Bradley Denton - Blackburn

After hanging up, Jimmy sat looking at the dusty black phone for a while. He could hear Dad snoring. Maybe it would be all right if he was quiet. He got Grandma's number from the inside cover of the phone book, where Mom had written it in ink. Tulsa's area code reminded him that this would show up as a long-distance call on the bill. But if Mom came back soon, that would be okay. She did the bills.

He dialed the number and waited. The line clicked and popped. Then there was a hiss, followed by a loud busy signal. He replaced the receiver in its cradle. He was breathing hard. He felt guilty.

He went to his room and shut the door. He didn't turn on the light. He lay down on the bed with his face in the pillow. He was a liar and a sneak. No wonder Dad was always mad at him. No wonder Mom had taken his sister and run off. No wonder God didn't answer his prayers. No wonder his best friend was a sissy like Ernie.

Far away, the chickens squawked. Jimmy put his head under the pillow. The last thing he wanted to be reminded of was the filthy fucking chickens.

He could still hear them. They wouldn't shut up. He started humming, then singing. It was a song he had heard at Ernie's house. It was about an astronaut named Major Tom. Ground control was having trouble with him.

Something exploded.

Jimmy threw off the pillow. He held his breath and listened. There was another explosion. It came from outside. It was Dad's shotgun.

Jimmy ran from his room, through the kitchen, and out the back door. A chicken rushed past, flapping madly. Dad was standing beside the chicken coop. He still wasn't wearing a shirt. He was holding his Remington twelve-gauge. He pumped it, and a spent shell went flying. It tumbled in a red arc. Dad lowered the gun. His shoulder was pink where the stock had rubbed it.

Dad's eyes and mouth were narrow. Jimmy stopped several feet away. He couldn't stand to look at Dad's face. He looked down and saw the rooster dead on the ground. Its head was gone. A hen lay a few yards away. Its head was gone too.

"Did you shoot them?" Jimmy asked. His eyes throbbed.

"Hell, no," Dad said. "I shot that goddamn dog. Son of a bitch ran off before I could finish it."

The throbbing spread into Jimmy's skull and became a roar. He couldn't feel his body. He heard a voice screaming no and no and no.

The ground was spinning. Dad grabbed him. They were in the driveway now. The shotgun lay back on the grass. Dad squeezed his left arm hard. Jimmy could feel it now.

"It was killing chickens," Dad said. "The goddamn dog was killing my chickens."

Jimmy heard the voice scream again.

"You didn't have to shoot him, you bastard!"

Dad's hand went up and came down. Jimmy fell. Dad's hand clamped onto his neck and pressed his face into the gravel.

Jimmy closed his eyes. After a while he realized that Dad's hand was gone. He got up to his knees. He was alone.

Jimmy brushed gravel from his face and stood. Gravel was embedded in his knees, and he brushed that away too. He was crying again, the same way he had cried at the pond. He hated it. He wanted to stop and couldn't. All he could do was hide. He went into the garage. He held on to the rim of the shop-rag barrel and hunched over. Something cold touched his leg.

It was the dog. It seemed to be okay. It was looking up at him the same way as before. Then it turned. The fur and skin on its left side were gone. The flesh was raw and red and open. A rib showed.

"Why'd you have to do it, pup?" Jimmy asked. He was sobbing. It was disgusting. "Why couldn't you have stuck to rats and rabbits?"

The dog whined. It limped onto the shop-rag bed Jimmy had made for it and lay down on its right side. Every breath was a short whimper. Black BBs were embedded in its side. Quail shot.

Jimmy knelt and stroked the dog's head. It licked his wrist. That was the first time it had done that.

There was nothing he could do. He couldn't drive. There was no way to get it to a vet. All a vet would do was put it to sleep anyway. All Dad would do was shoot it with birdshot again. Fucking redneck idiot.

He stroked the dog's head a little longer. It wasn't right to let it keep hurting. He stood and wiped his face on a shop rag, then looked around the garage. Dad's toolbox was on the workbench. He went over to it. The dog stayed on the bed of rags, panting.

Jimmy opened the box. The tools were jumbled. He reached in and grabbed a hammer. Wrenches and screwdrivers came out with it. He took the hammer over to the dog. He heard gravel crunch outside.

He knelt again and put down the hammer. He pulled a few rags out from under the little dog's head, then turned the head so that the jaw lay flat against the floor. He stroked the top of the head. The eyes looked up at him. He stroked from the nose up over the eyes so that they closed.

He kept stroking with his left hand. The eyes stayed closed. He picked up the hammer in his right.

Jimmy had stopped crying. Now that he knew what to do, he could control himself. There was no point in prolonging pain. It would have to be one blow. It would have to be perfect. Perfection allowed no tears, no trembles.

"That's a sweet pup," Jimmy said. He raised the hammer.

A shadow fell over him. He took his left hand from the dog's head. He brought the hammer down.

It was one blow. It was perfect. Jimmy pulled the hammer free, then looked away.

His sister Jasmine was in the doorway. He stood and faced her. She turned and ran.

Mom was in the kitchen when Jimmy went inside. She hugged him and told him she'd missed him. She was going to make a special supper of smoked pork chops, and there would be ice cream for dessert.

Jimmy pulled away from the hug and looked at her. She looked the same.

Jasmine was standing with Dad beside the kitchen table. She was hanging on to Dad's leg and staring at Jimmy. Dad had his hand on her head. He still wasn't wearing a shirt.

Jimmy's prayer had worked. It had worked in just the way he had prayed it. He had told God that he would pay any price to have his mother back. Now the little brown dog was dead, and Mom was home. It made sense.

He went back to the garage and bundled the dog's body in shop rags. He carried the bundle out behind the chicken coop. There was a dead rat lying there. He set the bundle down beside it, then fetched the shovel and started to dig. The ground was packed hard. It was stiff with chickenshit. He kept at it.

A shadow passed over the hole. He looked up and saw Jasmine. She was the only one who was innocent. She was the only one he could love. He wouldn't let anyone hurt her, ever, as long as he lived.

"I saw you kill that dog," Jasmine said. "I hate your guts." She went back to the house.

Jimmy kept digging. He dug until his hands blistered, and then until the blisters opened. The hole still wasn't deep enough.

For the first seven weeks, Blackburn's job in the Automotive Department of Oklahoma Discount City went well enough. He unpacked cardboard cases of parts, stocked shelves, and helped customers find things. His boss wouldn't let him run the cash register, but that was fine with him. It was too much responsibility. He preferred work that allowed him to think about other things, and to go home and watch TV when he was finished. There wasn't much else to do in Oklahoma City, but he'd had enough partying for a while anyway. Austin had worn him out.

Blackburn's TV was a twelve-inch black-and-white that he'd bought with his first paycheck. The folks over in the Electronics Department had given him a few dollars off because he was an employee. He thought that was a pretty fair deal. In fact, he thought Oklahoma Discount City in general was a pretty fair deal. Then his boss retired, and the store hired a man named Leo to manage the Automotive Department.