Bud Smith: F 250

“Once with pills. Once, I found him asleep on the back deck with a rope tied in a noose, just hanging over the limb of a big tree we used to have.”

“Used to have…”

“‘Cause I had a tree service come and cut it down.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Who would? People die. People are dying.”

“Yes,” I agreed, turning down the gravel hill towards town.

“You want some advice?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Don’t try to figure anything out.”

The white BMW skidded up, blocking the driveway. I was standing on the crabgrass talking to June in the shade of the elm tree. I turned my head and couldn’t believe what I saw: this sudden materialization, like a bad dream. I blinked, but the car was still there.

Ethan got out. His hair got shaggier. He had a beard. He turned to face me but didn’t look the same. Something was wrong with his eyes.

“What’s he doing here?” June asked.

“Best question I ever heard in my life.”

Denise Santalucia was in the passenger seat, looking straight ahead. Her makeup was running. Her eyes were puffy and wounded.

In the backyard, horseshoes clanked on metal pins, hitting the dirt, ricocheting up into the sky. People were yelling. Classic rock blared on the radio. All of that was a million miles away at that point.

“There you are, you fuck,” Ethan yelled.

“What’s the problem?” I asked, setting my beer can down at my feet in the nest of roots under the elm tree.

“I’ve been looking for you.”

“For what?”

“You know for what,” he said while walking towards me. “She’s pregnant,” he said. “It’s your kid.”

“No, man,” I said.

“Well, it’s not mine. She’s your problem. I brought her here for you to take care of. It’s your kid. You can take her to the clinic. I’m not.”

“Get in your fruity little car, turn around, and go the fuck back to mommy and daddy,” I said.

The crazy sonofabitch really did want to fight. I didn’t think he had it in him, but I realized it too late. He lowered his shoulder and slammed into me, knocking me on the ground. He was fighting like a wild animal. His arms flailed all around. His knees drove up into me. We rolled around in the dirt. His soft, pink hands closed around my throat.

I could hear June yelling out. Then … I didn’t hear much of anything. Ethan’s fist caught me in the side of the head and made my ears ring. When I swung my hand around, it connected with the side of his face, and we fell over the other way.

I hit him again — punched him in the throat. His foot came up and hit me in the gut. This drove him back. I followed him down to the earth, smacking his head into the nest of roots underneath the elm tree. He groaned.

I stumbled to my feet.

Ethan was still on the ground. Blood oozed from his brow. Sloppy.

June stood there, frozen.

Denise yelled, “STOP!”

She’d come out of the car at some point and was standing there by speedboat’s mailbox. Stop? Sure. Yeah, we were stopped. My whole head was swimming with noise.

I looked back at Ethan. His mouth was all bloody. He was still on the ground but started to move. After digging in his pants pocket, he pulled out a small silver gun. It was his father’s gun.

“Stay back,” he yelled at me.

I had no interest in getting any closer. Not with him pointing that thing at my nuts.

Denise yelled, “STOP!”

Ethan got up on his feet.

“SHE WAS MY GIRL!”

“I didn’t sleep with her,” I said. “Seth did, and he’s already dead.”

His lip trembled. It was a mistake he regretted right away. I could tell. Well, regret or not, I lunged at him. Punched him square in his nose. It popped. Blood bloomed all down his white shirt. He collapsed onto the crabgrass, writhing. I put my foot on his stomach and pushed down. The gun lay in the grass.

I was seeing red. I stomped down on that little chickenshit’s belly. The air rushed out of him. I took the gun and stormed off to his BMW. Denise jumped out of my way. In one smooth motion, I smashed out the passenger side window with the butt of the gun. Then I started smashing out the windshield.

I must have thought I was a real hard-ass, like this was a mob movie. I just kept slamming the butt of the gun down on the windshield. It cracked worse and worse. It was safety glass. The windshield wouldn’t fall in. What I was doing was a fool’s errand. I hurled the gun down the hill towards the lake. Sploosh.

The car was still running. I bent in and dropped it in neutral. It started to roll forward a little.

I walked over to the F-250, jumped inside, and rolled right up to the smashed-out shitbox’s rear fender. Then I hit the gas and pushed that fucking BMW right into the lake. It didn’t get as far as I would have liked. The nose of the car sunk down into the mud. The engine flooded out.

When I backed the truck up, Ethan was standing under the elm tree.

“I’ll kill you,” he said, but the fight was gone from him.

It was gone from me too.

Denise, who was standing next to him, looked at him like she wanted to kick him in the balls.

“A gun? You pulled a fucking gun?”

Ethan didn’t say anything. He just stood there. His eyes glazed over. The blood came down his nose.

“It wasn’t loaded,” he finally said.

I looked at Denise’s belly, the small pout of it. Seth’s kid was in there.

People started to come streaming out of the backyard. Terry. Feral. Trish. June. They were all there, looking at us.

“What happened?” I heard Feral exclaim.

“There was an accident,” I said.

Ethan didn’t say a word.

“Stupid fuck crashed his car right into the lake.”

Terry started laughing. No-one else laughed. He was the drunkest … or the highest.

Ethan called the wrecker himself. The tow truck came, hooked the back of the BMW, pulled it out of the lake, and yanked it up onto the flatbed.

Denise was in the house with Trish. Ethan climbed up into the wrecker. I watched from the lawn as the truck pulled away. The muck and filth leaking out of the 5 Series left a wet trail on the road as it rolled away for good.

It wasn’t until later I realized my wrist was broken. My hand was cracked. I’d done it hitting him. Or I’d done it with the gun while breaking out the windshield of his silly white car.

I drove K back to college.Providence, Rhode Island. We had one last conversation three hours after the drop off. The phone in my motel room rang.

“You want to come hang out tonight?”

“And do what?” I asked.

“Friend of mine, Jackie, she wants to meet you. It’d be fun. We could come over there.”

“Another time,” I said, hanging up.

I was outside a dimly lit bar. It was raining.In this time of the world, there were still pay phones, and it was often raining. I dialed Studio Mike’s number. It sounded like I’d woke him. That didn’t surprise me.

“Been trying to get a hold of you,” he said.

“I’ve been around.”

Mike laughed, “Been around? I’m sure you have been.”

“I took that girl back to college.”

“Which one?”

“The one I don’t like as much as the other one,” I said.

“Oh, what a problem to have.”

“Gone,” I said. “The one I liked took a jumbo jet off into the impossible distance. Texas.”

“Hey, listen,” Mike said, his voice low and gruff, “this is important. I’ve been getting phone calls from that label.”

My heart stopped.