Joe Lansdale: Bullets and Fire

“I got you,” I said.

Headmaster nodded, said. “You boys get what you need?”

Billy said, “We got guns, and we got these.”

He grabbed his loose pants where his balls were, and acted like he was shaking them.

· · ·

I SAID I WAS going to the can, and I reluctantly laid the rifle back in the rack, said, “Give me a minute to deliver my last meal,” and I went out of the gun room and into the little bathroom off to the side. It was cleaner than the big bathroom right next to the lanes. And the big fuck wasn’t in there stinking it up. I mean, you wouldn’t want to eat off the floor or nothing, but compared to the other one, it was like it had just been sanitized. The other, it never got cleaned, smelled bad, and the toilets all had dark shit rings inside of them. There were boogers on the wall and things written in pen and pencil, blood and snot, and maybe even shit. You went in there, you might step on a needle, a rubber, or find some guy bending a girl over the sink, doing their business, needling horse—enough to call it a Clydesdale.

I went in and put the lid down on the toilet and sat there and tried to catch my breath. I was in. I belonged to the gang. It’s what I wanted.

I took out the automatic, a nine, and looked at it, felt cold sweat trickle down from my hairline and run along my face and drip off my chin. I laid the automatic on my knee. I thought about my brother. I thought about my father. My father, he never got over it. Killed himself. Shot himself.

My brother, in that store, his feet nailed to the floor, and those two jackasses having set a fire just so they could be in a club, a gang. And now here I was having punched a little girl in the face and taken out a guy’s knee, about to do some real damage. Of course, my reasons for being here were different. I didn’t want to be a member because I respected them, but because I didn’t. I hated them. Especially Juan and Billy, and then the head guy. I wanted what my sensei said was useless to have, vengeance.

After my brother was dead, and we had moved away, my dad had tried to get it together, but couldn’t. He put a gun in his mouth and blew his worries asunder. I was mad at him, hated him for awhile, but then I got over it, because I realized how hard it was to carry on. I was doing the same thing, but in a slightly different manner. Throwing it away. But unlike Dad, it wouldn’t just be me and some blood on the living room floor. There were some guys I was gonna flush with me.

If I got out all right, that was good, but I knew this: I was going to make my mark for dad and for my brother. They were gonna get some blowback on that business they done.

I picked up the automatic and laid in on the sink and lifted the lid and took a piss. I zipped up and washed my face and got the automatic and stuck it in my waist band and went out of there. When I came back into the gun room, the door still open, Juan looked at me kind of funny, said, “Man, we thought you fell in.”

“I was seriously packing,” I said.

I picked up the AK-47. I had shot one before. I had learned a lot about guns from my sensei, the one who told me that guns are about romance and power more than they are about self-defense or constitutional amendments. He also said, “Boys like their toys, the more dangerous and explosive the better.”

He said he liked them too and went to bed at night bothered by it.

I went to bed at night bothered by everything. I didn’t see my brother die, but I could imagine how horrible it was. Him crawling and that fire eating at him and that goddamn popcorn popping, and across the way, those two fucks laughing, getting a kick out of it all.

I looked at Headmaster and Juan and Billy, and I thought, these three, they’re the main guys I want. I could just do it now. I could open up and they wouldn’t know shit from wild honey, and then it would be over.

But I didn’t want to do that. I wanted more than that, and though I was willing to give what it took to get even, I preferred the opportunity to stay alive. Didn’t happen, didn’t happen.

I was ready to play either way.

“What now?” I said.

“I’m thinking,” Headmaster said, “we should probably arm a couple of the other guys, take them with you. It’s best not to take a whole wad. You do that, you’re more likely to end up butt fucking one another. Two many, that’s a fucking crowd. A small hit force, that’s the way to go.”

“You going?” I asked.

The Headmaster looked me as if I had asked if I could stick my finger up his ass and fish for shit.

“No. You’re going. You and Juan and Billy, maybe a couple of others. I go when I want and if I want. You aren’t questioning my chops are you?”

“No,” I said. “I was just wondering.”

“I’ll do the wondering for both of us, blood.”

“All right,” I said.

“Damn right, it’s all right. Juan, you go out there and pick you some wham-bang-dangers, two of them, and then let’s get them fixed with some tools and some lead, and then you guys, I’ll lay it out to you. The whole she-bang of a plan.”

One way, I thought, one easy way, is I isolate Juan and Billy, take them out. That would be the good way, the smart way. But it wasn’t satisfying to me, not even by a little bit. I imagined Tim squirming with his feet nailed to the floor screaming, the unbearable heat, the flames licking, him ripping his feet apart to get loose.

While I was doing this, Juan went out of the room. I thought, shit, I got to get it together and keep it together. Here I am in my head and outside my head the world is moving on.

“I’ll go with him,” I said.

And I was out of the door and going down the hall, could see Juan’s back as he turned the corner into the room where I had met the guy I thought was the Headmaster. I was almost to the door when I heard Headmaster yell at me.

“Hey, I tell you to go anywhere?”

I didn’t look back, said, “What’s it matter?”

“It matters cause I say so,” Headmaster said, in that way of his that lets you know even when it isn’t important, he wants you to know he’s the swinging dick of the operation.

I looked in the room, and there behind the desk was Hummy, guy I thought originally was the Headmaster, and was probably his replacement. One day, the Headmaster would look South and a bullet would come from the North, probably out of Hummy’s gun.

Or that’s the way it might have gone over had I not decided to change everyone’s plans. I was the fucking fly in the ointment, the crab in the ass. I was gonna mess things up worse than a politician.

Headmaster yelled at me again, told me to stop. I shifted the AK-47 to my left hand and pulled out the automatic and turned and looked at him and Billy, and then I fired. I was a good shot, and I was proud of that, because my first shot caught Headmaster between the eyes, and he went down so fast it was impossible to believe it. Billy, blood and brains from Headmaster splattered across his cheek, tried to pull up the rifle he had in his hand, but I shot him through the heart before he got it lifted, and then I was in the room with Hummy by the time Billy hit the floor.

Juan had already gone through and was at the far door, and he had turned, drawn the automatic he had, and now there were guns coming out from under coats and out of pockets, and from behind the desk. Juan fired twice and the shots slammed into the door frame and I shot at him once, but missed, and then I stuck the pistol in my belt, almost casual like, switched the AK-47 to my right hand, lifted it firing, bullets going all over the place, crazy like.

I hit a couple of the guys and one of the girls, and they did a kind of hop and a twist, like they were grooving at a party, and then there was blood everywhere and people were going down. I felt something hot in my side and I shot Hummy a bunch of times, and then I was walking, just straight out, not thinking about anything but killing, feeling the fire in my side, but not thinking much of it. I walked right through, whipping the weapon left and right, mowing flesh.