with the knobs on the back, cursing at the wavy-lined picture on the screen. 'Fuckin' shit,' he said, and then he said it again. I held the gun up in front of me, two hands, the way they do it on TV. I know I was smiling. I kept walking, the gun in front of me, until he put his head up to get his beer can on top of the TV and saw me.
'What the shit—' he said, but then I pointed the gun up at his head and pulled the trigger, and it kicked me back but it made a hole in his forehead just like I wanted it to. It was a neat round hole, and then blood started to come out of it like a red waterfall, and Billy's old man fell back down behind the television, his hand out trying to catch the bullet already in his head; and it was funny because when he went down he hit the TV, and the picture went clear.
'Fuckin' shit,' I said, and then I put a slug into the TV to watch the screen bust, and we walked outside.
It was a low, aluminum-colored cloud day. Warm and cold at the same time. The block was empty.
Then it wasn't. The mailman was coming down the street. Billy looked at me and I smiled, and I said, 'You do him,' and handed him the gun.
'But—'
I opened the jar and handed it to him. 'Drink.'
He tilted it up, took a swallow.
'More,' I said.
He took another swallow, closed his eyes.
'That's enough,' I said.
He opened his eyes, handed the jar back to me.
'Do it,' I said.
The mailman was heading for us, rolling his funny cart to an angle stop in front of Mrs. Welsh's gate and flipping through his handful of letters, peeling a couple off and then pushing through the gate to the front of the house.
The dog came at him then, but the mailman was already in position for it, snugged to the right of the walk, and the dog's chain went taut and he couldn't get at the mailman.
I was staring at Billy, seeing him all shiny-bright, watching him looking at the ground, and then finally he said, 'Okay.'
'Good.' I put the jar into the front pocket of my pants, and by then the mailman, whose name was Mr. Masters, and had a big Adam's apple in his long neck that was always bobbing up and down, was coming back down Mrs. Welsh's walk, and Billy walked up to meet him.
'H-Howdy,' Billy stammered, holding the gun up.
Masters just looked at the gun, kind of frozen in place, and then the gun began to shake in Billy's hand. Finally Masters smiled a little and said, 'Howdy, yourself. Got a new toy for your eleventh birthday, Billy?'
'Sure did,' I said, stepping up beside Billy, taking the gun from his hand, aiming it and pulling the trigger.
I hit ole Mr. Masters right in the Adam's apple. Sounded like a bone crack but there was plenty of blood, and Mr. Masters said 'Oh, my God,' and threw his hands up at his neck, and I popped him one right in the eye.
Billy looked at me, but by then I was pushing through the gate of Mrs. Welsh's house.
The dog was on me, but I didn't care. I kept to the middle of the walk and timed it perfect so that when the dog jumped, just reaching me at the end of its chain, I let the dog's teeth close around the gun barrel and then pulled off two quick shots.
The dog's head sort of went cloudy red and split into two parts. The top part with the eyes still wide fell off and landed on the sidewalk.
I waved for Billy to follow.
I saw Mrs. Welsh staring out at me through the curtains, frozen like a statue, a black phone to her ear. I heard her start screaming, saw her drop the phone and amble away as I mounted the creaky porch steps. 'Need fixin' ,' I said, and then I laughed because Mrs. Welsh was there at the front door, behind the faded door-window curtains, fumbling with the lock.
I took a quick step and planted my foot on the door, knee-jerking it in.
Mrs. Welsh fell back and started to squawk like a chicken before Sunday dinner. 'Get in,' I said to Billy, and as he stepped in I shut the door.
Mrs. Welsh was laying on the ground, shaking, saying, 'No no!' in a high voice, covering her face with her hands, which was good because I started shooting in a line through the floor at her shaking feet and all the way up her body till I split a good shot between her hands and blood pumped out.
I turned to leave as her hands fell away from her face, but then there came a sound from the back of the house.
'You hear that?' I said. 'Sounded like a splash. Come on.'
We searched until we heard a sound coming from the kitchen, which we'd just looked in. We turned back, and there on the counter under a window was a fish tank, with a goldfish the size of a small carp in it. The water was rocking, and the fish took a jump and popped through the surface, then fell back in again. Next to the tank was a big cardboard canister of fish food.
'Watch,' I said, and when the fish made its next leap I shot it through its middle. I shot the fish-food canister for good measure, then turned and walked out of the kitchen.
Way off in the distance, I heard the whine of a police siren.
'Time to go,' I said.
As we passed the living room, there was a faint sound coming from the telephone receiver Mrs. Welsh had dropped. I stopped to pick it up and said into it, laughing, 'See you soon!'
We went out through the back of Mrs. Welsh's house. There was a fence, easy to climb, which brought us out onto the next block.
My old man's garage was two blocks down and one over, and we got near it by cutting through backyards. Which was just as well, because by now the police sirens were real close, and one of the cars screamed down the street just behind us as we cut into the hedges bordering a big house.
'Ain't this Jodie McAfrey's place?' I said, and stopped to ring the side bell.
Jodie didn't answer, but his mother did, opening the door a crack. I aimed and missed her face. She turned and ran, so I elbowed my way in.
I aimed careful this time, and gave her two quick ones in the spine. After she went down, I put my foot on her back and planted a final one in her head.
'Ain't you gonna ask me why I shot her in the back?' I said to Billy as we headed for the fence between the McAfrey's yard and my old man's garage. I laughed loud and said, 'Because her front was too far away!'
We climbed the fence, passed a line of worked-on cars, and then got to the mouth of the garage. I popped the clip on the gun, tossed it away, and put the gun in Billy's hand. 'Put a new clip in, and do it,' I said.
Billy got red in the face, looked at the ground real hard, but then he did what I said and went in. I stayed outside, sipping from the jar, but after a minute there was no sound so I ducked inside, moving around the open hood of a Chevy and saw Billy at the door to my old man's dirty office.
'You still a pussy?' I asked.
'He ain't here,' Billy said.
I stared at him hard, until he looked at the ground, and then I smiled, taking a key ring off the pegboard next to my old man's desk.
'Give me the gun,' I said. I held out my hand, and he put the gun in it.
Everything had gone bright and sharp again. I tilted the jar back up to my mouth and felt the white lightning burn down the back of my throat and jump straight into my head.
'I'll drive,' I said, walking outside, tucking the jar back into the front pocket of my pants. The key fit the door of a late model 4x4. 'Hey,' I said, 'it's got a CD player!'
Billy climbed in. I started the truck up, rolled out, and bent to see if there were any CDs in the case under my seat when a police car roared past and then stopped dead.
'Hold on,' I said, and hit the floor, pulling left as the police car squealed around.
I headed for the narrow side lot between the last two houses on the block. We had drunk beer here some nights, and there was no way a police cruiser could climb the curb and make it over the mess of broken bottles and rusting old appliances. Sure enough, the cop braked behind us, took a long look, and roared ahead, hoping to cut us
