fire department.
I take my hand off of Leslie’s. She looks from her daughter’s face to mine.
– I think she’s OK. Just keep the pressure on and someone will be here real fast.
She nods.
– I have to go.
I walk up the driveway to Wade. His body is a tangled jumble. I touch his face, pocked with acne scars, the crazed hair clipped short and thinning. Oh shit, Wade.
– Wade?
I turn my head at the voice. A woman my age is standing at the top of the drive. She’s wearing flannel boxers, a too-large jacket she must have grabbed on her way out the door, and little booty socks on her feet. Her face is pillow-creased and her short dark hair is severely bedheaded. I recognize her from high school. Stacy Wilder. Wow, Wade hooked up with Stacy “The Wild One” Wilder. Way to go, buddy.
– Wade?
I stand up. Point at him.
– He.
And Danny shoots me in the back.
IT’S THE back of my leg, really.
My left leg flies out from underneath me and I fall on my back. Beyond the sound of the shot echoing in my ears, I hear doors slamming shut up and down the street as the rubberneckers dive back inside. The siren is coming closer.
– Got you, fucker.
I tilt my head and see Danny behind me.
– Got you good, wanted man.
Wanted man? Now how in hell does he know that? He takes a step closer. He’s bleeding from his mouth. Something to my left moves. I look and see a boy coming up behind Stacy, where she stands frozen, staring at Wade.
The boy is about thirteen, has Wade’s hair and flat nose. He’s wearing a San Jose Sharks jersey and carrying a hockey stick. He’s sees me and Danny. And then he sees his dad. His eyes go big and his mouth opens. I lift a hand.
– Stacy.
She looks from her husband to me. Danny nudges my head with his sneaker.
– Shut up.
I point at the boy.
– Stacy, get your boy inside.
Her eyes move from me to Wade, to me again, to Danny’s cheap Korean Glock knockoff. She turns, finds her gaping boy there, grabs him, and pulls him toward the front door.
– Shut the fuck up.
He’s right over me now. Perspective has him flipped upside down.
Upside down.
That’s a good idea.
– Danny, shouldn’t you be taking care of your daughter?
He turns his head to look over his shoulder and I reach up, grab his ankles, and pull his feet out from under him. The gun goes off and a bullet pokes a hole in the garage door. Danny hits the ground flat on his back, makes a woofing noise, and the gun jars out of his hand and skips down the driveway. I stand up, take a step to go after the gun, and my left leg folds under me.
Oh yeah, I’m shot.
Danny rolls onto his stomach and is crawling for the gun before I can try to stand again. I look at my leg. It’s bleeding, but it looks like it’s just the obligatory flesh wound, a shallow gash on the side of my thigh. Ready for the pain this time, I get to my feet and start limping around the side of Wade’s house, running from Danny and his shitty gun and the siren that is now very close.
The gate is unlatched from when Wade and I came out for our walk. I swing it open and pull it closed behind me, hearing the latch click as it locks. I limp toward the woodpile.
– Freeze, fucker.
Danny is climbing over the gate, gun waving in my general direction. He slips at the top of the fence, lands roughly on his side, and the gun goes off again, splintering firewood. I dive through the side door into the dark garage, close it and lock it, and limp toward the workbench.
I grab the drawer and yank. It’s locked. Well, of course it’s locked, you watched him lock it, asshole. There’s a crowbar mounted on the pegboard over the bench. I shove it into the crack between the drawer and the benchtop and heave. Grinding and a small snapping noise, but the drawer holds. Danny is banging on the door. I can see him framed there in the window. The siren sounds like it’s right up the street. I heave again, the drawer flies open, off its tracks and onto the floor. Danny presses his face against the glass, trying to see through the darkness inside.
– Open up, fucker. Fucking open up!
I grab the gun, flip the empty cylinder open, and squat painfully, digging through the mess that fell from the drawer, looking for ammo. Nothing.
Danny hits the window with a piece of firewood and it shatters.
I stand, and right there at eye level, on a shelf above the bench, is a black plastic box with MAGNUM written across the top in big red letters. I grab the box, pop the lid, and a handful of feathers flutters out.
Wade Hiller on the subject of pigeon feathers: “I save them in a little box.”
The siren screams close and stops right out front. For a moment a red and blue light pulses through the hole Danny shot in the garage door. Then he turns on the overheads and everything goes bright.
I flip the empty cylinder closed and turn. Danny squints at me and I squint back. He’s raising his gun. I bring up the .357 he has no idea I’m holding, and point it at his face. His eyes turn into Frisbees. He freezes, his gun hand wavering.
Before he can decide to shoot me, I do what Jimmy Cagney would do, and throw my empty gun at him.
AT SIXTEEN, my fastball was in the mid-eighties and frequently grazed ninety. I used to stand in the backyard and throw pitch after pitch from the mound Dad and I had made, through the tire he had hung from the limb of a tree exactly sixty feet and six inches away, Major League distance. Once, with a bunch of teammates watching and egging me on, I threw a hundred and four in a row, right through the center. All fastballs. My shoulder blew up like a pumpkin and Dad was pissed at me for risking my arm, but the kids talked about it for weeks, and it made me feel so cool.
A BASEBALL weighs about five ounces. The gun in my hand feels like it’s two or three pounds. Fortunately, Danny isn’t sixty and a half feet away. More like eight. The Anaconda clocks him in the forehead and he goes down.
I can hear voices outside yelling. I walk over to Danny. He’s out. I stuff the Anaconda in my jeans and grab his pistol. There’s blood all over his face from the mouth wound and a new cut I’ve opened on his forehead.
Over a black leather jacket, he’s wearing a blue-jean vest covered in patches: Insane Clown Posse, Slipknot, Godflesh, etc. The jacket has fallen open; underneath is a bloodstained concert T-shirt, the same one he had on the other day.
Except it’s not a concert shirt.
I tug his jacket open the rest of the way and expose the big
Danny knows who I am.
Which means his friends know who I am.
Which means, just as soon as the cops get here, they’ll be telling them that I’m alive and in town.
