Affliction by Russell Banks Page B

had come to be that of the president of the New England Plumbers and Pipefitters Union, AFL-CIO—dominance and loyalty were extremelyuseful, not to say essential, for without them he would have been forced back long ago to working with the wrenches in the trenches.
    The truck entered a flat S curve in the road, and the rear wheels broke loose, and the vehicle fishtailed from one side of the road to the other; Jack hit the accelerator and nonchalantly flipped the front wheels in the direction of the slide and anchored the truck to the road again.
    â€œYou done much shooting with that rifle of yours yet?” Jack reached behind him with his right hand and patted the stock of Twombley’s gun.
    â€œSome,” Twombley said, and lit another cigarette and looked out the window at the spruce trees and thatches of cedar flashing past.
    Jack smiled. He knew that Twombley had not fired the rifle at all. It was a lovely thing, not a scratch or blemish on it, a Winchester M-94 pump-action, a .30/30 with a custom-carved stock. It must have set Twombley back two thousand bucks. Ah, sweet Jesus, these rich old guys and their toys! Jack seemed almost to sigh, but he ended by pursing his lips again as if to whistle. Men like Twombley, over-the-hill fat cats, cannot ever truly appreciate the beauty of things that they can afford to buy. And the men who can appreciate a gun like Twombley’s, guys like Jack Hewitt, say, who can remember the feel of a particular gun in their hands for years afterwards, as if it were a marvelous woman they slept with once, will never be able to own it.
    Next to Twombley’s gun, Jack’s new Browning looked utilitarian, ordinary, merely adequate. Yet to buy it he had been obliged to borrow money from the bank, had lied and said that the money was for his mother’s medical bills, which was true, in a sense, because he was still paying for her stay in the hospital last summer and the old man was still out of work, and if Jack did not take care of his parents, who would? He had bought the gun, and now he had yet another monthly payment to make. In addition to the $48 a month for the gun, he sent out $420 a month for his truck, $52 a month for insurance on the truck, $35 a month for the engagement ring he bought last May for Hettie, $50 a month to Concord Hospital for his mother, and $200 a month to his father directly, for household expenses and food, which was, after all, the least he could do, since, as his father had explained one drunken night—shortlyafter Jack went and ruined his arm and quit playing professional ball for the Red Sox farm team in New Britain, Connecticut, and came home to Lawford and parked his ass back in his room the same week the old man got laid off at the mill—there was just no way the old man was going to be able to support him. In fact, if Jack wanted to live with his parents, then he would have to support them. So that now, only a few years out of high school, where, because of baseball and his intelligent good looks, he had been one of the most promising Lawford kids ever to graduate from Barrington Regional, Jack was already mired in debt, a man who worked overtime to make enough money to pay interest on borrowed money, and he knew it, and that made a gun like Twombley’s fancy Winchester all the more attractive to him. He practically deserved Twombley’s gun. As a reward , for Christ’s sake!
    Twombley shifted in his seat and rubbed his red nose with a knuckle. “You get me close to a big buck by ten o’clock, kid, there’s another hundred bucks in it.”
    Jack nodded and offered a faint smile. A few seconds later he said, “You might not kill it.”
    â€œYou think so.”
    â€œAnd I expect you’ll have to kill it, for me to get my extra hundred bucks, right?”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œCan’t guarantee that, you know.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThat you won’t gut-shoot the deer, say,