guessed him to be in his early twenties by the time he caught hold of me in the back of a junior-high classroom, and hypnotized me with eyes no less horrified than my own, and yelled, by way of boast or introduction, “My dick don’t get hard till it
sees
the pussy!” Later on I heard he was killed in a car wreck, along with some others, but that line of his is immortal, or ought to be. In walking, waking life there was a name for him, but not for that. Some actions, some utterances, deserve to be their own name.
Rifle
It was a rifle, not a shotgun. “Shotgun” might sound better here, and might make for a flashier tale, but it was a rifle nonetheless, and I did not load it, and I did not intend to fire. That is, I had a fair idea of how to load a rifle, and I knew where the ammunition was bound to be kept (conveniently near the firearms, praise Jesus, in my house as in any other), and I was a good enough student even then to match the numerals on the box with the caliber requirements of the gun. Still, I did no such thing. I merely retrieved the rifle from the closet under the stairs and carried it down with me to the road below, thinking not of the violence it could do but only that it seemed, of the possibilities before me, the closest to what I imagined a Hatfield or a McCoy might have on him, or a sun-bloated corpse from the War Between the states: a dark brown stock devoid of any style, a long steel barrel devoid of any accuracy: a gun that looked able to kill, and was purposed for that, but seemed wholly unconcerned with where its hole was finally punched. I confess that my father owned such a gun, and that I fetched it out of the closet one bright afternoon and took it down into the road, thinking not to bring destruction along with me but surely a kind of terror.
I do not remember if before or after this incident my brother and I attended a party for young people at the volunteer firehouse a mile or so south, astonished that we had beenasked to go and even more astonished that we had been allowed to; I do not know, therefore, whether to count said party as yet another rejected excuse for my behavior or as a desperate vindication of it. Neither is worth much, but the excuse has at least the charm of being refused.
We walked to this party on newly paved road, and not on the old stuff, which might be a clue that the party happened after my indiscretion, except that I remember the road being paved well enough, and not made mostly of cracks and gravel, when I stepped out into it with my father’s gun in my arms. The formal approach to the firehouse, which jutted off Richmondward from our road, comprised the same twin tire ruts we knew from our driveway, and from God knows how many other such byways pumping that sad little county’s animus around, and so offered less of a surprise than that the firehouse’s cheap aluminum walls hid from the elements an excellent wooden floor, suitable for dancing.
That floor may not have been made of wood, of course, and those walls may have been made of something fancier than aluminum, and the approach may not have been the ruts I recall but rather a truck-shat gravel, which would surely have eased the fire trucks’ way out onto the road, unless they were not fire trucks at all but only area pickups and secondhand town ambulances bought with too many miles on them, in which case this was not a fire station in the first place but rather a “volunteer rescue squad” outfit, though I cannot say as I care. It is within my ability to do an all right job with the facts, I suppose, and were the facts any match for the truth, which I swear formed me more than I formed it, I would probably do so. But a fact can lie as dependably as can anyone’s truth, and is often enough only what most people will agree to out of their own personal stashes of error, or else what was once said or written down long ago by someone no more diligent, and far less tasteful, than I. Americans will, I
sees
the pussy!” Later on I heard he was killed in a car wreck, along with some others, but that line of his is immortal, or ought to be. In walking, waking life there was a name for him, but not for that. Some actions, some utterances, deserve to be their own name.
Rifle
It was a rifle, not a shotgun. “Shotgun” might sound better here, and might make for a flashier tale, but it was a rifle nonetheless, and I did not load it, and I did not intend to fire. That is, I had a fair idea of how to load a rifle, and I knew where the ammunition was bound to be kept (conveniently near the firearms, praise Jesus, in my house as in any other), and I was a good enough student even then to match the numerals on the box with the caliber requirements of the gun. Still, I did no such thing. I merely retrieved the rifle from the closet under the stairs and carried it down with me to the road below, thinking not of the violence it could do but only that it seemed, of the possibilities before me, the closest to what I imagined a Hatfield or a McCoy might have on him, or a sun-bloated corpse from the War Between the states: a dark brown stock devoid of any style, a long steel barrel devoid of any accuracy: a gun that looked able to kill, and was purposed for that, but seemed wholly unconcerned with where its hole was finally punched. I confess that my father owned such a gun, and that I fetched it out of the closet one bright afternoon and took it down into the road, thinking not to bring destruction along with me but surely a kind of terror.
I do not remember if before or after this incident my brother and I attended a party for young people at the volunteer firehouse a mile or so south, astonished that we had beenasked to go and even more astonished that we had been allowed to; I do not know, therefore, whether to count said party as yet another rejected excuse for my behavior or as a desperate vindication of it. Neither is worth much, but the excuse has at least the charm of being refused.
We walked to this party on newly paved road, and not on the old stuff, which might be a clue that the party happened after my indiscretion, except that I remember the road being paved well enough, and not made mostly of cracks and gravel, when I stepped out into it with my father’s gun in my arms. The formal approach to the firehouse, which jutted off Richmondward from our road, comprised the same twin tire ruts we knew from our driveway, and from God knows how many other such byways pumping that sad little county’s animus around, and so offered less of a surprise than that the firehouse’s cheap aluminum walls hid from the elements an excellent wooden floor, suitable for dancing.
That floor may not have been made of wood, of course, and those walls may have been made of something fancier than aluminum, and the approach may not have been the ruts I recall but rather a truck-shat gravel, which would surely have eased the fire trucks’ way out onto the road, unless they were not fire trucks at all but only area pickups and secondhand town ambulances bought with too many miles on them, in which case this was not a fire station in the first place but rather a “volunteer rescue squad” outfit, though I cannot say as I care. It is within my ability to do an all right job with the facts, I suppose, and were the facts any match for the truth, which I swear formed me more than I formed it, I would probably do so. But a fact can lie as dependably as can anyone’s truth, and is often enough only what most people will agree to out of their own personal stashes of error, or else what was once said or written down long ago by someone no more diligent, and far less tasteful, than I. Americans will, I
Similar Books
