the most interesting. Tiny holes in front. Pinpricks. Icepick wounds. But the exit wounds are the size of lemons, tangerines, baseballs. He’s shooting hollowpoints. I know my little .22 wouldn’t do anything like that. The .22 rimfire is supposedly the Mafia’s weapon of choice, but I’d rather be carrying something that blows chunks out of motherfuckers.
We go after the other two bodies behind the minivan. The dude I killed with the Beretta has straight black hair. The one Mom shot doesn’t have a face. We drag them over with the others.
I gather up the kids’ guns. All four of the dead guys had rifles, but one of them is different. It looks like Dad’s AR, but with a shorter barrel and a collapsible stock. That’s more like it. I grab four loaded magazines. Dad sees me with the rifle. He holds his hand out and I give it to him. He points at the rifle, but I can’t take my eyes away from his bandage.
“Look here,” he says. He puts his thumb on a switch on the left side of the gun. He pushes the switch to its top position. “This is safe.” He moves the switch to the middle position. “This is semi-auto.” He flicks the switch to its last position. “This is the burst setting. You get three rounds every time you pull the trigger. Don’t fire in burst mode unless you absolutely have no other choice.”
He puts the rifle on safe and hands it back to me. He nods. I set it against the front of the store. It’s mine now.
And then we’re only half awake, dragging bloodlines across the white concrete that surrounds the gas pumps. Dad checks out the gray shoes the kids are wearing. Maybe he knew about them all along. He searches the bodies for information. We turn out all their pockets, making a little pile of bubble gum and ammo and gold coins and rubbers. We peel back their layers of clothes and it turns out that the dudes are all wearing the same kind of shirt. It turns out that they were all big fans of the Shasta County Juvenile Detention Facility.
Dad looks at me, but I can’t tell what he’s thinking. We stack the bodies in the gas station’s dried-out landscaped area. They smelled like shit when they were alive and dying didn’t make them smell any better. We face them all the same way, their heads away from the store. We do good work. After all this excitement, we still take pride in our work. We stack them with care, like we stacked our firewood back home. I’m not sure if we’re trying to show the world what good workers we are, or if we’re showing a tiny bit of respect for the dead. It’s not a very fun job, to tell the truth, but we’re very precise in our work and we make a neat stack, don’t ask me why.
We finish our chores. It’s getting dark. The American flag is still flying above its Chevron sign. We siphon some gas from a Suburban that will probably never run again. We soak the bodies and set them on fire and then we sweep up the mess inside our bullet-shredded store.
None of us can sleep, so we all stand watch together. The night is cold and hard under the funky clouds. Mom’s teeth start chattering, and Dad gives her more whiskey. It’s all he can do to treat her for shock. He gives us each a small shot and he takes one for himself.
They wait until dark. When they come again, they come through the storeroom door, in back. They pin us down with their fire. Glass breaking and the juices of shot-up stuff raining down on us. Bullets shred everything around us. One of them takes off the lobe of my right ear. A shooter starts popping off in the aisle I’m sitting in and the bullets are snapping just above my head. I’m trying to hide my whole body behind a box of minibag popcorn, and I’m somehow fitting behind it. I’m praying and making promises to the God that allowed this to happen, but what I really want is a chance to shoot back.
I see a pair of gray walking shoes. I bring my new rifle up but there’s a sound and my left hand is on fire, and I drop the rifle. The
We go after the other two bodies behind the minivan. The dude I killed with the Beretta has straight black hair. The one Mom shot doesn’t have a face. We drag them over with the others.
I gather up the kids’ guns. All four of the dead guys had rifles, but one of them is different. It looks like Dad’s AR, but with a shorter barrel and a collapsible stock. That’s more like it. I grab four loaded magazines. Dad sees me with the rifle. He holds his hand out and I give it to him. He points at the rifle, but I can’t take my eyes away from his bandage.
“Look here,” he says. He puts his thumb on a switch on the left side of the gun. He pushes the switch to its top position. “This is safe.” He moves the switch to the middle position. “This is semi-auto.” He flicks the switch to its last position. “This is the burst setting. You get three rounds every time you pull the trigger. Don’t fire in burst mode unless you absolutely have no other choice.”
He puts the rifle on safe and hands it back to me. He nods. I set it against the front of the store. It’s mine now.
And then we’re only half awake, dragging bloodlines across the white concrete that surrounds the gas pumps. Dad checks out the gray shoes the kids are wearing. Maybe he knew about them all along. He searches the bodies for information. We turn out all their pockets, making a little pile of bubble gum and ammo and gold coins and rubbers. We peel back their layers of clothes and it turns out that the dudes are all wearing the same kind of shirt. It turns out that they were all big fans of the Shasta County Juvenile Detention Facility.
Dad looks at me, but I can’t tell what he’s thinking. We stack the bodies in the gas station’s dried-out landscaped area. They smelled like shit when they were alive and dying didn’t make them smell any better. We face them all the same way, their heads away from the store. We do good work. After all this excitement, we still take pride in our work. We stack them with care, like we stacked our firewood back home. I’m not sure if we’re trying to show the world what good workers we are, or if we’re showing a tiny bit of respect for the dead. It’s not a very fun job, to tell the truth, but we’re very precise in our work and we make a neat stack, don’t ask me why.
We finish our chores. It’s getting dark. The American flag is still flying above its Chevron sign. We siphon some gas from a Suburban that will probably never run again. We soak the bodies and set them on fire and then we sweep up the mess inside our bullet-shredded store.
None of us can sleep, so we all stand watch together. The night is cold and hard under the funky clouds. Mom’s teeth start chattering, and Dad gives her more whiskey. It’s all he can do to treat her for shock. He gives us each a small shot and he takes one for himself.
They wait until dark. When they come again, they come through the storeroom door, in back. They pin us down with their fire. Glass breaking and the juices of shot-up stuff raining down on us. Bullets shred everything around us. One of them takes off the lobe of my right ear. A shooter starts popping off in the aisle I’m sitting in and the bullets are snapping just above my head. I’m trying to hide my whole body behind a box of minibag popcorn, and I’m somehow fitting behind it. I’m praying and making promises to the God that allowed this to happen, but what I really want is a chance to shoot back.
I see a pair of gray walking shoes. I bring my new rifle up but there’s a sound and my left hand is on fire, and I drop the rifle. The
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