Fiction Fridays

On Fridays I present excerpts, in order, from a collection of stories I've written entitled Central, Remote. As it is serial I hope you can come back every week and pick up where we all left off.

BB Gun

Part One.

The hills orange in the mid day heat crested like Bering Straight waves into deep dales where hid patches of green and the occasional cow drinking irrigation water from the washes in the valley. In one such valley a burnt-out pick up truck speckled white with a strange decaying rust lay long ruined by a violent car fire. Its blackened frame housed a bum’s variety of glass bottles with the scant well-water traces of alcohol trapped in their grooved bottoms. Abandoned garments of cloth covered fried vinyl seats torn and opened like scabs over new wounds. A man sat propped against the Chevy so naturally he seemed part of the landscape, his back against the frame of the passenger door, legs splayed, his boots sticking straight out into the encroaching rays making them appear as to have been suede in two variant tints of tan, hot white and sandy shade. An arm cradled a plastic container of gin while the hands rested intertwined on his swollen belly. George Jr. watched for several long seconds from behind a nearby oak tree. The man was either dead drunk or just dead.

C’mon, he said to his companion. I want to see if he left any in that bottle.

Willy shook his head.

Fine, but I ain’t sharin.

George Jr. swept the hair from his eyes and left the other boy behind, traipsing through the knee-high chaff. After five or six steps he heard Willy begin to follow. Grab a stick or something, he said to him.

Willy paused, leaned over and kicked around the brush with his foot until he found a fallen branch. It was gnarled and tough in his hand. Satisfied he continued towards the body. George Jr. was already standing next to it, motionless, arms resting at his sides, sneakers wearing the dust of the day. Willy had the distinct impression that George had been struck immobile by some alien affectation wafting off the body but as he came closer to investigate, George stuck out his arm palm up and out, signaling stop in one quick burst as if blocking an unseen attacker. He then pointed to the earth just next to the man. Willy had to take two more steps and squint through the cresting light to see a small pistol with the walnut bulge of a seven-chamber nestled underneath the drunk’s left forearm.

Holy shit.

Shut up! George said without sound. He smiled and it made Willy nervous.

George. Let’s go.

George put a finger perpendicular to his lips.

Willy gripped the branch tightly like a bat and held it in front of him.

George lifted his left leg so that he stood straddling the prostrated man. He bent and reached, paused and watched the man’s chest rise and stutter back, rise and stutter back. He smelled the fecund rank of the man’s odor and the stale liquor on his uneven breathe. He gripped the neck of the bottle just beneath the cap with his middle and forefinger the way his father removed longnecks from a six-pack and tugged. The bottle didn’t budge.

Willy shifted his weight from one leg to the other. C’mon.

Pipe down. He’s done drunk hisself out.

Willy readied his branch and took one defensive step back.

George turned his head and mouthed, Quiet, and began once again at the gin, this time with more force. It slid out like a sigh from its flannel holster. When he saw the two fingers of liquid left in the bottle George felt such a surge of adrenaline he nearly laughed.

Willy said, Great. Let’s go.

Pivoting at his torso and still very much an arc over the ravine that was the passed out man George said, Catch, giggled and tossed the plastic bottle at Willy. It was like trying to catch a water balloon with his hands full. Willy dropped the branch and the bottle, which landed with a hollow melon thud in the dirt.

At the sound the man suddenly shifted, heaving his bulk to the right. George bunny hopped to avoid the crossing legs. And froze. The man didn’t move again.

Jesus, George. Willy snatched up the gin and began to back pedal. There was no doubt in his mind that George would follow but like an act of God stunning and awesome George just stood there. Jesus, George, C’mon.

For another moment George stood still. The man wasn’t moving and the gun lay revealed in the indented weeds. With the decisiveness of an involuntary reaction George grabbed the firearm. Although he’d never admit it, in the end there was really nothing to it. The gun was simply in his hand and then he was huddled behind the oak tree, adrenaline a heartbeat in his neck, watching Willy wide eyed offering the gin to him like a pagan effigy.