A Single Shot

The wailing builds to a crescendo. John turns the boy over in his hands several times, looking for bruises or cuts, some sign of an injury. Then he thinks maybe it’s one of those scars you can’t see, some mental pain having to do with the fucking he must have overheard in the next room. He thinks about Moira leaving their son with these people. And he’d always believed she was a perfect mother. I’ll go for custody, he thinks. Raise the boy myself. “Stop now,” he begs. “Cut it out, Nolan. You’re scaring Daddy!” He puts the boy against one shoulder, starts patting his back. Then the woman, Carla, is there, her hands reaching out. “Easy now, John. Just give ’im over gentle.”

She’s wearing blue jeans and a pullover black jersey. Her wild, frizzy hair is still sweaty at the temples. John says, “What’s the matter with him? What did you people do to him!”

“He’s fine. Just a little scared’s all. And hungry. Poor little man.” John hands her the boy. She deftly cradles him in one arm. With her free hand, she places a bottle in his mouth. He stops crying, then starts making wet suckling noises. The woman softly rubs his back, rocks him to and fro, coos gibberish in his ear. John glares at her. He wants to say something but isn’t sure what. Reaching out a hand, he gingerly touches one of his son’s socked feet. The whole foot is smaller than John’s finger. He touches the other foot. He counts five tiny toes through the cloth. There’s tears in his eyes. Incredible, he thinks. Absolutely unbelievable what Moira and I done. “He looks like you,” says the woman.

John grimaces at her.

“Yeah. You know, round the eyes.”

“I’m gonna tell Moira what I found here,” says John.

The woman shrugs.

John places a hand on the boy’s head, feels the heat there, the silk-soft hair. He thinks about taking him back, but is afraid his son will cry again.

“Got Moira’s long legs, though,” says the woman, “and gentle temperament.”

John walks past her into the living room.

His mouth drops open. Before the television set, holding the bag he brought for Moira, stands the lanky man with bulging eyes, veiny, tattooed arms, and collar-length, thin blond hair who earlier today John saw crossing the street with Waylon.

“You remember me, John?”

John doesn’t say. He looks for the gun and sees it protruding above the left side of the man’s belt.

“Way you looked at me, I thought maybe.”

“I seen you comin’ out a’ Puffy’s today.”

“I didn’t see you.”

“Maybe you was too busy watching somethin’ else.” John jerks his head toward the bedroom. Suddenly he is struck by the smallness of the world. He imagines himself the bull’s-eye at the center of a shrinking target.

“We got something in common there, don’t we, John?”

“I can’t guess what.”

“Oh, come on, John. We fish in the same pond!” The man laughs. He’s clothes-coordinated with Carla, except for his steel-toed boots. “Old Puffy, that chain-smoking lard-ass, got himself some hired help, I’d say.”

“Some reason you can’t fuck in your own place?”

“You know how it is, John. My dick’s a basset hound.” He shrugs. “I’m just the poor sumbitch holding its chain.”

“I can’t figure out why you’re still here.”

“Nobody lives here’s asked me to leave.”

“Most guys make assholes of themselves don’t wait to be.”

“Hell, John, that was nothing. You shoulda come few minutes earlier—got the show the pizza man did.” He smiles, then holds up the bag. John wonders if he’s looked inside. “You want me to put this in the fridge? It feels like maybe it needs it.”

John strides forward and snatches the bag. Fighting an impulse to check its contents, he shoves it beneath one arm and glares up at the man, who leans casually back against the doorframe. “You mad at me for some reason, John?”

“I don’t like guns being pulled on me.”

“A fucking madman breaks into the place, what would you do?”

“I don’t like ’em around my kid.”

“A lifelong hunter like you, John? I can’t believe that!” John thinks fleetingly of grabbing for the pistol, which is making him more and more nervous, then tells himself that alcohol and recent events are making him paranoid. “Truth is, John, I’m like you. A person who makes good use of what he kills shouldn’t have to worry what time a’ year it is or whose fucking land he’s on. Christ, can you imagine if our ancestors who discovered this fine country could only hunt when the government told ’em to? Jesus, wouldn’t none of us be here!”

“Moira know you’re here?” says John.

“Why don’t you ask her?”

“I might.”