Billy Summers

Next Staff Sergeant Fleck asked me if I thought I was tough enough to be a Marine and I said yes even though I wasn’t sure of that either. Then he asked me if I thought I could kill a man in a combat situation and I said yes.

Mr Speck said can I talk to you for a minute, Sergeant, and Sergeant Fleck said he could. They sent me outside and Mr Speck sat down across the desk and started talking. I could have told the sergeant what happened with my mother’s bad boyfriend, but I guess it was better to hear it from a ‘responsible adult.’ With all I have been through, back then and since, I have to wonder if there is such a thing.

After awhile they called me back inside and I wrote out what happened in the space marked Personal Information. Then I signed in four places, bearing down hard like the sarge told me to. When I was done he told me to be all present and accounted for on Monday. He said sometimes young men had to wait months for processing but I came at the right time. He said on Monday I would take my ASVAB test and my physical with the other ‘new fish.’ ASVAB is an aptitude test that helps them (the Marines) figure out how much you can do and how smart you are.

He asked if I had any tattoos and I said no. He asked if I wore eye-glasses some of the time and I said no. There were other things he said, like bring your Social Security card and if you wear an earring take it out. Then he said (I thought this was funny but kept a straight face) to be sure and wear undershorts. I said okay. He said if there’s anything wrong with you that you didn’t write down, you better tell me now and save yourself a trip. I said there wasn’t.

Sergeant Fleck shook my hand and said if you’ve got a mind to hooraw you better hooraw this weekend because come Monday when you take that test you are going to be Mr Taking Care of Business. I said okay. He said never mind that, let me hear you say yes Staff Sergeant Fleck. So I said that and he shook my hand and said it was good to meet me. ‘And you too sir,’ he said to Mr Speck.

Going back, Mr Speck said he talked tough but I don’t believe he ever killed anyone like you did, Benjy. He just didn’t have that look about him.

By then Ronnie had been gone (in her 7-league boots) for 4 or 5 months, but before she went she let me make out with her in the Demo Derby. That was great, but when I wanted to go farther she laughed and push me away and said your too young but I wanted to give you something to remember me by. I said I would remember, and I do. I don’t think you ever forget the first girl who gives you real kisses. She told me

4

Billy stops there, looking over the laptop and out the window. Robin told him that when she finally lit somewhere, she would write the Stepeneks so her friends from the House of Everlasting Paint could write back to her. She told Billy to do the same thing when he left.

‘I’m guessing it won’t be long before you’re on your way,’ she said that day as they sat in the smashed Mercedes. She had let him unbutton her shirt – that much she had allowed – and she was buttoning it up again as she spoke, hiding all that glory inside. ‘But your idea about feeding yourself to the war machine … you need to re-think that, Billy. You’re too young to die.’ She kissed the tip of his nose. ‘And too pretty.’

Billy starts to write this, only omitting that he had had the hardest, most painful, and most wonderful erection of his life during that all-too-short necking session, when his David Lockridge phone bings with a text. It’s from Ken Hoff.

I have something for you. Probably it’s time for you to take it.

And because he’s probably right about that, Billy texts back Okay.

Hoff returns, I’ll come by your house.

No, no, and no. Hoff at his house? Next door to the Ackermans, with whose kids Billy plays Monopoly on the weekends? Hoff will bring the rifle wrapped in a blanket, of course he will, as if anyone with half a brain and a single eye wouldn’t know what was inside.

No, he texts. Walmart. The Garden Center parking lot. 7:30 2nite.

He waits, watching the dots as Hoff composes his reply. If he thinks the meeting place is negotiable, he’s in for a surprise. But when the response comes back, it’s brief: OK.

Billy shuts down his laptop without even finishing the last sentence. He’s done for the day. Hoff poisoned the well, he thinks. Only he knows better. Hoff is just Hoff and can’t help himself. The real poison is the gun. This thing is getting close.

5

At 7:25 Billy parks his David Lockridge Toyota in the Garden Center section of Walmart’s giant parking lot. Five minutes later, at 7:30 on the dot, he gets a text.

Can’t see you, too many cars, get out and give me a wave.