by James Boice
The eye pulsates hot day and night. Lee puts a hand over it and it scalds, has its own heartbeat. He cannot feel his face; in the mirror his face is shiny and fat, but if he could not see it in the mirror he would believe it is not there. A rare sip of air sneaking down his strangled throat and into his lungs is a great pleasure. Wakes in the mornings with little silver bugs in his eye feeding off the thick pink-green discharge. He is sweaty, feverish. —Let me see, his father says, taking Lee’s chin in his and tilting up his grotesque little face toward his own. —Look at that! Getting better!
In the mornings before school, Lee traipses around the kitchen and living room in the darkness of dawn, bending down to pick up his father’s empty bottles with cigarettes in them and bring them to the trash. When his father appears on the stairs with his rifle and camouflage heading out to hunt, he makes fun of Lee. —Uh-oh, it’s the cops. Do you have a warrant officer?
One night Lee wakes up in bed smelling smoke. Calls out for his father but he does not answer. He goes through the smoke to his father’s room and sees his father in his bed, asleep. He calls to him but he does not wake up. Goes into the kitchen, it is on fire. His father left a burner on. Lee stamps out the flames with the lid of a pan, and when his father wakes up hours later—having slept too late to hunt—he asks Lee why it smells like smoke, but Lee shrugs and never tells him how he saved both their lives.
He and his father are at Safeway a day or two later for more meat. Lee’s eye is dripping slime. His father has given him a straw to stick between his lips so he can breathe. People are staring. His father is red-faced, muttering to Lee that they all need to mind their own damned business.
—Poor little boy, a woman says.
His father smiles falsely and says, —He’s okay, just a little infection, it’ll clear itself right up.
—I don’t know, she says, —it looks horrible.
—Looks worse than it is. He ain’t in pain, and he can see out of it just fine. Still grinning he turns, the smile vanishing. Lee keeps lagging behind. —Come on, now, Lee, walk. You have to get the blood circulating otherwise your system won’t fight off the infection. Christ, you must think you’re the first buckaroo ever to get himself a little pinkeye. Come on, we’re successful homesteaders, let’s start acting like it. If this were the range, we’d have put you in the stockade for being so damned difficult. We’ll get some sunlight today when we’re working on the farm, that’ll help. Sunlight is the best disinfectant—ain’t you ever heard that before?
They go straight to the meats and fill the basket with beef. Every trip to Safeway is mechanized, because his father hates Safeway and believes maybe, if he is mechanized, Safeway will somehow know that he hates it. In and out in ten minutes flat is the goal. No cart—a hand basket provides greater maneuverability for darting around the old ladies standing about clogging the aisles, nothing to do with their lives, he says, but peruse a daggone grocery store, picking things up and putting them down and fussing and fretting over every trivial little thing and getting in men’s daggone way. — These people are cattle, they’re sheep. They’re sheeple, is what they are, he says. The word sticks in Lee’s brain and never leaves. His father carries the gun on his hip. The sheeple glance at it, give him space and respect, think he must be a police officer, which he likes. At the checkout he is sweating. He smiles through his sweat at the teenage cashier.
—Howdy, li’l darlin’, he says. He seems to forget Lee is there. —My you’re pretty. Though you’d be a lot prettier if you smiled a little bit.
She acts like she has not heard him. She is looking at Lee, his eye. —Whoa, she says, —what happened?
Before Lee can answer his father says, —Just a lil’ bug bite, darlin’. Comes with working the land like we do. It’ll clear right on up on its own. Pay it no mind. Now the polite thing to do when someone pays you a compliment like I just did is say thank you and smile.
She smiles halfheartedly, mutters thanks. His father wipes the sweat off his forehead with his hand, takes the bags, handing the one with only bread in it to Lee to carry. In the parking lot, crossing to their car, his father is saying, —Come on, Lee, we gotta get home, we gotta work, there’s a lot to be done yet today. He’s way ahead of Lee, who’s trying to go fast and keep up. A pickup truck backs out of a space as Lee is passing by. The driver pulls up hard but hits him, the high bumper striking the side of Lee’s head, on the side of his bad eye. Driver jumps out, a young man, high school.
—I’m so sorry!
His father comes hustling back for Lee, smiling, waving the young man off. —He’s fine.
Lee is on the ground, dizzy, face in the pavement. —He almost killed me, he says as he climbs to his feet.
—Hell he did.
—I’m so sorry, the driver says again.
—Nothing to worry about, Lee’s father says to him.
—I hit him, is he okay?
—You missed him, it’s fine.
—He didn’t miss me, Lee cries.
—He missed you. You fell, you tripped over your own feet. Anyway you should have been paying better attention to your surroundings. His father turns to the high school boy. —Does it all the time. He’s as reckless as hell and one day he’s going to get himself killed. I’ve been telling him but he ain’t listened. Maybe now he will.
Lee is staring at his hellish mangled reflection in the silver bumper of the truck, an inch from his head at eye level.
—Doesn’t he need a doctor for that eye? the young man says.
His father snorts. —No, he’s fine. All right, Lee. Apologize to the man.
—He doesn’t have to apologize to me, the driver insists.
—Don’t tell my son what to do, please. He nudges Lee. —Lee. Apologize.
—You don’t have to, the driver says.
—I’m sorry, Lee says.
The young man sighs and throws up his hands, then turns to get back into his truck, looks at Lee once more. —You didn’t have to do that, he says, and closes the door.
They walk off and get into his father’s truck. It is quiet. His father keeps looking at him. After a long time, his father says, in a voice that sounds different, even more like a cowboy than usual, —Hey pardner, did I ever tell you about the time your daddy got himself bit by a rattler out in Oklahoma? Hoooo, doggy! You think you’re bad, you should have seen your daddy. His foot was as big as your entire body, God’s honest truth. They gave your daddy last rites. The carpenter was fixing him up the coffin. They were out there diggin’ the grave. Know what your daddy did? I’ll be damned if he didn’t get himself up off that plank they had him on, limp over to where they were diggin’ the grave, grab him a shovel, and pitch in! Dug twice as much as any healthy man there too! Put them all to shame, your daddy did. Sweated that poison right out. That’s where you get your toughness, son. You’re a tough son of a bitch, Lee. Tougher than any boy I know. I was the same way at your age. That’s the kinda people we are. You’re just like me. I see a lot of myself in you. It’s eerie sometimes, I have to say. Downright eerie how much I see myself in you.
He pulls out, drives home, telling Lee all about it, forgetting again about Lee, who sits with his face pressed against the glass of the window as the box he is locked inside zooms past the sunshine world outside.
The fences are up, the barn is raised, the troughs are in—but the food is dying. The little hard potatoes still grow, but the tomatoes never appear on their vines and nothing ever comes up through the places in the dirt where things were supposed to come up. And some of the greens turn yellow then brown, became brittle and now tumble away in that foul wind. Lee watches his father squatting to examine the dead leaves and wilted buds, picking up the dirt in his hands and watching it run through his fingers. He squints up at the sky, the sun, as though appealing to the gods. —Must be dry this year, he says. Lee starts to ask what they will do but he cuts him off: —I don’t know. Dammit, I don’t know what we’ll do, stop asking me what we’ll do, yo
u’re always asking questions, so many goddamn questions, go find something to do, go fix us some supper.
—We don’t have any meat.
—Well, mash up some potatoes or something then.
—We don’t have any potatoes, we don’t have anything.
—Well then, dammit, order us a pizza I guess then, I don’t know. He kicks the dirt and walks away and Lee goes inside to order a pizza. Then he calls his mother in New York, but a man who answers says she is not home and he doesn’t know where she is or when she will be back. The man says she will call him but she never does.
Lee likes to go inside the new barn, which is still empty, and climb around, hide out. He likes the fresh smell of the wood, the way the light of midday comes in through the little windows and seems to bake the wood, seasoning it with the dust motes moving down through the light beams. Soon there will be pets here. He will name them and ride them and be nuzzled by them and talk to them. They will be his friends. There will be a pig. He will name it Porky. Soon the men will come with Porky and the cows and the chickens. He will name them all. —When? he keeps asking his father. —When are they coming?
—Soon, soon. Next week maybe. Depends on the guy.
—When is next week?
—I don’t know. Five days maybe. Five sleeps.
Five sleeps. In five sleeps Lee will have Porky. That was yesterday, he thinks now, in the barn. So four sleeps now. Four. He cannot bear to wait four sleeps.
A force shuts the door and the windows too and Lee is suddenly alone in hot blackness. He pushes against the door but it does not open. He pushes harder and the door seems to push back against him. He can see nothing. It is very hot, he cannot breathe, he is a pig, dying. —Help! he cries, pushing and pulling on the door, the door rattling and pushing back.
A voice on the other side mocks him with oinks and snorts and high whining echoes of his own crying. —Where that piggy at? That piggy in there? Knock, knock, little piggy! Little pig, little pig, let me in! Heeee! Heeee! You gon’ squeal, piggy! You gon’ squeal! Heeeeeee! Heeeeeeee! HEEEEEEEEE! HEEEEEEEE!
—Let me out! Lee begs.
—You ain’t never gettin’ out, little piggy!
Then there is relentless knocking, pounding from the outside, and Lee backs away against the wall to get away from it. It gets louder and louder, the banging now on the inside walls of his skull.
—Leave me alone!
—You ain’t never getting outta here, boy! You ain’t never getting out!
—Please!
—Pwea-he-he-hease! Heeeee! HEEEEEE!
The knocking grows more violent and the squeals and snorts more savage and deranged. Lee slides to the floor, shouting, —Go away! He reaches for his hip, pulls from the waistband of his Levi’s his cork gun. He points it at the door. —Go away! he cries. —I’m warning you!
—HEEEEEEEEEE!
He pulls the trigger. The pounding stops. The squealing and the torment stop. The death goes away. And he is alone and peaceful in the dark. When he tries the door again it opens. The sunlight floods in and he inhales it like oxygen itself. Lee steps outside, silent, face wet and even puffier than it already was, lower lip trembling. The trees in the distance sway in the breeze. The trees, the breeze, the distance itself, he understands, are terror. All is death.
Over in the garden stands his father, his back to Lee, still chuckling to himself as he twists a can of pesticide to the nozzle of the hose.
At last his mother calls and says she hears he has not been doing well at school. He says he hates school, he’s not good at it, he does not want school he wants the animals, and his eye hurts, and he’s hungry, and when she sounds very angry at what he is saying he feels angry too and tells her things are not good here anymore, why did she leave him here, he wants to come see her in New York, he wants to come now, but she says he can’t, that she’s not in New York anymore, now she is in Africa, for work, and he does not know where Africa is but he is not allowed to go there, the custody agreement she says, but as soon as she gets back to the States the custody agreement will allow it and things will be good again. He asks when that will be and she says she doesn’t know, it’s hard to say right now, but she says, —Will you try to do better in school? and he says he will and she says, —Will you think of being with me in New York every day and dream of being with me in New York every night? And he says he will, and he does. But months go by, and years, and she never gets back to the States, and he never stops dreaming of being with his mother in New York.
Lee listens to his father on the phone with the school, yelling about Lee. —Is your nurse a doctor? Did she go to medical school and become a doctor? Answer me: Is she a doctor?
He listens to his father on the phone with his mother, yelling about Lee. —He’s fine, it’s clearing up, he’s doing completely fine, he’s a good healthy boy, he’s just impatient about the livestock getting here, it’s all he’s been talking about, you know how he is when he gets his mind set on something, he needs to learn patience. Anyway, you left the damn country so you get zero say in this, thank you very much. He listens and says, —Go right ahead and call them then. I dare you. They can go right ahead and try coming up here onto my property. Go right ahead and try.
When he hangs up his face is red and he is shaking. He tells Lee to come here. He holds Lee’s face in his sweaty hands and looks at Lee’s eye and says they are crazy, it’s fine, it’s clearing up, says school is a machine. Then he takes Lee to town for more guns and ammunition to keep themselves safe.
His father has put on tight jeans and snakeskin boots, a cowboy hat and a bright red western shirt; has tobacco in the pouch of his lip, carries a cup to spit in; has the gun on his hip in its holster. The men in the store stare at him as he enters, looking him up and down. —Howdy, he grunts at them. They nod back. He asks the salesman to see one of these new semiautomatic polymer pistols from Austria. Lee stands on tiptoes to see over the counter as the bearded salesman, speaking in intimate quiet tones like a doctor, explains to Lee’s father about the lightweight body, the safety trigger, the brilliant engineering that avoids jams and minimizes kick, the unique grip required and the high level of accuracy that results from it.
—Get a load of this thing, Lee, it looks like a daggone space gun, don’t it? I think I’ll stick to my granddaddy’s gun, thank you very much. He gestures to it on his hip. —Tried and true. Battle-tested.
Says the salesman, —Cops and military have been switching over from those to these. This is what they’re all carrying nowadays. Much more reliable. Fires twice as many rounds without having to reload—He sees Lee’s eye and cuts himself off. He is large, his face emotionless, but it breaks into quiet horror. —Good Lord, he whispers.
Lee’s father glares at the salesman as though daring him to say another word about the eye. —Cops and military, huh? How much they going for?
—Three-fifty and tax.
—Gimme four of ’em.
—Four?
—Four. What caliber are they? You got hollow points for ’em?
—Nine millimeter, and yes, sir, we do.
—Okay, gimme a shitload of hollow points. Turns to Lee. —What about you, buckaroo? You want one? You do, don’t you? He turns back to the salesman. —Give me one more, for my son.
—Five, then?
—Excellent math. Hell, better yet? Make it ten.
The man has now forgotten all about the eye. A buoyancy has entered his hefty frame now as he says, —That’s my entire stock.
—Is that a problem?
—No, sir, not at all. He hurries into the back to fetch them. Comes out with the guns in their big bombproof-seeming cases stacked in his arms over his face, places them on the counter. Returns to the back for the bullets. —Hundred boxes is all I got. Hundred okay?
—I reckon that’ll do, says Lee’s father. —For now. He winks at Lee. Fills out the forms, pays. —You ever make a sale this big before?
—No, sir, no, I have not.<
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Lee’s father winks at Lee again and drums his knuckles happily on the glass countertop.
The man hands them their new weapons and ammunition and hurries around from behind the counter to get the door for them, grinning so broadly and strangely now that Lee thinks he will hug his father. —Y’all come back any time now, any time at all.
They drive off, passing a hospital, Lee peering out at it through his good eye. They go home, go directly to the range to shoot the brand-new space guns. The space guns are supposed to hit the bull’s-eye without your even aiming them, they are supposed to fire without your even feeling it or hearing it—isn’t that what the salesman said? But neither turns out to be true, and Lee’s father cannot hit anything with the first one he shoots, says it feels like a daggone block in his hand; he does not like how it smells or even how deep black it is, too industrial and inhuman. Tries a second one and it’s no better. Lee has his empty one, pointing it downrange.
—What do you think, buckaroo? We don’t like this, do we? It don’t feel like a gun. It feels like a toy. We miss our gun, don’t we?
Lee nods. His father puts the space guns back into their big, heavy safe-like carrying cases and unholsters the special gun. Glances down at Lee. He is a big shadow between Lee and the sun. The shadow says, —Wanna learn to shoot it today, son?
The day the pets come in, Lee stands at a safe distance from the fence beholding these large, smelly things that are not as cute or as nice as they should be. Flies crawl all over the cows’ eyeballs as they stare at Lee. The chickens shit as they walk and make angry squawks. The pigs are scary and mean and filthy and stinky. He will not ride these terrible things, he will not nuzzle them or talk to them or even go near them. He watches the animals feeding and groveling in the mud, stepping over each other, and wishes the man who brought them would come take them back. His father leans on the fence, one boot up on the lowest slat, happily observing his stock. —Yessir, he keeps saying. —Yessir. You’re happy now, ain’t you, now that your animals are here. He laughs and ruffles Lee’s head and says, —Yessir, yessir. You’re happy.
