by James Boice
In the morning all the pigs are lying on the ground, their bellies and throats open and their flesh white and fly-covered, guts hardening in the dirt. He wakes his father up and his father looks out the window and says, —Shit, shit, shit, shit. He runs outside, climbs over his fence, and squats at the first pig, wanting to touch something with his hand but not knowing what. —Shit! he yells. Someone has let the cows out and they stand in the pigpen with blood on their hooves. —Where are the chickens? his father says. The coop is open and they are nowhere to be seen, it is like they were never here. Through his diseased eye Lee watches his father run around looking for them. —What the fuck? he says. —What the fuck? He is covered in sweat, reeks of yesterday’s whiskey. Lee begins to cry. —Stop crying, his father shouts.
The man who sold them the animals comes from town in a pickup truck just like Lee’s father’s but bigger, newer, and made not by Chevrolet but Toyota. He gets out and walks through the gravel dust settling around him.
—He was born and raised here, Lee’s father tells Lee, voice somber with respect. —His family’s been grazing livestock ‘round these parts since 1850. He’s one of us.
The man wears a cowboy hat like Lee’s father, a flannel shirt, boots, jeans—just like Lee and Lee’s father. A new plastic European space gun is holstered on his hip. He shakes Lee’s father’s hand, shakes Lee’s. Looks in silent amusement at the dead animals, at Lee’s father who around this man is very talkative and moves around a lot. The man says nothing, just nods and grunts as Lee’s father explains how last night they were fine.
—Think it’s wolves? his father says.
The man says, —That ain’t animals. That’s a knife did that. That’s slaughtering.
—Slaughtering? his father says, looking around as though whoever it was might still be seen.
—Probably oughta call the police.
His father shakes his head at the idea. When the man leaves, Lee’s father’s face is red and he does not look at Lee or at anything. —I know who it was, he says. Lee says, —Who? but his father won’t say, and he takes the gun out of its holster, stomps off fifty feet out toward the trees, and points it and, screaming, fires once and fires again and keeps firing until it’s empty. Comes back, gestures over his shoulder.
—Pick ’em up.
—Huh?
—The bullets. It ain’t good for the land for them to be out there, they’ll poison our soil. Go out there and fetch ’em and bring ’em back. All of ’em. And don’t come back until you do.
—Why?
Warm pain splatters across the back of his head and his hat falls off.
—We obey our daddies where we come from.
His father goes back inside and shuts the door, and Lee wanders toward the trees, crying, face hurting. He goes as slowly as he can. When he gets too close, when he cannot bear to go any farther, he turns and runs off to the guest house on the far side of the property, one of four, his hiding place. When he returns to the house four hours later, stopping at the gun range to dig six crushed bullets from the sand mound there, his father is in his chair in front of the TV, watching Happy Days. He does not look at Lee and he is drunk, and Lee thinks he looks like a little boy. Lee drops the bullets on the coffee table but his father does not look at them or acknowledge him.
Over the ensuing week the garden stops growing altogether. Soon it is just wood and dirt, and soon fall comes and chills it, then winter comes and finally kills it off completely. They buy their groceries from Safeway, overpriced and infused with chemicals and hormones, in cartons and plastic packaging, meat killed by other men, crops grown on other men’s land. The bullets his father fired into the trees remain out there.
His father disappears with no explanation. Lee wanders around the arsenal in the basement, picking up guns, feeling his father in them; he puts the special gun in a holster on his hip and admires himself in the mirror, wanders around the house like that. Steps outside and feels the breeze blowing over his skin, watches the green tops of the trees. He finds himself walking down the long driveway to the street, stands there for a moment, then continues. At the hospital they know who he is, the nurse takes him by the hand without asking him any questions, as though she has been waiting for him. People waiting in chairs holding wads of bandages to bleeding bodies call out in protest but she ignores them, leads him back through a winding hallway. On the way Lee looks over a doorway and his own name is there: THE LEE FISHER WING. They give him medicine and a man wearing a tie drives him home. It is night and he is in bed when he hears his father come home. He listens to him going through drawers in the kitchen, pulling things out, putting things away. Glasses clink. He is talking to someone. Lee thinks he hears another voice, a man’s. He holds his breath and listens very intently but does not hear the other voice again. Lee gets out of bed, stands against his closed door, listening, his heart beating very hard, lungs burning from holding his breath. Then it is quiet. Lee slips out of his bedroom, goes down the long hall, squats at the top of the stairs. A dim orange light Lee has never seen emanates from down there. His father’s long shadow is cast upon the wall. Lee hears the other voice again.
His father appears at the foot of the stairs, looking up at him as though suspecting he would find him there. —What are you doing, Lee?
—Nothing.
—Go to bed.
—Who’s here?
—No one.
—I heard someone.
—No one’s here.
—I heard a man.
—There’s no man. Go to bed.
Lee does as he is told. In the morning his face is almost back to its normal size and he sucks in gob after gob of air. Two days after that, as he keeps taking the medicine in secret, hiding it from his father under his mattress, the infection clears.
—Look at that, his father says. —Just like I told you it would.
Lee finds him in his bedroom pulling everything from the closets. A pile of clothing rises in the center of the room, all his cowboy hats and fringe vests and leather chaps and boots and dungarees and Levi’s. He tosses another armload of clothing atop the mound and mops a swath of sweat from his face with his palm. He is not a cowboy anymore. Now he is a soldier.
Soldiers train. They join with others to form armies. They drill on the new course built where the farm was by a former drill sergeant who was responsible for the training courses on Parris Island, where they trained US Marines for battle in Vietnam.
Soldiers go to church. They bring along their son, to be a good example to him. They manage their son’s activities and diet. As virtue is measured in indirect proportion to hair length, they shave their head, they shave their son’s head.
Strange new men are around now, each with a rank. They wear camouflage. They shoot. After days of wearing camouflage and shooting, they sit around bonfires drinking beer in the shadows.
—These are the most dangerous times in our history, the man called the General says. —Nothing less than the future of our country, the lives of our people, nothing less than our very freedom is at stake. Never in any time since our Founding Fathers waged war for this great free nation have our fundamental rights been under attack like they are now, at this very moment. We are living in crucial times, men. Our families, our beloved nation, the futures of our children and grandchildren are depending on you. Only you stand between freedom and tyranny. Wicked elements are at work in America today. Jackbooted government thugs are kicking down our doors as we speak. They will seize our homes, our arms, make off with our women, our children. All governments are bent toward tyranny. Ours is no exception. The ones you must be most wary of are the ones who come to you under the guise of democracy. Do not be fooled—they want to take our country from us.
Lee feels despair and hatred for these people, the ones who want to take his home and his country from him.
—There is no gray area, the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States has no fine print. Shall not infringe. Yet ever
y day powerful moneyed people are infringing with impunity on our rights. A regulation here, an ordinance there. They call it gun control but they are disarming us. Eradicating our freedoms. They are termites. Termites do not stop when they have had one bite, they do not stop after two bites, they do not stop after they’ve had their fill, no, they go until the whole house topples in on itself. They want to tell us what to do and how to be, and they want to take away our means of liberty, make us reliant on them, the government. In which case we are no longer citizens but subjects.
Lee looks at his father, who is listening very closely to the General, a trim, tall man with a long gray beard, eyes deep with brave acts of war and unblinking against the spitting rain. He sits on a log, the rest of the soldiers at his feet. Across his lap is a military-issue fully automatic M16 carbine rifle. The other soldiers nod and shake their heads in indignation and mutter vows to uphold their duty and defend what is sacred. The General looks at Lee.
—I fear for your generation, little private. I pray to God your fellow boys and girls see what you see, which is the truth, and have what you have in you, which is fight, but I have to admit I feel very grim when I think about it. Your generation’s parents are not doing their part. They are failing you. With the exception of Lieutenant Fisher, your generation’s parents are not instilling the right values in you. Your generation is not going to appreciate their freedom the way mine does. Because mine died for it. And killed for it. I look at boys your age and I am not convinced they have been raised the way Lieutenant Fisher has raised you. I can’t say I am convinced they are willing to die and kill for freedom and liberty, and that saddens me. It frightens me. It is not their fault—it is our fault. We have to do more, don’t we?
The others nod solemnly.
—Lieutenant Fisher has done his part. Let’s take an example from him, bringing his boy out here like this today.
Lee’s father’s face burns with pride, he looks near tears.
—Yes, this will all one day end if we don’t do something about it. But not this day.
—Hoo-ah! the soldiers all bark in unison.
—You are doing sacred work. You are heroes. True patriots. If General Washington himself were here he would be real proud of you. Real proud. This is what I watched so many men die for, he would say. Unappreciated thankless work—but sacred work. The most sacred. The only payment is one more hour of freedom. Remember that when they mock you, when they taunt you and talk down to you. Later when catastrophe strikes they will not be laughing. They’ll be begging men like you to save them. Maybe you will. Maybe you won’t. The choice will be yours. The power will be yours. As it is now. They don’t know that. So let them laugh. Let them laugh all the way to the grave.
NRA material and memorabilia are scattered around the house: pamphlets, fund-raising letters, publications from the executive vice president. That Christmas they decorate the tree in ornaments bearing the NRA logo on the front and the text of the Second Amendment on the back. Lee’s father takes him to the convention in Cincinnati. There is something exciting trembling beneath the gaudy maroon carpet of the hotel conference rooms. His father says a coup is under way. Lee doesn’t know what that means.
—It means the organization is run by pussy-ass sycophants who want to acquiesce every chance they get to the tyrannical, gun-hating, freedom-hating, anti-American bureaucrats of the United States government. But the good guys are here, the good guys are kicking them out and taking it over. That man there? He points to a squat bald man whose face quivers with intensity as he spits into a walkie-talkie. —That’s Harlon Carter. A great man. When he was sixteen he shot a man to death in self-defense. He’s a true Second Amendment warrior. He’s our hero, he’s going to lead the revolution. At least he better or I’m getting my money back.
Lee does not know what that means either, but he likes his father explaining things to him and he is looking forward to seeing a war.
—He’s coordinating right now. It’s going to be a sneak attack. I’m the guy behind Harlon, I’m the money, the strategist. The sycophants have no idea what me and Harlon are about to pull. They want to keep it a benign little squirrel-shooting club and stay out of politics and cooperate. They want to move the NRA from Washington, DC, to fucking Colorado and let them just go ahead and trample our rights. So me and Harlon are gonna take it. We’re gonna take the NRA. And save the country. Tonight. Come on, I’ll introduce you.
His father brings Lee up to the bald man, Harlon Carter, who is talking to someone else. They stand there for a moment, waiting for Harlon Carter to finish, but before Harlon can turn to them his father says, —Know what? Let’s not hog all his attention. I’ll introduce you later. Come on.
—Why are you sweating, Dad?
—I’m not sweating.
—Yes, you are.
—I don’t know why. I gave a lot of money, is all. I funded the whole damned thing. I bought those fucking walkie-talkies. And he waves me off. He waves me off.
—He didn’t wave you off.
—Don’t tell me he didn’t wave me off. He waved me off. Come on.
They wander around looking at the display tables. Lee collects stickers and pins and pamphlets and books. He is drawn to the table with the guns—army guns and cop guns and big guns and little guns and so many guns. Everyone has a handgun on their hip or a rifle slung across their back. The General is there, the soldiers from the house. Lee stands there as his father shakes their hands, pretends to pass on sensitive information obtained from being an insider with Harlon Carter.
—How is Carter, Lieutenant? the General says.
—Harlon’s good, General, Lee’s father says. —He’s feeling strong, he’s feeling good. We’re in prime position and everything’s on schedule, Harlon tells me we’re in great shape, outstanding shape.
The General and the soldiers nod, glowing from the proximity to power.
—What’s he like? the General says. —Good guy?
—Great guy, Lee’s father says. —Great guy.
The convention consists mostly of people talking and clapping and sitting and eating, with their guns. For some speakers his father leans over and whispers to Lee, —This guy’s a hero, and he claps hard, even whistles, and Lee does the same, clapping hard and whistling for the hero. For other speakers his father says, —This guy’s a sack of shit, and he and Lee boo. Most of the conventioneers are somber men with white hair and clothes that Lee imagines being found in an attic of an abandoned farmhouse. The few women resemble the men. It is boring. Lee wants to go in the pool. He saw some boys his age in there earlier; he wants to meet them, play with them. He asks his father if he may. —Later, his father says, —I want you to experience this, this is important.
At midnight they are still there, in their folding chairs in that conference room, cheering for heroes and booing sacks of shit. God, how he would love to go running on the deck of the pool and take off from the edge and fly in the air above the blue water, pulling his knees to his chest, and splash. How he would love to race those boys from end to end. He is trying to keep his eyes open. —Wake up, his father says, nudging him, —you’re missing it.
Lee looks at what he is missing and he is missing more speeches and they are the same speeches, and he is missing men in orange hats standing around the edge of the crowd with walkie-talkies, and he is missing other men, these in suits, walking quickly from group to group and talking and nodding and pointing at the men in orange hats and talking.
—Can I have a Coke? Lee says.
—No, the machines are all empty. The bad guys did it on purpose to try and weaken us with dehydration.
Lee is crying.
—What the hell’s the matter?
—I’m tired.
—Christ Almighty.
Lee knows he is disappointed in him, even disgusted, but he must sleep, his face burns with exhaustion. Gets up, walks out past all the energetic men in orange hats and frazzled, confused men in suits, carrying all his sti
ckers and pins he has collected—his favorite sticker bears an image of a skeleton clutching a wood-and-iron rifle and the words You can have my gun... when you pry it from my cold dead hands. It is proud and manly and heroic. He passes the pool. There are no kids playing in it now, it is dark and empty and the water is still and the door to it is locked. Goes to the penthouse, there are two suites; he and his father have both, each his own. Lee falls instantly, embryonically asleep, shoes still on.
His father is nudging his back. —Lee, Lee. Wake up. Ice clinks in his father’s glass. Now it is he who is weeping. —Wake up, Lee. We did it. Me and Harlon, we did it. We won. We saved the country. We took it, it’s ours. No compromise! Never any compromise! Things will be good now, Lee. And know what Harlon said? He said Daddy was essential, that he played a vital role in our success. That’s what he said, Lee: Essential. Vital.
He listens to his father on the phone with the General. —Where is everybody? We said oh-six-hundred hours and it’s damn near eight. He listens, says, —General, this is the third time we’re rescheduling this muster. It’s like herding cats. I understand people have prior commitments but we’ve got to commit to this. This needs to be the prior commitment.
When he hangs up, his face is red and tight, but he looks more sad than angry. He scoffs to Lee, —General! He’s not a real general. Never fought in a war. Never served a single day in the military. He’s a daggone junior high school math teacher.
And soon the army men stop coming to the mountain and Lee and his father are not soldiers anymore.
For ninth grade he has to go to a special school for the stupid, because his father homeschooled him for seventh and eighth grade and he did not learn anything. After the special school for the stupid, his mother wants him to go to an elite boarding school in New Hampshire where, she says, people go on to Harvard and become senators and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and Academy Award winners, but his father says Abraham Lincoln went to school in a one-room cabin in the woods of Illinois and went on to teach himself how to become a lawyer and then a great president; those people at those schools think they’re better than everybody and above everything even though they haven’t earned their station, and he won’t raise Lee to be like that, he won’t have Lee thinking that way about himself, he will continue to be self-taught at home. His mother says the authorities won’t allow that because what Lee’s father seems to consider homeschooling they consider neglect. They fight about it through the lawyers. As compromise, Lee has to go to the local public high school. His father says it is an ultra-liberal hellhole, the machine of machines. —Just don’t let them brainwash you, he says. —Don’t let them corrupt you.
