Gunshot Stigmata
Page 3
He’s going to make a necklace, he says.
47
Me and Jimmy are at the liquor store buying a case of Bell’s beer and some lunch meat. Jimmy is wondering the aisles looking for toothpaste. The fat Arab behind the counter tells me my due and I slap down a twenty.
Jimmy is standing by the door when four of them come in. A shotgun blast and Jimmy is tossed into the chip aisle.
They turn to me and the Arab.
I raise my hands in the air.
48
We are parked at the lake and I have a blanket tossed down. We are seated on a hill and can see the whole city below. I pop open a can of Diet Coke for her and beer for me.
A picnic basket is open and she is removing lunch and placing it on the black and red squares of the blanket.
A kid is trying to get his kite air borne. I laugh as I watch him run and run only to have the damn thing zip here and there and finally thud against the ground.
I grab her hand and pull out my grandmother’s ring and ask her to be my wife.
She says yes. She wants to name the child Emma after her mother if it is a girl.
I am all smiles. All smiles.
49
Nothing but the quick. Nothing but silence.
50
I was between four and five years old. My mother and I were leaving the store when she turned around and saw I had a package of gum. She asked me where I got it. I told her the shelf. She told me not to steal and dragged me back in to confess and buy it.
She dragged me by the arm, yelling.
Don’t you want to be a good boy? Don’t you?
In the end there was no thunder. Only the voice of my dead mother.
Don’t you want to be a good boy? Don’t you?
Silence