Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club

by Megan Gail Coles

  But Iris had been weak-willed with their well-being. She had failed to protect them.

  And she shifts in place, measuring the weight on each foot, focusing her attention on the balls first, and then the heels, then flat, then shift. She imagines the varicose veins seeping up toward the alabaster surface of her stretched-flat stomach skin.

  You’re so white, John says when he looks down at the rest of her in repose. Iris now suspects he says this to George. Iris now wonders if everything he has ever said is recycled. Perhaps she is a testing ground for new material. These thoughts feel wrong-minded and sinister as she gazes across the prep station while they both prepare themselves. She tries to give him more credit.

  You never give me any credit. You discredit us with your imagination.

  But Iris does not agree. This is the most generosity she is capable of under the maddening circumstances.

  Where is my cheque?

  Iris, listen to me —

  I need my cheque.

  Iris knows standing up to John like this in the restaurant is not in her best interests. He has punished her for less. Turning her mouth from his has garnered the cold shoulder for days. John will stonewall her if she even attempts to break free. He will defame her to her co-workers and cast her out of the kingdom. John will make food for staff dinner that she is allergic to on purpose and pretend that he forgot, even though everyone knows John never forgets. No one makes mention of it though. They just watch Iris eat something cold alone at the bar away from the cooked smell of John’s rejection.

  John can be right shitty when he wants to be.

  Like right now. He is lucky she has not thrown a pot at his head for forcing this with her today. Last night, whispering in her ear, after urgently darting kisses all up and down her neck and face, he had said in painful tones: I love you but I won’t leave her.

  Not even can’t. Won’t.

  Won’t delivered with conflicting conviction through a held-fast hug. John is a fucking fabulist of the highest order. It is really rather rich to comment on the lily-white topcoat of her and then wipe her down with the concluded failings of her underbody in such affectionate rejection.

  Because how else can a person feel when told you don’t want them?

  Iris’s mind, along with the rest of her, has been truly fucked this time. There have been other men who attempted to mind-fuck her. They have commented on many of the same aspects. Suspected her a vixen, this assumption based on some misplaced adolescent fantasy, childish song lyrics and porn. They have brought her milkshakes and completed her botany assignments. And she resisted them all in a fantastic fashion.

  But John.

  Fucking John, star alignment, proximity and poverty, has made this disaster possible. Commenting on how pale she is. What colour did he expect from the front of her? They live in fucking Newfoundland where it is perpetually almost summer until it is almost winter again. Though every man that has ever formed an affection for her had made this same discovery. You’re so white, Iris.

  Perhaps they are racists in their hearts. She considers this in as lengthy a manner as can be maintained. She does so to maximize the amount of time she can stand the pressure of her own impatience. She will speak first in this kitchen. They both know it. Iris has always been the one who says the things. John can wait her out. It’s not even particularly challenging to do so.

  Sometimes, he even enjoys watching the words simmering just beneath that loose lid of hers. She has an array of tells. John thinks she would make the worst poker player. She blushes like a teenager, refuses eye contact and fidgets. Occasionally she bites down hard on the right side of her lower lip like she is trying to clamp-hold the thoughts that are coming next. There is always something coming inside of Iris. But John really doesn’t have time for this today. Or any day.

  There is no love left in it.

  How can Iris say the things she says and then still claim to love him? He cannot understand her duplicitous nature. All sharp edges and soft undersides. Angry words hove out on a wave of tears. This is not what he wants for them. Was never what he wanted. He was not entirely certain of what he wanted from one day to the next to be sure. But this was not it. Although he had hoped for some tidy alternative arrangement whereby everyone would be okay, unharmed and untethered.

  He wanted something different.

  Even though there is no obvious logical means to execute this that he can see, John keeps wanting it. John cannot help the want existing. He never could. His impulse-control issues are epic and astounding. It was unconscionable to think an actual adult man could be capable of such miserable choices. A legacy of barely believable misdeeds dismissed and forgiven.

  Might I suggest —

  No, you might not make suggestions.

  It was not about —

  You forfeited any right to make suggestions! We are broke up! You broke us up with your shit decisions so now you do not even get to know me. At all. It is not even fair, John. The hurt I feel now is not fair. So save your fucking suggestions for George, you and she can go on living how you like! What you are doing to me is wrong. What you did to me was wrong. I was so good to you and you broke my heart like it was nothing.

  And seeing her hurt kills him. It does. It kills him. And he doesn’t know how he keeps ending up at this same set of lights, blowing through her intersections, surveying the pileup in his stead. The carnage that he glimpses in the rear-view as he speeds away from the scene makes his stomach knot. He worries the police will find him out. He will be identified finally as a routine hit-and-run driver, cuffed and carted off to the clink where he will be forced to relive this roundabout series of crashes in his head endlessly. The loop of blame and guilt twisting his intestines until he is certain he will erupt. Implode. He can’t think on it a second longer.

  No. It must be Iris’s fault.

  It is her fault she is all the time crying at the drop of a hat. She has caused the flash flooding. It is Iris’s fault alone she sits in a bathtub like a hobbled woman. Sometimes there’s water. Sometimes there’s not. Sometimes she takes pictures of her legs and sends them to John with harassing messages. And then, a couple beers later, about how much she loves him. This is the impetuous state of her.

  Whiplash.

  If I recall correctly, you were fucking me, too, dearie.

  I was never fucking you!

  And it’s true.

  That is a true statement they can both agree on in this kitchen in this restaurant in this city at this early hour. Her body was built for fucking but her heart was not. It was built for that other thing that eludes her. This is perhaps the great tragedy of her person. Her external structure does not elicit the desired internal response in men.

  You are an oxytocin fiend, Jo would say. Hookups and Tinder are not your jam.

  Jo tells Iris that she should not even engage in romantic notions because her romantic notions cloud her judgement so fiercely. And John knew this too. Iris had told him. She had accidentally mapped out a Go Guide to her wounded parts in an insufficient attempt to scare him off or encourage kindness.

  Be careful with me, she pleaded when she still believed him to be a nice man.

  But John is just a nice man on paper.

  Iris had held out her heartstrings to him: the same few threads that still held her together, she had trusted that he would not haul on them. But instead, like an angry rival fisher from a long depleted bay, John started reeling in that trap line, hand over fist over hand over fist over hand over fist. It was only what he was owed. Others get what they want and so should John.
/>
  Even now, in this very moment, in defence of herself and her intentions, Iris has baited the skiver nail and John will have what is in that pot, too.

  John knows how Iris feels about him. He always knew.

  And so he places the knife down along the cutting board’s edge and makes his way toward her. She recoils at his approach, shakes her head, places her palms against an invisible door to keep it closed tight. Every gesture is no. But she hasn’t said it. She has never yet been able to find it in the back of her throat, this tiny tricky word that could save her has not found its way into her vocabulary. So John continues on his way toward a stone-still Iris. He slowly drops the full weight of himself onto his knees, palms upward, a too soon request for forgiveness. Please forgive me for this, everything, someday. And the first motion breaks through, he can see the glimmer in her, that little stir informs him she is malleable still, still his, they are still somehow together for this frame of time.

  He starts forming words, inconsequential words, not intended to communicate anything with any sincerity, but rather merely sounds to distract from forming her own ceasefire words, a litany of soothing syllables to keep her focused on his steady lowly movement. The communication is in the forward motion as John crawls across this kitchen floor toward her on his hands and knees. Like a beggar. Presses his warm palms atop her stocking feet and pleads. And then kisses. Takes each foot in his hand to press against his face before sliding these same well-known hands up to the waistband of her tights, bold, gripping, taking all in one confident swipe, down now, holding her in place before pulling a foot wholly out, a breakage, a space. Iris watches from above, wordless, as the realization of what will come next forces her hard against the still warm dishwasher. The hot stainless steel steaming against her backside as John glides his head inside the hem of this A-line dress she has worn many times but will never wear again after.

  The soup stock simmers atop the range.

  Iris watches the bubbles bouncing up, and up, and up toward the rim as John runs his tongue through her, lapping her into a kind of fevered, quiet calm. And even in the surmounting scene, with her hands in his hair following intently as he moves his face along her very tip meant to please, Iris’s eyes are trained on the delivery door. Though held hard and fast in her love-like state she is still aware that a burly denim-suited man is meant to bring the protein this morning. Pigs. Soon the pigs will come through that door and all will be skinned alive. Because they’re meant to not do this, this thing they keep doing even though it will only hurt more. Hurt her more. But it doesn’t hurt now. Now, there is only a kind of urgency. And inside this frantic moment that can’t be happening, Iris reaches across to lower the heat surging beneath the soup stock. She must not let it burn on. Because they will need that later. Later.

  But for now, she lets John pull her to the floor and push himself inside her until there is nowhere else left to go but down.

  * * *

  Olive is always surprised by the size of Iris’s feet.

  Her boots are really too big. They hang heavy on Olive’s feet. She feels childlike in the presence of these angry adults in the early morning hours. Iris is only three years older than Olive but she has an old rage about her.

  Olive knows that, if kicked, Iris will kick back.

  Olive lets her feet hang along the stool railing. She swings them a little but not so much as to make a sound. She is listening to the developing narrative in the kitchen as she sips her soup. She can feel it making contact with her stomach and pushing itself out through her veins and is buoyed by the conflicting chili and lime heat inside her middle parts as she eavesdrops. She has overheard variations of this argument before through Iris’s low open bedroom window over the summer when it was hot. Olive had been outside smoking into an old plastic pop bottle full of butts when Iris’s frustration came out flying through the curtains in fits. And then a different noise.

  Some women were always fighting or fucking.

  Olive can no longer hear the yelling from the kitchen. The vacant feeling she feels in moments of anxiety spreads quickly to her lungs, which have little air taking up residency. She has been mastering a shortness of breath since the first ice cream sandwich was unwrapped. This new technique of living is more a slight parting of lips, a modest tilt of the head, as some unseeable hand holds the nape of her neck up, barely discernible enough to spot as the smallest puff of oxygen is hauled in. Olive’s mouth is a discontinued coin. Round. Forgotten.

  The yelling in the kitchen has morphed into soft murmurs.

  Olive readies herself for heading outside. She had hoped to stay a while longer but cannot stomach what is cooking back there. She wishes Omi were still here to stop it. This would not be happening if his lean dark body were still angled over the slick metal sink. Olive admires his frame when he brings the glassware into the dining room. She spies on him when she is supposed to be sleeping. He hangs the stemware so gracefully, sliding each glass along the line without clinking the next. It is soothing to behold. Olive, in secret, admires his forearms and imagines another place where they were formed. She would like to ask him how he is adjusting to the temperature difference but she finds herself too shy.

  Her inside parts blush when he nods at her so she turns away from him.

  She knew what would transpire when John sent Omi home before clearing the rack. She caught sight of him snatching up an envelope from behind the bar and tucking it in his apron as he wove the dishwasher away. Omi, confused at his dismissal, worried John was displeased by the mess on the facade. He apologized profusely for a thing John barely registered, because Omi needs this job. Omi needs all his jobs. All of Omi’s shirts are second-hand shirts and all his leftovers are dinner. The necessary money from dishwashing was a lot so he begged John’s forgiveness and expressed gratitude freely. It was the only free thing to do, but John waved it off like nothing and told him to come back early for dinner service.

  John cannot be bothered with the dishwasher’s feelings. He has too many feelings to be bothered with that aren’t his own already. John cannot even see Omi. John can only see what concerns him.

  Olive wants to give Omi a little hug or shake.

  She wishes he would run away from here. But also that he would stay because the sight of him makes her feel lighter. But he has gone home for the daylight hours and she must flee now too. Her disgust with John and the act in general has been recently tested further. The whole concept of maleness has taken on a sour taste. She puckers at the thought.

  Any romantic vessel that had been seeking safe harbour in a calm recess of Olive’s inner cove has since perished. She has sunk all aboard that shitty battleship. She suspects the remains will be eaten by a shark. Thrashed by jaws so unforgiving and destructive as to devour everything that lies within fin stroke. Car engines, ship’s hauls, great steel tower beams; the entire industrial revolution, best-intentioned recycling and the feminist wave are no match for the kind of shark coasting through Olive’s imagination. This shark was murderous. Not even hateful for hunger. But murderous for pleasure. Sleek and efficient in ripping great muscles from the fine and fit.

  Olive thinks John is just that kind of shark.

  She has seen John present himself unkindly to Iris. Caught from the corner of her eye a ready sneer pointed at Iris’s turned back. Iris has unknowingly been snarled at by this lover of hers. Olive has seen him roll his eyes at Iris’s wet cheeks. Throw his hands up at her beseeching tone. Olive has seen John sigh as if it were Iris that caused him grief.

  Olive wants out of his way.

  She tries to visualize the
remainder of her day. There are a lot of outside daylight hours to account for while she avoids her landlord, who will settle into his own couch after dark and then it will be safe to make her way back home. Olive imagines how the shower will warm her and hopes there is enough citrus-smelling shampoo left to scent her mangy mop.

  Body Envy it’s called, as even shampoo is marketed to make her feel inadequate.

  Olive will add water to what shampoo rims the plastic seal to stretch it further. Olive is always shocked at the smell of blond women’s hair. She finds herself thinking your hair smells good and sometimes saying it aloud each time she is near enough to the catch the scent. Even their hair has been trained to retain pleasant qualities. Even their hair. Each strand of it, regardless of quantity or quality, can hold fast appealing aromas. Fragrant bouquets. The herbal essence.

  Olive’s hair smelt often of sweat underneath a wool cap meant to keep out the wind. It was not so dirty-­looking; the thick coarseness inherent in her family pedigree allowed for extended periods of drought. Her grandmother never washed her own hair more than once a week. She boasted regularly that it had not seen a drop of water in ten days.

  Townies wash their hair too often, her grandmother says. But Olive’s nan thinks everyone in there is wasteful, greedy and ungrateful. They want what they got and what she got and what everyone got. They want everything everywhere.

  Olive grew up in a place where polar bears ate your dog.

  As did Iris.

  They learned their letters on a coast where each day could be colder than the last, even in April when the brooks were meant to ease and the caribou were meant to move.

  Olive was forever marching slowly backward to ward off temperatures threatening to assault her. Eyelashes iced over and held fast to let loose tiny pools of water down the trenches of cheeks. She would squeeze them shut to melt it clear before they’d freeze open. Squeeze them shut. Drain them. Let the drops run. Not teardrops. Just water atop your frozen lids. Olive knew better than to cry on the way to school. It was so far to the bus stop, her face would ice over.