Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club

by Megan Gail Coles

  Women do that, Calv has noticed. Says they don’t like a party or want to be there but then drink faster and talk more than any feller there. Donna does this all the time. Says she don’t want to be at any parties where Roger’s at but then is the first one drunk at the party. Don’t make no sense to Calv. Don’t look like a person not having a good time. And then the next day, Donna will tell him he don’t know a fucking thing. Don’t understand her at all. Sometimes she says he don’t understand either woman alive. Not he’s mother or sister or her. And the worst of it is, she’s right. Calv don’t.

  He half the time don’t know why they says what he wants to hear.

  It don’t seem to make anyone happy. Like when Amanda agrees to go to the restaurants he likes down by the water, he don’t know why she agrees to it after already deciding she’s going to hate everything later. Why not just say no? Not go? Go somewhere else?

  Instead, she’ll go and the whole time point out everything that she thinks is stupid. The only thing she would ever willingly eat was some salmon wrapped in phyllo pastry which she would mock the entire time for its originality. Making jokes about sending her food back to the nineties where children dressed like children and music was less rapey. Which, honestly, was not even stuff Calv thought about. Calv never noticed what little girls had on. That would be gross. And he never even registered the words in songs. And he tells Amanda to chill out when she brings up stuff like that.

  Relax, maid, he sometimes says to her as she looks around the massive dining room with its high ceilings, in mid-rant about energy efficiency and what this place must pull from the grid.

  Just relax, girl, Calv says, cause what does Amanda know about surplus capacity?

  You never mind cold load pickup, he says to her with actual familial concern.

  Amanda is going to give herself bad nerves worrying over shit she got no control over.

  And she says that’s his fault too. That he don’t do his share of worrying over anything. None of them do, so all the women is left to worry their own worries and the worries of every man nearby who is too busy playing some fake game in a fantasy world.

  Play real football, Amanda yells, at least then you wouldn’t be fat!

  Get off your ass, Calvin!

  And that hurts his feelings something fierce cause Calv knows he’s after putting on a few pounds especially since he got laid off. Can’t fit into any of he’s shirts from high school. Amanda didn’t have to point that out to him right before he eats his dinner. It’s still body shaming even if you’re a man, ain’t it?

  Amanda would knife a person for saying something like that to a woman. A stranger woman. Any woman on the street, and she would be writing letters about it. But she says the likes of it to her own brother easy enough. Then she pretends she’s worried over his health when really she’s worried over how much it will cost to keep him alive in the future. And that makes Calv want to deep-fry a whole jesus cow the one time. Here she is being rude to him in public because they got the highest health care costs in the country, as if that’s Calv’s fault too. You wouldn’t know but he invented diabetes. Sole cause of heart disease, Calv was, according to his sister.

  Don’t twist my words into bullshit, brother dear.

  Oh, yes, they had some real pleasant meals before they called the truce. My god, Calv remembers it almost always ending in a drunken bicker at the corner of Adelaide and Water. Amanda waving in the direction of the fashion district, yelling loud enough for motorcycle gangs and homeless people to hear, that there were way better restaurants right there!

  What’s wrong with our own food? she’d demand. Why buy cheap food from elsewhere?

  The truce consisted of a set of rules and regulations for emotionally rewarding family time.

  That’s what Amanda’s counsellor recommended they do. Amanda is secretly resentful that she is the one got to go to a counsellor, too. That just seems like another thing she is responsible for that Calv is not. Her money and time are wasted trying to come up with further ingenious ways to get through to her brother so they can maintain some kind of relationship, when the problem is not even her!

  She buys him copies of the books so they can read them together. But he never reads them because Calv don’t really care if he has a relationship with his sister. That’s what she believes when the books go unread. Once, upon discovering a well-worn, spine-cracked copy, she was briefly overjoyed that he had spent some time investigating his emotional health and well-being. She was optimistic. But it had been Donna that read the book in the bathtub. She found this out when Calv asked her not to bring any more of them kinds of books over.

  I don’t want you putting stuff in Donna’s head, makes me life difficult.

  And then they did not speak for months. Maybe six or seven. Whole seasons passed with them merely receiving second-hand information from their mother, who was very distressed over the situation indeed. Susie was in counselling over it. Kind of. She visited the local minister twice a week during the twins’ estrangement. Not because she was particularly devout. No, she had little faith in the church, or any church. The religious ones was always feuding over one thing or another. That’s all you ever heard tell of on the television, this crowd’s god told them to blow up that other god’s house. Yes sir, as if any spirit could be homeless.

  As if burning down a building changed what was in people’s hearts.

  Never really did anything but caused a lot of unnecessary hurt and frustration. Susie was sick of seeing them bloody babies been hauled out from underneath piles of rocks. Little youngsters, like the way Amanda and Calvin was little once, covered in so much dust, deep trenches washed clear with tears and snot. Sin sure. Susie didn’t believe into any of that old religion garbage anymore. She didn’t tell everyone though. Her brothers would not know what to do. Also, she liked talking to the minister about her problems. He was educated into counselling same as a nurse or whatever, Susie figured. He was free of charge and also married, not expensive or a sex monster, so she went to see him over the twins.

  Now, Calv and Amanda would find a neutral place that suited them both temporarily and meet there every second week for a meal. Until Amanda found out something that ran counter to her ideals and, by god, it was rather impossible to be a feminist vegetarian in this unrelenting town. It was rather tiresome to be her twin brother, too.

  But here (!) but here (!) but here was this locally owned restaurant run by a lovely married couple who were community minded. There were vegetables on the menu. You could still hear your own thoughts over the music. There were homemade candles. They made their own candles and Amanda loved that.

  And yes, she recognized that the burger was wrapped in maple bacon wrapped in blue cheese wrapped in more maple bacon but could Calv just let her have this one nice place where she could eat her tiny cabbages in peace, pretty please? Just a moment of contentment before it was ruined for her. Because Amanda still liked The Hazel. Sometimes, sometimes there were even dogs sleeping in the porch. She liked that. It reminded her of home. A favourite place. Whenever she went out to eat, she ate at The Hazel. Amanda is a creature of habit. Calv wondered if that was a woman thing or an actor thing or an Amanda thing. Regardless, she liked what she liked.

  Which was another reason why him and Roger should get the fuck out of here soon.

  * * *

  Damian knows who they are as soon as they walk in.

  Of course he does, they only ruined his life. They had some help from his mother mind you, but they certainly were the impetus for the recent attempt at self-destruct.

>   Damian has been sneaking dressed-down Caesars all afternoon as he can’t be caught drinking something so gussied up as Ben’s king-prawn-styled concoction. Everyone would know he had a glow on. Damian is currently swilling a beverage dressed out of necessity. It is the mother on a school run of Caesars. The vodka and Clamato is the coat and cap his body needs to power through what he fully expects to be the worst evening service, so he feigns discretion.

  Like everyone at drop-off, Damian is unwashed drawers underneath.

  Queen Bitch is staying on to serve tables. She just assumes she will be good at serving which she most certainly will not. Iris looks like she will heave her guts up at any moment, and Omi is poisoned with him because Damian is after scraping food onto the floor already a half dozen times. Ben hates them all but is meeting their request for drinks anyway.

  Damian takes a gulp of his domesticated Caesar and feels reassured.

  He had seen the not entirely ugly guy in the restaurant before he ruined Damian’s life. Lately though, the not entirely ugly guy sometimes eats with a pretty actress who rehearses just down the street. She smiles and says thank you a lot to compensate for life. Damian clocked them the first time they came in because he thought they were maybe the best example of why Tinder doesn’t work.

  Straight folks do hookup apps wrong.

  Women got a hold of Tinder and agreed to change its purpose for existing without informing men. It’s supposed to be a sex app. Or at least that was the point of Grindr. It was for cruising. And Grindr is Tinder’s gay dad so Tinder should have followed in its father’s footsteps. But oh no, oh no, that would be clearly too straightforward. If everyone agreed to use the thing the way it was designed to be used people might get what they want. Instead, girls who came over for one beer started moving pillows around and lining shoes up in the porch. The ladies were looking for love in all the wrong places.

  Not that there is anything wrong with love. Damian has been in love. Is still in love.

  Is it still in love if the other person has blocked you on all their devices?

  That’s what Tom did. Or tried to do. It’s not like they don’t have all the same friends. Damian signs in to social media under Jeremy’s name at least once a day. He knows this is not a productive way to move on but he doesn’t want to move on. He wants to move back in with Tom. He wants to live once again in their sweet apartment that smelt of bagels from the adjacent building. Damian thinks love smells like warm poppy seeds. Or heartache. He guesses it’s heartache now that these men have ruined his life.

  Damian thinks his full life is over now that he is no longer a friend of Tom’s on Facebook. Because Tom will add anyone on Facebook. People he barely knows. People he doesn’t like. Tom would never throw shade over such a nothing thing as a social media.

  But he deleted Damian.

  And it was weeks, weeks before Damian realized Tom wasn’t getting his texts. Texts he had agonized over. Damian had tried to find the correct combination of words to unlock Tom’s forgiveness. He had spiralled from abject apology, to self-defence, to outright hostility, to begging. He was pleading last going off, which turned out to be going off to the middle of nowhere. Jeremy told him. He had been experiencing this range of emotional turmoil wholly on his own because Tom was not having it.

  You’re not who I thought you were, Tom had said finitely.

  All this, everything, was that half-handsome fucktard’s fault.

  Damian knew he was bad news when he sauntered into the hotel that night just by the way he walked. Trying to seem confident. Acting like the little one with him was not with him. Beelined for the elevator, her easily three or four steps back. Everything about them screamed that something terrible was going to go down. The sheer distance between them, the disparity in their stride, he was so well out in front of her, she trying to keep up though uncertain of their proximity. Cautious of too closely closing the gap. The imbalance was striking. Even heteros would have seen it, even hetero guys, the body language was all wrong. The man in front was clearly too nervous, the woman tailing him was clearly too eager.

  But like he said to Tom, what the fuck was he supposed to do about it?

  Not let people go to their rooms? He was just the front desk guy. That was most of his then job. His responsibilities ended when he checked the first lot of shitheads in and, OMFG, they were shitheads, too. They couldn’t contain their shitty heads even in the lobby. Pretending as if checking into hotels was something that wasn’t well beyond their familial experience. Acting like their mothers could not count up the hotel beds they had laid with, like lovers, on both hands.

  These men, so newly made in every way, needed everyone to know they were made men.

  They bragged about how much money they owed. They did not yet know that owing money was not the same as having it. Damian has seen hundreds of them pass through airports. They were an easy mark. They talked too loud on their cellphones so everyone would know they had cellphones to talk on because they were important people worthy of love. Really they did not feel so important in large cities that did not care for them at all, let alone love them.

  The group had arrived well before not entirely ugly guy and the girl.

  Olive. Iris’s Olive.

  Damian had not known that then.

  * * *

  Iris’s single is now a four top.

  The Mayor has been joined by two middle-aged women and a forty-something-year-old man. He insists on keeping the chair across from him empty even when one of the women tries to seat herself in it. She shifts to the side without comment though it is an awkward exchange. The man with them has undeniably well-groomed facial hair. Either he is childless, divorced, and/or a dickhead, Iris thinks as she takes in his peach paisley-patterned collared shirt. He has spent a lot of time putting this look together. His attempt at approachable congeniality is so direct that all women in the vicinity should proceed with caution.

  This is not the guy you ask for directions.

  In St. John’s, though, being not shitty is the same as being awesome.

  Iris feels strongly that nice men don’t try this strenuously to appear nice. They just are. It is just a thing they were forced to become by a single mother or frustrated sister. A stubborn enough sister will smack the cocksure right out of you.

  The cocksure are cocksure for a reason, and that reason is unchecked practice.

  They’ve been practising on the shy ones. Or better yet, the ones who feel unpretty. Girls like Iris who can’t get away. They’ve got no pieces to move around the board or tokens to collect for extra mobility points. They persist, painfully unaware that the ringside seats are held for the emotionally well-off and purely ornamental.

  Women like Iris hope to change hearts and minds by being good enough.

  Sweet enough. Hot enough. Nice enough.

  Nice girls cannot hear truth as they are so used to being lied to.

  Iris can’t even read between the lines in that rap song John sings in his car.

  She has to act like he never told her because she can’t hear the truth in what he says through his suffocating embrace.

  Besides, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again, right?

  And Iris is dogged. She has always been too eager for petting and therefore no one’s pet.

  Wait your turn, little miss, and Iris is waiting regardless of her placement in line.

  You can unlearn this, Jo has said. If you know what to look for you can make it through the douchebag wasteland of ghosting guys blowing up the dating sites for their skin.

  Iris
hopes it won’t matter that she got no game later because actual nice guys got no game either. They are a gameless lot and, therefore, her very best bet. Iris is gonna get herself a genuine nice guy if she gets through this day alive. Promise promise.

  Iris and Jo strongly concur on this last point. Iris and Jo mostly agree, so much so that Iris becomes disappointed when they don’t. She is forlorn when they don’t laugh at the same jokes. Other things they don’t agree on include pop music, Timbits and technology. They had been divided along parenting lines until Jo’s own nice guy showed up on the scene and became the deciding factor. Iris has yet to decide where she stands on this man, though she currently has no recourse in the matter. Or any matter.

  But there were theories that Jo and Iris had enthusiastically agreed on before Mr. Tiebreaker showed up in his full cycling gear. Reflectors and all. Iris has never been comfortable around men in Lycra. Spandex in any bright colour makes her sweat. Jo says that Iris is uncomfortable with men who take an active interest in anything other than ranting and drinking because of her father. Of this, Iris is aware. Jo has always been the exchequer of emotional currency, keeping track of accounts, in an attempt to keep them solvent.

  They schemed in the early days how to manage the nicer ones while sitting on the kitchen floor listening to the dishwasher run through. The kind ones were easily spooked by quick replies to one side.

  Keep your filthy shit to yourself at first, Iris, Jo suggested.

  Nice guys can hardly manage themselves. Your filthy thoughts overwhelm them. Do not expect whole paragraphs about getting bent over a desk from any fit man with manners. Nice men don’t randomly send strangers messages about hauling their dress up and licking their pussy.