Trigger

by Susan Vaught

  So long.

  Good-bye.

  The geek-freak choked on a chicken head.

  Beaches. Peanuts. Tube. Cheerleaders. Sissy-U. Come home, Mom, it’s all safe now. Jersey’s gone. Beaches.

  “So long. Good-bye.”

  Was this how it was Before?

  “So long. Good-bye.”

  Did I just sit on the bed and try to decide and all of a sudden shoot myself?

  Tube.

  Over nothing.

  It couldn’t have been like that. I had to have a reason. Good reason. Or lots of reasons. Reasons that mattered. But they were nothing.

  “So long. Good-bye.”

  My stomach started hurting. My breathing got faster and faster. My chest started hurting, too. And my head. The fingers on my bad hand curled up. Bullets in the gun. Tube. I had to put the bullets back. So, I did. One bullet. Two bullets. Three. Back in the gun. And I felt better again. For a second. Maybe a minute.

  In and out, with my good hand and my stupid curled fingers. Bullets in, bullets out. I did it over, and over, and over. Cold. Teeth chattering. So long. Good-bye. There had to be reasons that mattered, but there weren’t any reasons that mattered. Now and Before. I was tired of thinking about Before. Tired of thinking about everything.

  “Tube. So long. Good-bye.” Bullets out. Bullets in. I dropped another one and let it roll. Two bullets now. Two was plenty, because I didn’t really want to shoot anyone else. I only needed one bullet at Lake Raven. Just one. In and out. In and out. As fast as I could.

  So long. Good-bye. Cold. Cold and tired. Bullets in. I tucked the gun in my pants again and lay back down. Just a minute of rest. Just a little rest would help. I closed my eyes.

  Brilliant last words. I’d find some. I would. Mama Rush wouldn’t need them. I’d find brilliant last words, and fix everything.

  “So long. Tube. Good-bye.”

  chapter 24

  I have this dream where I’m walking through a desert made of dust and broken clay. The sun burns my face as I get to my school. I keep walking, back, back behind, to the bleachers. I climb some steps and sit on a hard metal seat, and I pull the gun out of my pants. It has bullets. One, maybe two. Enough to do what I have to do. It’s over. No more pain. It’s time to be gone. It’s time to rest. It’s finally time to rest. I don’t even try the mouth this time, because I know I can’t do it in my mouth. I’m not even shaking when I lift the barrel to the side of my head—the side without any scars. When I squeeze the trigger, I’ll go blank and fall into nothing, and I don’t care who finds me, and I don’t care who cares. It’s time to be dust. Dust and clay and ashes and sand. It’s time. My finger’s on the trigger. I squeeze and squeeze, a little more, a little more, and—

  Shaking.

  Hurting.

  Shouting.

  I woke up jerking and making lots of noise. Clay and ashes. My throat was so dry. Parched. Morning. Morning sun burned my face, just like in my dream. It was burning my skin pink and my scars brighter red. Clay and ashes. I was in the school bleachers, and I’d slept all night, and it was morning, and I still had the gun with the bullets inside tucked in my pants.

  Was I still alive?

  I rubbed my throat as I sat up. Then I shook my head and rubbed my curled-up fingers with the fingers that still worked. Yeah. Alive. Burned pink, hot, thirsty, but alive. Alive with the gun. Ashes, ashes, ashes. Hell of a dream. It made me sick down inside. It made me want to yell some more.

  Mostly, though, it made me make up my mind.

  I knew where I had to go, what I had to do. No more questions left. Ashes. Ashes and clay. Dust and ashes.

  My legs ached as I went bad boy, good boy down the bleacher steps, barely keeping upright with the rail. The sun—so bright. My head was already trying to hurt. My cheeks felt all hot and tight. I wished I had some water, some ice. I was so hot, but it had been cold last night. I remembered the cold. I remembered the clay and ashes. I remembered in the dream how I didn’t care about anything. Dust. I was just dust in the dream. Maybe everything was dust.

  I took an old path away from the bleachers. I knew it from Before, when Todd and I used to walk home. It led into a bunch of trees, then to a little road, and all the way to Lake Raven on the big end, near where the benches faced the little fence. Ashes. Clay.

  My feet worked funny, but I was moving, into the trees, not sweating. At least it would be shady in the woods. It smelled better than the bleachers, like pines and wet dirt. Fresh dirt. Not sour dirt. Not clay. Clay or dust or ashes.

  I still didn’t remember shooting myself. Dust. Dust. I didn’t know, not really, only I did a little. I knew about tired. I knew about cold empty, and mad, and now I knew how everything seemed like it got too big and bigger and I made nothing huge until I pulled the trigger.

  Clay and dust.

  Ashes and clay.

  Bullets in. Bullets out.

  Nothing made me feel better for longer than a second or a minute.

  Ashes. Dust. Clay.

  “Ashes, dust, clay,” I muttered out loud. The sound of it helped me walk faster. Through the woods, to the road. “Ashes, dust, clay.” I was walking. Walking to Lake Raven. Ashes, dust, clay. To the benches and the little fence. Ashes, dust, clay.

  On the road, my face got hotter and hotter. I tried to keep my head down so my nose wouldn’t keep burning, but I kept tripping forward.

  “Nose,” I said the third time I did it.

  For a while, I walked with my hand over my nose, so my fingers got hot. It sounded funny when I said, “Ashes, dust, clay,” under my hand. Like it was from a speaker somewhere. Like I was on the radio. “Radio. Nose. Ashes, dust, clay.”

  The road was lots longer than I remembered.

  “Radio. Nose.” I put my hand down and wondered how far I was from the lake. Far enough. Too far.

  It was my fault. Mine. Jersey Hatch.

  Only, I didn’t feel like calling myself Big Larry and ruiner and loser and geek-freak. None of that. Nose. Radio-nose. I was Jersey Hatch, and I was self-centered. I was Jersey Hatch, and I wasn’t so nice Before. I was Jersey Hatch, and my life was my fault. Clay and dust and ashes. Lots of other things were my fault, too, but I didn’t feel like making that list. My nose burned and burned.

  “Nose.”

  I’d have a really red nose.

  I was Jersey Hatch. I had stupid-marks and a half-a-mouth smile and a weak hand and a weak leg and a big mouth and a big red nose. I sucked at Algebra. I wasn’t so good at Civics or Earth Science or any class, and I didn’t like the Wench. Red radio-nose. I was Jersey Hatch and I said lots of stupid stuff. My mom was at the beach and my dad made bad oatmeal. Todd didn’t like me, and Leza was tired of me, and guys I used to know wanted to pee on me.

  Mama Rush.

  Mama Rush was sick and she needed a tube, and she knew I had a choice to make. Mama Rush didn’t get in my way. Skinny djinni. I hoped she got to smoke another cigarette. Tube. She liked her cigarettes even though they were bad for her.

  Breathing harder, hard, hard. My legs burned like my nose, only not from heat. The gun rubbed on my belly. I had sweat there, but not on my face. Nose. Radio. Tube. A sign. The lake. Lake Raven just ahead. The benches. The little fence.

  I probably came here with Todd and lots of people Before. Even the guys who peed on me. We probably walked just like I did, off the road, across a stretch of dirt, through a little patch of woods, and out again, to grass. Lots of grass, stretching everywhere. Up and back, right and left. Green grass covering a really big, wide hill, and down, on the other side of the hill, Lake Raven. Blue water in the summer and fall. Black water in the winter and spring. The benches and the little fence. I could see them now. Radio-nose. See them, head for them. Almost there. Almost finished.

  Sun burned my nose. Sun blazed off the little waves on Lake Raven. Blue black water. Lots of ripples. Little white-top waves. A breeze hit my face and cooled it some.

  “Nose,” I muttered. “Nose and
radio. Clay and dust and ashes.”

  Almost there. Almost. Almost.

  At the benches now.

  To the fence.

  Beyond the fence, the hill dropped away, straight down to the lake. Nose. Good thing there was a fence, or people would fall in all the time. Radio. All the time.

  I stopped at the fence to catch my breath and stared out across the water. The sun was so bright I had to make my eyes squint. Lake Raven was big, but I could see the beach on the other side. A little beach, nothing like the ocean. Little waves, nothing like the ocean. But people still came to Lake Raven and the little beach when it was warm. We came here lots when I was little. Mama Rush used to bring Todd and Leza and me, too, to that little beach on the other side. Sometimes people swam, or floated on floats, or floated in little boats pretending to fish. Nose. That’s what Dad said they were doing. Pretending to fish.

  Lake Raven wasn’t too big to see the other side. But it was deep. I knew it was deep. If something fell in Lake Raven and sank, it would sink forever, down in the blue black, all the way down to cold empty nothing. Radio. Radio-nose.

  “What are you doing, moron?”

  The question popped out, sounding so much like J.B. I guess it was J.B.

  “What are you doing?”

  I thought about Leza in the hospital, talking about Mama Rush.

  What’s she doing?

  I hoped Leza was doing really good. I hoped Mama Rush was okay, and Todd, and the cheerleaders, and my dad and my mom. I even hoped the Wench was okay, and Mr. Sabon and the other teachers, but I didn’t much care about the guys who peed on me, and I didn’t like Romeo man or Leza’s honey-honey. If they weren’t okay, well, whatever. Nose. They could be un-okay, and that would be okay with me.

  Still breathing hard, but not so hard, I bent down, used my good hand to hold onto the fence, and crawled through it. Through the fence. On the other side now. On the lake side. I stood up slow, slow, not too fast. Radio. I didn’t want to go falling in the lake. No falling. Slow, slow. Rudolph nose.

  Burning nose. Burning eyes. The water was so blue black bright, and deep, deep, deep. I was standing on the hill now, in front of the benches, on the other side of the little fence. Nose.

  I took out the gun.

  It felt heavy and hot and sweaty.

  Sun bounced off the metal like it bounced off the blue black water. The metal looked blue black, too. The gun had two bullets and four empty places. I felt like it was glued to my hand. Nose.

  “Have to do this. Enough’s enough.” I tried to move, but glue. Really. It was glued. Nose. I tried to lift it but I barely made my arm twitch. Radio nose. Burning sun. Bright light on the water. Time. Time. It was time, and I couldn’t move.

  If I had brilliant last words, I knew what they’d be. Deserts. Up and forward. Big Larry. Romeo man and Sissy-U and skinny djinni. I’d say all of it. I’d shout it. Everything that clogged up my head and fell out of my mouth. Selfish. Self-centered. I bet you think I’m mad at you.

  “Peanuts and shoelaces,” I yelled. “Hoochie-mamas. Frog farts! Yeah. Frog farts!”

  I still couldn’t move.

  “Frog farts!” I yelled again. “Nose and radio and devil and Santa Claus. Wench. Wench. Brilliant last words. Tube. Socks. Peeeaaaaanuts!”

  My jaw clenched. I ground my teeth loud enough to hear them over the soft rush of the breeze making waves on Lake Raven. Nose. Radio. Enough. Enough! I glared at the gun and didn’t squint my eyes even though the sun-glare hurt.

  “Enough.”

  In my head, the gun answered me like J.B.

  Never enough until it’s over. Never, ever enough. More. Always more. Always one more time.

  “Over now.”

  I lifted it a little. A little more. Even with my shoulder. My neck.

  “Enough!”

  The gun slipped and slid. Not glued anymore. I had to hold it tight.

  Never enough until it’s over. Never, ever enough….

  Even with my ear, my nose. Nose. My eyes. I could see it there in my fist, blue black like the water. Oily and metal and waiting.

  Never enough until it’s over….

  Even with the top of my head. Higher. Higher. All the way up. High as it would go, high as I could get it. Hold it tight. Hold it. Hold it.

  Never enough….

  I leaned back, back, then swung forward and threw that gun as far as I could throw it.

  It sailed out of my hand. Unglued. It flew. Unglued. Nose. Radio. Peanuts. It flew! And it fell. It turned over and over and fell straight into the blue black ripples with a big spray-splash.

  I was hopping, trying to get my balance and stand up, trying not to fall down the hill. Almost to the edge. Almost over and gone. I fell sideways to keep from pitching into Lake Raven. Nose. I fell hard. Facedown in the grass. On the hill. Nose. Burned nose. Mashed nose. But I didn’t care. My heart thumped. My breath jerked in my chest as I sat up and looked down at the lake.

  The gun was gone, gone forever and sinking, sinking into the cold black empty, with its two bullets, with its four empty places—but without me. Nose. Without me or my nose. Or my shoelaces or my peanuts or anything else.

  I started laughing. Then I started crying. I put my hands over my face and sat there and cried and I didn’t keep any tears at all.

  The police brought lots of cars with flashing lights, an ambulance, and a fire truck. Maybe two fire trucks. Lots of noise and lots of people. Lights, noise, and lights.

  They brought a big man in a uniform who crawled over the fence and fell down on the other side. Lights and noise. He got up and kept coming until he got his hands on my shoulders and said, “Son, are you all right?”

  He didn’t let me go. He helped me get back to the fence, get back through, get to the benches on the other side. As I stumbled toward the lights and noise, noise and lights, I saw him. He was standing with some policemen with his hands in his pockets. He was looking at me.

  Todd.

  A policeman brought me water and a blanket, and the guys in the fire engine ran out to check me over. They started putting something white and cool and nice all over my nose and my cheeks and my stupid-marks.

  “Todd,” I called, but my voice was too quiet. Besides, he was turning around. Getting in a police car. Then he was riding away, away. I wanted to run and catch the car and tell him about the gun, about how I threw it away and how I threw away dying forever until it was my time to die. I threw it into the lake, the gun and the nothing and the dying. But Todd couldn’t see me waving and I’d never be able to catch that police car.

  Maybe I could tell him later. I’d tell him later. Maybe he’d listen.

  It was afternoon, the police said. I’d been gone almost a day. And Todd helped them find me. Noise. Lights. Nose. Only my nose was white now, and it wasn’t burning. Then another car came, and I could see who was driving.

  My dad.

  When the police let him through, he ran straight to me and grabbed me off the bench, blanket and all, and started hugging me.

  “Nose,” I said.

  Dad didn’t stop hugging me.

  “I threw it away, okay?” I hoped he wasn’t too mad at me. “Nose. I threw it in the lake. Bullets, too. The gun. I threw it away forever.”

  Dad still didn’t stop hugging me.

  He didn’t stop for a long time, but that was okay. That was just fine.

  I didn’t mind at all.

  chapter 25

  “Did you talk to Leza?” Mama Rush sat across from me at our outside Palace table, only my clay ashtray wasn’t in front of her. She had a plastic tube stuck in her nose and an oxygen tank beside her and a sucker crammed in her mouth.

  “Yes,” I said. “Sucker. A bunch of times.”

  I didn’t have a sucker because I didn’t want to drool. Mama Rush’s sucker was sour apple. Drool. Probably why her face looked all puckered up and way past mad. And she was wearing a green robe sort of the same color as the oxygen tank and the sucker.
Mama Rush was having a green day on her purple scooter. Drool. Sucker.

  “Quit staring at me, boy,” she growled around her sucker stick. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Green drool,” I said. It was nice to talk without my face hurting. My sunburn was finally gone after three weeks. Three weeks since the gun took its last swim. Three weeks of being with happy Dad who got us breakfast from fast-food places and restaurants and promised no more oatmeal ever. And now, Mama Rush was out of the hospital and better and taking visitors. Taking me, at least.

  “Drool.” I sighed and didn’t stare at her oxygen tank. No staring. Don’t say tank. “Sucker. Green drool.”

  With her right hand, Mama Rush tugged at the pocket where her cigarettes used to be. The pocket was ripped all the way down one side, but she tugged at it, anyway. “Don’t talk about drool, Jersey. It’s disgusting. Talk about socks or shoelaces or something.”

  “Frog farts.”

  She glared at me and bit on her sucker and ripped at her pocket. “Kids. I swear. You’ll be shouting about farts in public—somewhere you shouldn’t. Mark my words.”

  “Frog farts,” I said. “I do. Shout it, I mean. Frog farts. A lot. Mr. Sabon sent me to the office for frog farts.”

  “Yeah, well, old Sabon needs to get the stick out from up his ass. Anyway, I’m glad Leza talked it out with you. I was worried she wouldn’t tell you what she went through that day, hearing everything, and calling your mom instead of the police. She still has bad dreams, and I think she still blames herself for your mom being—well, like she is now.”

  “Told her no,” I muttered, wondering if I should try a sucker. “Leza. That it’s my fault. I told her I was sorry until she made me shut up.”

  Mama Rush grunted and chewed through her sucker with a loud crack. “Tell her some more tomorrow. And next week. Keep telling her.”

  “Drool. I mean, frog farts. I mean, I will.”

  More sucker crunching. More tugging on her pocket. Then, “You got it all figured out now? About why you pulled the trigger?”

  “Trigger.” I sat up a little straighter, and I didn’t say “drool.” “Too much pressure. Too much perfect. I got all flat and dead inside, and I made little things too big. I made nothing too much.”