The Shotgun Rule

by Charlie Huston

  – I’m gonna get stuff all over me.

  – There’s garbage sacks in the bag I brought. Wrap him and put him in the garage. And when you’re done, you’re going and finding Timo and the big kid and drag their asses back here.

  – Geezer, maybe it’s time.

  – ’Nando, I just told you what time it is. I put a bullet in that loser’s face. That told everybody what time it is. It’s time to start taking me very fucking seriously and giving my words a little…shit…a little…shit! Word? For what holds us to the ground. Totally basic word. Someone say it before I go crazy.

  George whispers.

  – It’s gravity.

  – Yes! Give my words some gravity. Jesus. Is that so hard? What else do I have to do?

  They all watch Fernando wrap Jeff in the bags.

  He should move now. Too long in one place and he’ll become visible again.

  So he leans slowly to the side, unfolding into the space between the back of the couch and the wall, the space he didn’t hide in because he knew they’d look there, and he worms to the other side, careful not to rub the bulge in the back of the couch that is made by the fat guy, and they’re all still watching Fernando, and he gets on all fours and crawls quickly into the front hall that spins around him and he squeezes between a big dead plant in a big pot and a couple stacked cardboard boxes and when Fernando drags the bagged body into the garage and leaves the door open he follows him and settles next to a rusted out old bathtub with claw feet and stays there until Fernando goes back in the house and closes the door and leaves him alone with all the chemicals and stuff that are just like the ones Fernando and his brothers had back in their garage and everything spins and he goes asleep again.

  – Bob Whelan. Bob Goddamn Whelan.

  Geezer scoots his ass around on the couch, trying to ease the rash on his sweaty buttocks. He watches Fernando tromp around the house and out to the back yard, looking for the comatose kid. He looks at the two huddled against the wall.

  – If I’d been smart, smarter, I would of told the Oakland crew not to listen to him. He decided to get out of the trade, decided he didn’t want to take it any further than running the grass and acid and all that hippie shit, told the Angels the town was theirs he just wanted out; when that little negotiation took place, I should have told them not to listen, told them a head case like Bob Whelan will never leave the life, never get tired of kicking the shit out of people, should have told them to do everyone a favor and put him out on the train tracks. Now look what I got. Got his kids on my hands. His kids.

  He makes the grabber into a fist and bangs it on the floor.

  – Kids! Fucker. He made, you know, he made a speech? Went over the hill, made me and Jeff go with him so it’d be like an official peace conference the way those bikers like it. Made us go with him even though we didn’t want to give up the town to those fuckers, even though he knew they might just say fuck the cease fire and start breaking bottles on our heads the second we walked into their clubhouse.

  He takes the grabber by its aluminum shaft, raises one butt cheek and scratches it with the claw.

  – Goddamn rash. Goddamn house. Goddamn no AC. My place, I got a swamp cooler. Ever been in a trailer with a swamp cooler? You haven’t. Like a fucking ice box. I love it. Turn the thing off for maybe two months in the whole year. Meter man comes around from PG amp;E, his eyes spin around in his head. Tells me there’s an energy shortage, I should conserve. I tell him, I pay the damn bill, how I use the energy I pay for is my fucking business. Got that swamp cooler, what else I got, I got a 32 inch color Zenith with HBO and Showtime. You know anyone else got both HBO and Showtime? No. Got the Spice channel, too. All the Playboy specials and the Emmanuel movies. Got the fridge full of cold cuts and sourdough rolls and sliced Swiss cheese. Got a freezer full of frozen sausage pizzas and Häagen-Dazs. The cupboard full of pork rinds and Funions and Ding Dongs.

  He raises the other cheek and scratches.

  – Love my trailer. Never get a heat rash in that thing. Never break a sweat. My whole life in this town I’ve been sweating and itching till I got that trailer and that swamp cooler. And now, now it is at risk, my castle is at risk because fifteen fucking years ago I was stupid and didn’t tell the Angels not to listen to your dad’s fucking speech about how he was done forever with the business. Kids! All his crap about his three year old he doesn’t want around this shit, his new baby boy in the hospital he wants to be with. Bullshit! And here, what do we have here? Here we are finding out how much his kids mean to him. They mean he got to raise his private little gang to send to fuck me up and bust my lab and put me in the shit with Oakland! Fucker! Should have killed him myself!

  He throws the grabber on the floor.

  – Fuck.

  He waves his hand at the boys.

  – George.

  – Yeah.

  – Come here and pick that up for me.

  George gets up, stumbles, takes a couple steps and picks up the grabber and holds it out to Geezer.

  – Our dad didn’t tell us to do anything. He wouldn’t do anything like that.

  Geezer takes the grabber.

  – Kid, you got no clue what your old man would do for money, a piece of pussy, or just to fuck someone up because he thinks it’d be fun.

  He holds out his hand.

  – Help me up. Maybe get some air on my ass, stop this itching.

  George takes Geezer’s hand and pulls him to his feet, lets go and wipes his palms on his jeans.

  Geezer plucks the seat of his sweat pants away from his ass.

  – So, your friend, he gonna come back with my half key so I can salvage something here? Say he got away from Timo, he the kind gonna call the cops, knowing it’ll mean you guys are gonna be dead? He gonna call your dad?

  George shakes his head.

  – He won’t call my dad.

  – Cops?

  – No.

  – Good. Now go sit down and keep your mouth shut because when I hear you I think about you and I get pissed and I can barely keep from shooting you.

  George goes and sits down next to Hector and takes his hand. Hector doesn’t move, his eyes are open, looking at Ramon again, but he doesn’t move at all.

  Fernando comes in from the back yard.

  – He’s not out there.

  – You sure?

  – I went all around the house, looked under all the bushes. Timo and Cheney took a couple bikes. The other two are out there.

  – Where is he then?

  – I say he’s in the house.

  He kicks a pile of carpet remnants.

  – He’s somewhere in all this shit. We put the bathroom window back together after they got in. It’s still together. The other windows are all locked. He didn’t come through here, walk out the front door.

  Geezer holds out his arms.

  – OK, so?

  – He’s a scrawny brat, he’s hiding under something. Behind something.

  They both shut up. They look at the couch.

  Geezer cocks the derringer, waves Fernando toward the couch.

  Fernando looks at the floor, picks up Jeff’s wrench, runs across the room, jumps on the couch and throws the wrench into the space behind it.

  – Fuck.

  Geezer comes over.

  – Get him?

  Fernando reaches behind the couch and comes up with the wrench.

  – He ain’t back there.

  – Hey, hermano.

  He drops the wrench, looks at Ramon.

  – Ese.

  Ramon sticks out his tongue.

  – Got some water?

  – Hang on.

  He heads for the kitchen.

  Ramon pokes his leg, watches blood leak out of the hole. He picks up the blood crusted pencil from his lap and looks at Geezer.

  – Yo, boss, want your pencil back?

  Paul looks better.

  Without those torn up jeans and that bat eater’s heavy metal T shirt,
he looks much better. He looks almost like a boy again. Like he did when he’d run around in his shorts all the time. Always barefoot. Never wanting to put on a shirt. Used to be so much trouble getting him properly dressed for dinner someplace out.

  Kyle Cheney sits on the floor, leans his back against the front of the couch, and puts his son’s head back in his lap.

  Paul coughs and gags, but he doesn’t throw up again.

  Kyle pats his cheek.

  – See, it’s getting better, isn’t it? I can tell. I can always tell when your migraines are getting better because you stop throwing up. Soon, you’re going to be thirsty and then hungry. That’s how it’s always been. Now we know, know we can get through it, know it will pass. But when they first started, I was so scared. And in fairness to your mother, she was scared, too. You know it’s hard for me to talk about her at all, let alone to say something nice, but it is true. She was scared. You crawled under your bed and wouldn’t come out, and when I touched you, you screamed. And then when you started throwing up, we didn’t know what to do. When we moved your bed so we could get to you, I thought you would try and run away. Your mother wrapped you in a blanket and I drove to the hospital. It took forever to get a doctor. And months before they could say what was wrong. I thought the worst, of course. That’s your father for you, thinking the worst. I thought a brain tumor. I thought I was going to lose my son forever. Migraines were a relief. And I know that’s not what you want to hear, but considering what I thought it was, migraines were a relief. Coming out of nowhere like that, never a sign until you were almost eight. And every one was a major event at first. Getting you into your bed, drawing the curtains, getting a towel and a bowl of ice water. Keeping the house as quiet as possible. Your mother, well, fair is fair and this is the truth too, she couldn’t keep at it for long. Help to get you into bed and then go somewhere else when she got tired of helping. Not that I minded. It was nice to have time alone. Have you all to myself.

  He checks the cords around his son’s wrists and ankles, making sure they’re snug.

  – Those still OK? Sorry. I know it’s not what you want to hear, but you would have hurt yourself, running around while having a migraine. You would have run into a wall or into the street and gotten hurt. You’re safe this way. I’ll keep you safe as long as I can. I know, I know I can’t forever, but now, now that we’re together, now that I have you to myself again, I’ll keep you safe as long as I can. Because, Paul, this is not what you want to hear, but, Paul, people wouldn’t understand. These drugs, these drugs you hid, people wouldn’t understand that boys can get confused. If they don’t have guidance, they can get confused. And I can’t, well, if this is the kind of thing you get into when I’m not around to keep an eye on you, well, then, we’ll have to handle things differently from now on. And, you are not going to like this, I know, but if a little less freedom is what it takes to keep you safe, then so be it.

  Mr. Cheney reaches inside his open bathrobe and scratches his stomach and looks at his son’s sweaty face.

  – You know what you need? A haircut. A real haircut. Not a trim. A good old fashioned haircut like you used to have.

  He finds the scissors he used to cut the cord.

  – A good old fashioned haircut like the ones you had when you were a little boy.

  At first he thinks it’s an earthquake.

  When he’s grabbed by his hair and the fabric of his robe and pulled from under his son and thrown across the room, he thinks it must be an earthquake. The biggest he’s ever been in, much bigger than the 7.0 that hit a few years back. Maybe it’s the Big One, finally come to tear California in half.

  It’s only after Bob Whelan has crossed the room and picked him up and thrown him again that he realizes how much worse it is.

  Whelan lifts him by his armpits, shaking him.

  – Where are my boys? Goddamn you, you sick sonofabitch! You’re not doing this! You don’t do this! No one does this!

  Slamming him against the wall with every word.

  – Where! Are! My! Boys!

  Forcing the back door of the house, all he could think was what a B amp;E bust would mean for him. For his family. It’s been years since his last bust, years since clearing probation, but the stories would come back, stuff George and Andy would be bound to hear about. The stories he’s kept them from hearing, about what kind of man he is. They’d never listen to him again. His crap about responsibility and hard work, they’d never listen again.

  Then he stepped into the house and closed the door behind him and started for the livingroom where he could hear the sound of The Price Is Right on the TV.

  Seeing the body face down in blood, seeing the bloody shards of glass, he’d almost screamed. In the darkness it could have been anyone. But it’s not George or Andy. It’s a Mexican guy. One of those Arroyo boys. Knocked out and bleeding.

  And then a voice from the livingroom, too soft, almost lost in sound of the TV.

  And he remembers watching Helter Skelter a few weeks ago with George and Andy. They showed it in two parts on KTVU because it was so long. He and George liked it. Andy had nightmares.

  He remembers that Charles Manson is in prison in Vacaville, just a few hours away. They say he’s always trying to escape. He sees in his head words written in his sons’ blood scrawled across the livingroom walls. Crazed junkie murderers in an orgy in the livingroom. Those hippie friends Paul’s mom had around all the time.

  And he has to shake his head to get the craziness out.

  And coming out of the hallway, and walking past the dining room table covered in the uncorrected papers of Kyle Cheney’s students, and standing behind the couch and looking down at his neighbor cradling his bound and naked teenage son, he realizes there are things nearly as bad.

  – What’s that you got, boss?

  – Keep your seat, Ramon.

  – Keep my seat? Boss, you tell me how to do anything else I’ll do it. Keep my seat. You hear that, ese, telling me to keep my seat? Know what it feels like, my leg?

  – Just stay on the couch.

  – My leg feels like nothing. No lie, ese, like nothing. Felt like all kinds of something when boss put the pencil in it. Feels like nothing now. What you think that mean, ese?

  Fernando gives him the water glass.

  – I don’t know, bro.

  – Can’t be good, is what I think.

  Geezer waves the derringer again.

  – Fernando, just stay over there.

  – Givin’ him some water.

  – He has it, you go over there.

  – Want me to look for the kid?

  – Just sit over there.

  Fernando goes and sits on an upended orange crate with several broken slats. The old dry wood creaks.

  Ramon empties the glass in one long swallow.

  – Otro vez, bartender.

  Fernando starts to rise.

  Geezer shakes his head.

  – No. No more water.

  Ramon tilts back his head, opens his mouth wide and shakes a last few drops from the glass onto his tongue.

  – Ahhhhh. No problem, boss, that took care of it.

  He rubs the glass against his forehead.

  – It hot in here?

  Geezer scratches his ass.

  – Yeah, it’s hot in here. Didn’t think a beaner noticed the heat.

  Ramon smiles.

  – Sure, sure we do. We feel the heat. Know what you do about the heat? Got to dress light. All that sweat on you. That’s cuz you’re wearing a sweat suit. Sweat suit means sweat, boss.

  – Fuck you. I’m wearing a sweat suit because I have some proper AC in my place. In my place a man could freeze without a sweat suit. I didn’t bother changing into my tropical suit because I thought this place would be further along. I thought it’d be cool at least.

  Fernando shrugs.

  – Hey, man, you said get another lab set up. You didn’t say it had to be climate controlled or some shit.

&nb
sp; – Fuck sake, ’Nando, I say keep it like a swamp? Come over here, I didn’t figure I should be wearing my…word? The hats, but not called a hat, the ones explorers wear in movies. Like Livingstone? No, wait, I got it! Pith helmet. Didn’t think I needed a pith helmet to come over here.

  Ramon taps the pencil against the side of the glass.

  – Boss?

  – What?

  – Never answered my question.

  – What?

  – What you got there?

  – It’s a gun.

  – Yeah, no shit?

  – No shit.

  – Why you waving it all around at us? We’re your people. Employees. Got us out on bond. Things gone sour while I was asleep?

  Fernando points at the blood and bone on the wall.

  – He killed Loller.

  – The biker security guard guy?

  – Yeah.

  – Maaaan, that’s too bad. He was alright.

  He looks at Geezer.

  – Why you do something like that, boss?

  Geezer taps the grabber against his leg.

  – Because he fucked with my shit.

  Ramon nods.

  – Yeah, man, I see that. But, hey, bro?

  – Yeah?

  – You saw him shoot the guy?

  – Yeah.

  – Whelan and Hector saw?

  – Yeah.

  Ramon holds out his arms.

  – Shit, ese, you all are like witnesses to murder one. Know what they say in the joint about when you kill someone?

  – No.

  – Say, no witnesses, ever.

  He raises an eyebrow at Geezer.

  – That why you got that gun in your hand, boss? Thinking you got some witnesses to deal with? Once everything is sorted out here with the meth and shit, you got some other shit to sort now?

  Fernando stands up.

  Geezer points the grabber at him.

  – Sit back down, ’Nando.

  Fernando is staring at his brother.

  – You know, ese, that’s some of the smartest shit I ever heard come from you.

  Geezer lowers the grabber and points the gun.

  – Sit down, ’Nando.

  Fernando sits.

  Ramon holds up the pencil.