Broke Heart Blues

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Johnny's was beating quickly. He looked anxiously about to see if anyone, kids from the neighborhood, had followed them. Grandpa Heart, sipping from carried in his pocket in a paper bag, whistled unperturbed.

  was a gunowner's state, he said. He had a permit for this firearm, he'd purchased in a real gun store, not a pawnshop or through a friend.

  There was no danger in firearms if you knew what you were doing. Firing a gun was not nearly so risky as driving a car the way some fools drove, and women drivers.

  "Stop that blinking, boy! You look like a scared rabbit. Just and you'll be fine." He took another quick sip from his bottle, smacked his lips and sighed. His whisky-colored eyes gleamed. Johnny had overheard him tell Dahlia a while back how happy he was he'd hooked up with them in Vegas, not just he was tired of wandering on his own but he'd discovered he liked being a granddaddy, never would've guessed it, and Dahlia laughed her husky-wistful laugh saying she was glad he loved his grandkids since he'd never much seemed to love her and her sisters. Grandpa told her to hush, that was ancient history.

  "Now. Stand here by me, Johnny." Johnny came to stand close grandfather, trying not to tremble. He was excited! Grandpa up the revolver with a click, showed Johnny the bullets, turned and clicked it shut, and took aim at a brown bottle stuck upright beside a stubby cactus about thirty feet away. How slowly, with what Leander Heart raised the gun in his right hand, steadied by his left. You could see that firing a gun was a solemn task that conferred a true importance upon this hour. "One, two, three." The noise was deafening, the child jumped and whimpered as if he'd been shot. The smell of gunpowder was a surprise. "God damn." Grandpa sucked at his mouth seeing he'd missed his target by a good six inches. He raised the revolver, counted and fired again. Another miss. The bullet went skidding along the crusty surface of the sand. Grandpa took a sip of his drink and said thoughtfully, if confessing a secret, "Marksmanship, like a man's ability to throw a lethal punch, is not a talent' to be taught. You must be born with the gift. Few are. If you have a willingness, you can be taught competence. You can improve from a state of total ignorance at least. Always know, Johnny, a man improve." As he spoke, he'd been approaching the target, at a distance of about twenty BRO KE HEART BLUES 259

  i-"

  s_. feet he took aim and fired again, and this time the bottle shattered, bits of glass flying and winking in the sun.

  Now it was Johnny's turn. He took the revolver from his grandfather, saying, "Thank you, sir." The Heart children were taught to be polite Texasstyle. His first surprise was the gun was so heavy. So real.

  played wild screaming games of cowboy-and-lndian and war with boys in the neighborhood, shooting guns from Kresge's, play-rifles and cap pistols, he was one of the toughest of the kids, a natural leader, but this--this was thing! --a grown-up's gun, and no toy. In that instant Johnny his interest in kids' games. "Now. That Coors can over there. Blast er." Johnny's hand was trembling, he couldn't get his eyes to stop blinking. He was remembering a night a long time ago, at the air force base, when he'd been a small boy, waking to hear adult voices outside, his daddy's voice, his mommy's, others', they were talking about someone who'd had an accident with a gun, maybe he'd shot himself with a gun, his daddy was saying what a damn-fool thing, why the hell, why would anybody, Jesus what a surprise, and a woman was crying, and it came back to him now, which was hand, both his hands, were trembling, and his eyes damp with moisture.

  Grandpa Heart was standing behind him firmly gripping his shoulders he'd stand straight and tall--already at nine the top of his head came to his grandfather's mid-chest, and his grandfather was a tall man--and murmured instructions. "Raise the gun, lad. Both hands.

  Now--steady!

  Regulate your breathing. Sight your target. Take care to note if there's anything between you and your target, or anything beyond your target. Now draw in your breath--slow. No need to fear, the bullet goes out, away you and not back. You are the one in control. Draw breath--squeeze the trigger, don't pull it--one, two--" Johnny shut his eyes and jerked the trigger.

  There was a deafening crack, the gun leapt in his hands like a live thing.

  Except Grandpa Heart caught his swaying hand, he might have dropped it.

  He'd missed the beer can by who knows how many feet. But his grandfather said cheerfully, "That's just the first shot of many hundreds. Like I said, a man can improve. Only just stop that blinking." The lesson continued. Forty minutes passed in a blur. It was a that Johnny wasn't enjoying this adventure as he'd thought he would. He couldn't get used to the noise and he didn't like the smell of gunpowder, it made him sneeze and every time he sneezed his eyes leaked tears and nose ran. He was conscious of disappointing his grandfather.

  time he lifted the gun, sighted a target tremulously and pulled the trigger, even if he didn't miss, he understood that something was wrong. And Grandpa sensed it, too. It was strange, he just didn't like his grandfather's gun the way he'd expected he would. Though he liked being with his grandfather, loved being with him in fact, and there wasn't much doubt that Heart loved him the best of the grandchildren. It would be the surprise of Johnny's childhood, how he'd failed to take to firearms. Despite Heart's pep talks. "With firearms, you must show who's master.

  not be mastered. It's said that firearms are dangerous to those them because some fools allow their guns to be wrested from them and used against them. But even a cop will suffer such an indignity, sometimes. Usually only once." He laughed, and Johnny tried to laugh weakly with him. A gun is unforgiving, Johnny. You must win its loyalty or never it up." Johnny mumbled, "O. K. , Grandpa." His eyes ached and his nose running, he wished the lesson would end.

  It ended, but not as he'd wished. Grandpa Heart was having him targets at ever-farther distances, which made sense of course, made hitting them harder. He stood watching glumly as his grandfather fired missed, fired and hit, fired and missed, fired and missed, and hit, he couldn't help thinking that the difference between a hit--"Bingo! "--and a miss--"God damn! "--was ninety-nine percent accidental. Lucky Strikes was the name of the cigarettes Dahlia smoked, and lucky strike was all it was.

  Why did it matter so much? Weren't you the identical person if you hit, or missed? When Johnny managed to hit one of the targets, sent it flying or shattered, he felt he'd performed a trick of some kind, that was all. It puzzled him that Grandpa Heart who was a grown-up and should have better chortled with delight and clapped him on the shoulder telling him he was "coming along." The only part of it that made sense, some of sense, was that, when he did well, Grandpa Heart smiled. The way, when behaved in a way that pleased his mother, she smiled, sometimes laughed, kissing him. Oh, Johnny! You're the one.

  He'd only just wanted to make her happy. After his father had disappeared from their lives and she'd never be happy again really.

  One more round of shots, three bullets each. Grandpa had reloaded gun several times, with bullets loose in his pocket. Then they'd for the day. (Johnny, whose ears were ringing, hoped they'd be finished for a long time. He was feeling the way he felt after taking care of the kids when they were both whining and whimpering for Dahlia, late waiting for her to come back home. Having to smile, and pretend to be O. K. Just so tired. ) "Now, lad. Piece de resistance." Johnny wasn't sure what this meant, he hadn't been paying attention. Grandpa Heart was them shoot at some metal strips, looked like chrome torn off a car, placed in strange, human-like postures against some stunted Joshua trees.

  glimmered beyond them--probably flies. Grandpa Heart got off three in rapid succession, only one of which struck a chrome strip, a sharp BRO KE HEART BLUES ping! Then it was Johnny's turn. Wanting only to be finished with the ordeal, he raised the gun in both hands, squinted along the sight, drew in a jagged breath and fired--one, two, three shots. His ears rang.

  sneezed.

  When he opened his eyes he saw that he'd missed the chrome strips seemed to have hit something else--something living?

  He ran to investigate. His grandfat
her called after him. He poked in the debris and saw something that made his stomach sink. "Oh. Oh, geez." He'd shot a hummingbird. He knew it had been a hummingbird though remained of the creature but a few bloody silvery-green feathers with a strip of darker gray, on the ground a few feet beyond the rusted chrome strip.

  When she was in the mood, Dahlia set out hummingbird feeders in yard of their little rented bungalow, and cried out happily, "Kids!

  Come look!

  Hurry!" when the silvery-green hummingbirds, with red throats, often in pairs, came to drink from them with their long needle-like beaks.

  The tiny birds were so small, hardly more than three inches long, their wings so finely vibrating, it was easy to mistake them for wasps or dragonflies.

  choked back a sob. He felt terrible. The fact that he'd killed by made it worse, somehow.

  They headed back to Arroyo Seco. Grandpa Heart tried to joke the out of his crestfallen mood. But Johnny was quiet, down-looking.

  For a boy of nine he sometimes didn't seem... nine. "Have a sip, Johnny.

  You're looking peaked," Grandpa said, wiping his lips and handing the bottle in its wrinkled paper bag to Johnny, but Johnny said numbly, "No thank you, sir." The old man saw that the boy was troubled, and laid a warm heavy hand, an almost too heavy hand, on his shoulder. "Well. Keep in mind there's more hummingbirds in the world, Johnny. Lots more." When, next day, Dahlia learned of the target practice in the desert (Farley must've told, he was turning into a tattletale), she was furious. "Daddy, how could you! He's only a child! Were you drunk? Were you crazy!

  my Johnny started on that road that's one-way to--you-know-where.

  like you." They were in the kitchen of the little bungalow. It was a confused time-not morning, for Dahlia never woke before noon, yet it was breakfast time, some of them were trying to eat. Grandpa Heart, his cowboy hat already on his head, was putting on a white shirt, a new purchase, and so upset by his daughter's words that he misbuttoned the shirt so that it hung on him crooked, like a bad joke. Dahlia had uttered unforgivable words. It was like firing a gun in this small space. Johnny could almost smell the gunpowder. "Hush about that, girl," Grandpa Heart said in morning-hoarse, whispery voice. "That's ancient history."

  "Not so ancient. A criminal record is forever." It was rare for Dahlia to speak so to her father. Her father she adored, but also feared. (For the old man had quite a temper. When he stopped smiling, you knew to keep your distance. ) She was reckless when barefooted, makeup on her pale, young-looking face, last night's mascara rimming her eyes like an owl's eyes, her bone-white hair bouncy-curly on one side of her face and matted on the other. She was wearing a filmy red nylon shift that didn't entirely cover the tops of her breasts which looked agitated, too, loose and swinging inside the cheap fabric. A cigarette in one hand she didn't recall having lighted.

  Grandpa Heart overturned one of the kitchen chairs, causing Farley cringe, and little Shirleen, eating a rolled-up slice of Wonder Bread with grape jelly, to stare wide-eyed. "Insulted in my home! By my own daughter!

  In front of my own grandchildren!" The old man did look aggrieved.

  looked as if he'd been kicked in the stomach. He turned on his heel, stomped out of the kitchen and got a few things from his bedroom including the. 45-caliber Colt revolver he kept between his mattress and bedsprings) and slammed out of the house, marched up the street, trailing after him until he turned to curse the child, waving a fist and telling him to get the hell away--"You, couldn't keep your mouth shut, eh?

  Had to tell Momma! Momma's boy!" He was gone for four days and they he would never return. Dahlia wept, cursed herself, made and searched Vegas in the company of a man friend, a bouncer at Palace happy to drive her in his big boat of a Caddie east and west, north and south, traversing the city, looking for her father she feared might not only have abandoned the family forever but might even, if drinking, hotheaded and quarrelsome, come to harm. For an hour or more she outside a police precinct agonizing if she dared go inside to file a missingpersons report--"I'd worry they might not let me out again. Then what, you kids left all alone?" Even the speedy diet pills she took to keep her weight down didn't give her sufficient courage to face the police. It was Heart's terror, laced with shame, that, one day, her children loved more than life itself would be taken from her and placed in the custody of the state, she seemed to know beforehand that this would be her fate mother, for of course she was a bad mother, a careless mother, drunkmother, a slut-mother, she knew this, accepted this, yet wept and against it as unfair, unjust--"I wasn't meant to be a widow, so young. God has treated me like shit." When Grandpa Heart did return to the rented bungalow on Arroyo Seco, early one morning, sullen, exhausted, in his stocking feet, missing his smart cowboy hat and, you could surmise, his poker earnings, Dahlia kissed him and asked no questions, she and prepared the old man his favorite breakfast of eggs, grits, ham, hot buttered biscuits, and no mention was made again, ever, of what she'd said.

  Johnny forgot. Or almost forgot. Until a year or so later when started on their journey east, to the Village of Willowsville, New York, a TV comedy family embarking upon a wild new adventure that had to turn well, seeing it was a comedy, and TV, on their way to a big expensive mansion they'd seen only snapshots of, a gift to Dahlia from a "sweet, sad, sort of pathe ic old gentleman" known at the casinos as the Colonel, who'd in love with her and begged her to marry to assuage the terrible loneliness of his life, though older, and much older-looking, than Grandpa Heart, she'd been deliberating such a radical step (the advantages were obvious, Colonel Edgihoffer was a rich old man not likely to live long, but there were obvious disadvantages, too--Dahlia enjoyed male companionship of certain kind, a not-gentlemanly kind, and this she might have to up at least for a while), there was debate about whether Grandpa Heart take the Colt revolver along with them in the car, for possibly there were laws against carrying concealed weapons in the states through which had to pass, Utah, Colorado might be safe for these were Western states, but beyond that--Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, a of Pennsylvania? What of New York State in which they'd be living?

  agreed they might need protection on such a long journey into the unknown, the Plains particularly filled her with worry, but she was fearful of highway patrols, police questioning, so maybe her father had better leave the gun behind, and Grandpa Heart declared if he had to leave his gun he sure as hell wasn't going, that was that. It was an impasse. There hot words exchanged. Another time, Dahlia hinted of something in the old man's past--"you-know-where, and you-know-what." But when Johnny asked if his grandfather had been arrested, ever, if he'd been in prison, she turned on him and slapped his face. "Such a thing, to say of your own flesh and blood. Certainly not." Only after John Reddy Heart was himself arrested for murder, at the age of sixteen, did Grandpa Heart reveal to him, shamefaced, that he'd "done time" at North Texas State Prison for Men--"I was just a damn-fool kid, nineteen Had me a gun, and this buddy of mine had his, we got went out and stuck up a gas station and came away with fifty-eight dollars I swear, though they'd claim five hundred. I was in for three years, paroled for good behavior. We're talking ancient history, son. And none of has anything to do with you." John Reddy understood that it did, though. Anything the Hearts

  had done or contemplated doing had everything to do with him.

  if it involved the. 45-caliber Colt revolver originally purchased at a Vegas gun shop by Aaron Leander Heart.

  During the fall and winter months, well into spring, John Heart hear gunshots in the distance. Sometimes on his own property.

  deer hunters. His five acres of land, like much of the farmland the area, was posted against hunters and trespassers, but hunters ignored signs.

  There was a local tradition of ignoring such signs, this was deer-hunting country. When he'd first moved to Iroquois Point, John Heart was not to order these trespassers off his property, not even to try speak with them, it just wasn't done, he could get into trouble--"There've been barn
fires, livestock shot, gun accidents. You can't win." John he couldn't win, he'd lived in other hunting counties in the state. Most counties were in fact hunting counties. He'd have to endure it, waking at dawn to the sound of gunshots, his nerves like tight-strung wires, he'd begin drinking beer before he was fully dressed, needing to anesthe ize the sick hurt, the memory, the sound of three rapidly fired gunshots, so close, in his own head they seemed, always there, echoing and re-echoing. Always I knew it would happen, someday. That gun. But not lfhen, and not how.

  He hated the with their glaring orange Day-Glo dickeys worn over bulky camouflage jackets. He hated even those men he liked, friends of his, guys he might work for, drink with. But he had to endure it. Live with it. Men loved guns, men loved hunting. Men loved killing living things, hauling them back home trophies. MR. FIX-IT wasn't a hunter (everybody knew who hunted, didn't, as they could name the names, occupations and addresses the few blacks who lived in the area, not inevitably with prejudice, but simply as a statement of fact, information) but he wasn't one of the local antihunters, troublemakers writing angry letters to the Iroquois Point Sentinel.

  From his trailer windows, from his workbench in the barn, MR. FIX-IT was likely to see hunters at the edge of his woods. In his shiny blue pickup he was likely to see their pickups parked by the sides of local roads, sometimes on his own property. He drove past. He might wave. The hunters sighted him, and waved. MR. FIX-IT who was John Heart was well liked, a maybe but lots of people were strange, guys who appeared outwardly with kids, families, could be strange if you got to know them.