Taking Aim

by Michael Cart

  It was nine p.m. but still about 70 degrees outside. A nice night, quiet and dark along the bike path that circled a large pond. Since the beginning of spring he had been going for a run at this hour. He had even jogged with Maura once, then made out with her by the pond afterward.

  Before leaving for the path, he was almost hit by an old black compact that moved so fast he couldn’t get the license plate number. He shook his fist and swore at the driver, but then gathered himself, breaking into stride as he headed toward the path. Halfway through his run, as usual, he stopped at a water fountain and, bending over, drank deeply. When he looked up, he spotted Maura. She was sitting on a large slab that kids fished from during the day.

  Faint light from nearby houses made it possible to see her face, which was expressionless. She wore jeans, running shoes, and a white hoodie with the school’s insignia on it. She was facing him, her hands concealed in the pockets of her hoodie. He thought about ignoring her and sprinting away, but he was curious, so he approached.

  “I take it this isn’t a coincidence,” he said.

  “No, it isn’t,” she said.

  “I was going to call.”

  “No, you weren’t.”

  She was right about that.

  “Look, Maura, we only have a few weeks of school left, so let’s be civil and remember the good times.” A second later, he was sorry he had said that. It was a line that had worked before, but he needed something special for Maura. He should’ve been patient. He should’ve sized her up, guessed at her intentions, then worked that angle.

  “Look,” he said, “I’ve tried to be nice, but if you don’t stop stalking me, I’m going to get a restraining order. You know my father can make that happen.”

  And that’s when she showed him the gun.

  Maura knew about Alex’s nightly runs and his routine stop by the water fountain, so she wasn’t surprised when he materialized on the sidewalk in running shorts and a T-shirt. But she wasn’t prepared for what happened next. As he was stretching with his back to her, she started the Mazda and, in a moment of rage, sped by, nearly grazing him.

  Scared, she turned down the first side street she saw, shutting down the engine and trying to calm herself.

  She was glad she hadn’t hit him. She didn’t want to make him a victim. She didn’t want to ruin her plan. It was better to scare him. No one would believe that she had threatened to shoot him on the bike path, of all places. And if he told anyone, she had already chosen a place to bury the gun. She would just laugh and act like he was crazy.

  After regaining her composure, she drove to an empty parking lot by the path and walked toward a large rock near the pond, not far from the fountain. That’s where she waited, feeling the gravity of the gun weigh down the pocket of her hoodie.

  She wasn’t surprised when he approached or when he spoke casually to her, as if he were still in control. The Gunslinger, she thought, a rush of anger seizing her again.

  But there was also something pathetic about him. He was so clueless, and for a moment, she almost ditched her plan. But how could she forget that night, how long he had taken, how often she had protested? How could she forget the laughter and the smirks from his friends at school? And then he had to make a comment about the “good times,” as if speaking to a little girl. That’s when she had no choice but to wave the gun in his face.

  “Whoa,” he said. “Is this a joke?”

  It must be a toy gun, he thought.

  But upon reaching her, he realized the gun was indeed real. He thought about running, but then remembered that this was Maura holding the weapon, and he knew the kind of girl she was. She had confided her fears and insecurities to him. She doesn’t have it in her to shoot anyone, he thought. She was trying to frighten him. Yeah, that’s what this was about?

  “You didn’t have to bring a gun if you wanted an apology, Maura,” he said, trying to sound as coolheaded as possible.

  “I want you to kneel,” she said.

  He decided to go with his hunch. “I won’t do that, Maura. I’m going to turn and walk away, and you’re going to put that gun down.”

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she said.

  But he turned, anyway, and started toward the bike path. That’s when he heard it: a metallic click.

  At first he had trouble catching his breath, but then realized the gun was indeed empty, that his hunch about Maura was right. She was angry but she wasn’t crazy.

  So he kept walking, imagining what a gunshot might actually sound like.

  As he continued toward the path, two more empty clicks broke the silence.

  He smiled.

  Would it be like fireworks, he thought, a hammer hitting a board a few inches from his ear, the crash of a boulder dropped from an extreme height?

  He moved farther away, supremely confident that, at least for now, he would never hear one of those sounds.

  But then he did.

  HEARTBREAK

  Joyce Carol Oates

  1.

  In the top drawer of my stepdad’s bureau the gun was kept. It was kept unloaded.

  They were laughing at the rear of the house. My sister Caitlin with her laughter like shattering glass and my cousin Hunt Lesinger who’d brought his .22 rifle over at Caitlin’s request.

  Giving her lessons in shooting a rifle. But not me, not even looking at me.

  Showing off for Caitlin, is how it was. And Caitlin showing off for him.

  In the mirror above the bureau—a flushed blurred face. I had learned to look quickly away from that face for so often I hated what I saw.

  Mr. Lesinger’s (forbidden) gun in my hand! Heavier than you’d expect.

  (My stepdad didn’t like it when I called him “Mr. Lesinger”—that did sound weird. He wanted Caitlin and me to call him “Dad.” He put pressure on us to call him “Dad.” But that was the name of our actual dad so how could there be two Dads? There could not.)

  They were down by the ravine. I hated it, they’d gone off without me another time.

  Behind Mr. Lesinger’s house was an acre-sized lawn like a field that descended to a ravine, and beyond the ravine was Mineral Lake that was shallow and weedy at this end so you couldn’t swim and even young kids wouldn’t want to wade out in the muck on a hot day.

  In the ravine was a wrecked car all overgrown with weeds and vines. Years ago someone had crashed his car through the guardrail up on Herrontown Road on a rainy night. The driver and his passenger had both died in the accident, in the ravine in what was called a “fireball” when the gas tank exploded.

  This had happened long ago, before we’d moved into Mr. Lesinger’s big shingle-board house on Herrontown Road. Before Mom had married Mr. Lesinger and brought us to our new life.

  Mr. Lesinger hadn’t told us about the ravine or the car. It wouldn’t have crossed his mind probably. Adults don’t think of the most obvious things like what’s behind your own house, in a ravine. Part of Mr. Lesinger’s property was marshy and you wouldn’t want to walk there.

  The ravine was about twenty feet deep, and part of it was filled with trash. You could hardly make out the wrecked car covered with vines and badly burned, that looked like the skeleton of a giant insect. Hunt Lesinger, who was Mr. Lesinger’s nephew, knew about the wreck of course and the first time he came to visit us, after we’d moved into his uncle’s house, he told us to come with him, he’d show us something we maybe didn’t know about. It was a surprise to see the wreck back there, hidden from sight unless you knew what to look for.

  First, we peered down at the wreck from the top of the ravine, which was dense with underbrush. Then, Hunt wanted to climb down. He’d brought his .22-caliber rifle that he left on the ground, for it was dangerous (he said) to climb anywhere with a rifle.

  Caitlin hadn’t wanted to climb down into the ravine—of course. But I was eager to follow Hunt.

  Our stepcousin was the kind of boy you wanted to impress, by keeping up with him. Whatever he was
doing. And if Hunt made jokes, you’d want to laugh.

  It was awkward pushing through the underbrush, then slip-sliding down the rocky hill into the ravine. I’m a strong girl and my legs are hard with muscle but it was not easy going. A flurry of mosquitoes buzzed around my eager, damp face.

  Caitlin cried, “Wait for me!”

  Caitlin was wearing flip-flops on her skinny white feet, short shorts, and a tank top. Caitlin was so girly, you wanted to laugh. You wanted to give her a swift hard slap to make her stop acting so silly.

  “You never saw this? My uncle never told you?”

  Hunt recounted how he’d been in sixth grade when the car had plowed through the guardrail, and it was in the local paper and on TV. His uncle had said how he and his wife had just gone to bed at about eleven p.m. and they’d heard the car hit the guardrail, then the crash in the ravine, without knowing what they were hearing, and then the terrible loud explosion when the gas tank blew up—“Like the end of the world.”

  Of course, both the bodies had been removed. There was no trace of anything human in the wreck (that I could see) that had turned black in the fire. All the windows were broken but little slivers of scorched glass remained in the frames like teeth. If you tried to climb inside the wreck, you could cut yourself pretty bad.

  I thought of climbing into the front, behind the melted-looking steering wheel and the black-burnt dashboard, to sit on what was left of the seat and pretend to be driving, but decided against it when Hunt shook his head No.

  “Better not, Steff. You could hurt yourself.”

  Caitlin wouldn’t come too near the wreck—her flip-flops were so flimsy on her feet, she couldn’t risk climbing down into the ravine. Saying in her throaty little-girl voice (the way she never talked around the house but only if there was someone special to impress) she was afraid of seeing something “awful” (like bloodstains? parts of bodies?), how terrible it must have been, those poor people skidding in their car on the road, and crashing through the guardrail—“They must have been screaming all the way down.”

  Hunt said they didn’t have much time to be afraid, the gas tank had exploded within seconds.

  Hunt laughed, the way a guy will laugh when he knows he has said something disturbing. There are some thoughts that scare you so, you have to laugh.

  Caitlin put her hands over her ears as if this kind of talk upset her delicate nerves. “Oh Hunt, please. I don’t like to think about it.”

  It was like that with my sister. The least thing she could turn to her own advantage, to draw attention to herself, she would. But Hunt could see through her, I think. He’d just laughed as he and I were climbing out of the ravine, and didn’t even answer her.

  Later he said to me, “Maybe don’t tell my uncle or your mom we were climbing in the ravine, okay? Just, they don’t need to know.”

  It was thrilling to me, that Hunt would say this to me, in a quiet voice like we would share a secret.

  His name was Hunter—everybody called him Hunt. It was a nice name that suited him. And he was an actual hunter, too.

  He was my cousin—I guess you’d say stepcousin. First time we met, introduced by my mother, I knew Hunt and I would be in each other’s lives forever.

  “Steff, this is Hunt. You know—your new cousin . . .”

  “Hi, Steff! Good to meet you.”

  Hunt was smiling at me, and it was a sincere smile. Hunt was not laughing at me. His eyes didn’t slide away like guys’ eyes do when they see, seeing you, that there’s nothing to hold their interest but they need to appear polite.

  Just then, Caitlin came downstairs. Even before Mom introduced them I saw how Hunt’s eyes slid on my sister with her red-lipstick mouth and platinum-blonde hair streaked with just-visible strands of purple and green.

  In that instant, when Hunt lifted his eyes to Caitlin, I could see how he was forgetting all about me.

  I hated Mom calling me Steff instead of Stephanie which is a much more beautiful name.

  Steff makes you think of Stuff.

  I think it is a deliberate thing they do, my mother and my sister, and everybody else, to put me down. Not Stephanie but Steff.

  But when Hunt said “Steff” it didn’t sound so awful.

  Hunt and his father, Davis Lesinger, had driven from Keene, New York, in the Adirondacks, in his father’s Jeep, to Morgantown, Pennsylvania, which is six miles south of Erie in the western part of the state. It was a twelve-hour trip they took once a year at least. The Lesingers were all hunters, and Hunt and his father had brought two hunting rifles with them.

  Hunt was proud to show us his rifle, which was a Remington .22 caliber with a handsome polished stock—he brought it with him everywhere he could, he said.

  Hunt’s rifle was a registered hunting rifle. It was a legal gun in every way. When I saw Hunt lift it and squint through the scope I felt a chill along my spine but it was a pleasurable chill, of excitement.

  Right away Caitlin said, “I want a shooting lesson! Ple-ease.”

  Hunt looked at Caitlin, and Hunt looked at me. It was like he was about to wink—at me.

  Isn’t your sister silly? How can you all stand her?

  “Well, see—a rifle has a kick, Caitlin. It can hurt your shoulder if you don’t handle it right. And the shot is loud.”

  It was startling to hear—how Hunt spoke the name Caitlin. So that it sounded special.

  In this way, Hunt put my sister off. But knowing Caitlin, how stubborn and persistent she was to get her way, I knew this would be just temporary.

  Hunt’s mother was no longer in their family, it seemed. Hunt did not explain where she had gone and we would not have wished to ask our stepfather Martin Lesinger who disliked personal questions especially from Caitlin and me.

  “Maybe he’s just like us, Steff! Except his mom left, not his dad.”

  Every summer Hunt and his father made the long drive from Keene to visit relatives in Morgantown. They stayed with his father’s elderly parents for a week or ten days. It was strange for us (Mom, Caitlin, me) to think that they’d been coming to Morgantown all these years but we’d had no idea they existed.

  Now that our mother had married Martin Lesinger, who was Hunt’s father’s younger brother, we were Hunt’s relatives, too.

  It was a surprise to Caitlin, and to me. I mean, a nice surprise.

  We had a brother Kyle who didn’t live with us. (Kyle lived with our father.) But no other close relatives in Morgantown, or anywhere. No cousins our age. Suddenly there was Hunt Lesinger in our house and my mother laughing at the looks in our faces. “Girls, this is your stepcousin. Hunter is family.”

  Whatever else was said at that time passed by me in a roar. Must’ve been blood beating in my ears.

  Seeing Hunt for the first time, and seeing how Hunt smiled at me, it was like something turned in my heart. Like one of those tiny keys you can hardly grasp with your fingers but when you do, unlocking a lock, a little door comes open.

  I had never seen any boy that age, or younger, or older, as polite and well mannered as Hunt Lesinger. Mom had told us he was eighteen years old—he’d graduated from high school three weeks before. In the fall he had a scholarship to study forestry at the state college at Syracuse. He was a tall, lanky, long-limbed boy with chestnut-colored hair and a habit of whistling under his breath. He laughed a lot, but not loud or rudely. His favorite things to do (he said) were hunting, hiking, canoeing, and camping in the Adirondacks. He hoped to work for the Adirondack National Park service after he graduated from forestry college. In the fall he planned to enlist in the New York State National Guard.

  Mom kept saying how cool it was, she had a “nephew” now—a “stepnephew.” When she’d married Martin Lesinger eighteen months before she’d been hurt that almost no one from the Lesinger family had come to the wedding though most of them lived right here in Morgantown.

  Mom’s new husband was eleven years older than Mom. He had been Mom’s boss at the Buick dealership where sh
e’d worked until they were married, and you could see that he was still Mom’s boss—the way he spoke to her, not exactly giving orders, never forgetting to say Please, but in a tone of voice that meant there was no negotiating.

  Of course, Martin Lesinger had been married before. His wife had died of some wasting disease like Parkinson’s—there were pictures of her in the house, which Mom intended to hide away as soon as she dared. But Mr. Lesinger’s children were all grown up and none of them lived in Morgantown, or had troubled to come to the wedding. Caitlin and I felt funny thinking how we had stepsisters and a stepbrother old enough almost to be our parents whom we had never seen. That was weird.

  Mom told us these stepsiblings were “not overjoyed” about her marrying Mr. Lesinger, whose wife had died just three or four years ago.

  We asked Mom if these stepsiblings were worried about Mr. Lesinger leaving money to her and not to them? And Mom said she didn’t think so, or anyway they shouldn’t worry since she’d signed a prenup.

  “What’s a prenup?” I asked, and Caitlin turned to me with a sneer: “‘Prenuptial,’ Steff. Everybody knows what a ‘prenuptial’ is.”

  The way Caitlin said Steff made me want to slap her. Like my name wasn’t a serious name and could be shortened to some ugly syllable while her name was such a special name, she would not allow anyone to shorten it to “Cate.”

  Mom explained to me what a prenuptial was. A kind of legal contract Mr. Lesinger had asked her to sign, to acknowledge that she would receive a “fixed sum” in the event of his death, and would be allowed to continue to live in Mr. Lesinger’s house though she would not be the legal owner of the house, while the estate would be divided among the Lesinger heirs.

  This did not sound right to me. Caitlin said she’d rather die than sign any contract like that—“If a man loved you, he wouldn’t ask you to sign.”

  Mom’s face reddened as if she’d been slapped. She told Caitlin she was speaking in ignorance. “There are different kinds of love. One day you’ll find out.”