Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club

by Megan Gail Coles

  You’re so high, you can’t even hear yourself.

  Let’s all just settle down.

  She come in here looking for a racket.

  Yes, that’s why I go to restaurants on Valentine’s Day —

  She’s crazy —

  I go to restaurants on Valentine’s to bawl at you.

  — I’ll give you something to bawl about if you’re not careful.

  I would love nothing more than to call the cops on you!

  You’re such a slut, Mandy.

  My name is Amanda!

  Really, sir, you can’t talk like that in here.

  Who are the fuck are you anyway?

  See Calvin, see what kind of company you keep?

  I knows your fucking face, don’t I?

  I think you should leave.

  Me? I been here throwing down money all day.

  Yes, and now it’s time you go.

  And it’s time for you to stop being a faggot.

  And John is there beside Damian with his hand on the back of Roger’s shirt collar and Roger is up and out of his chair, and John is almost grateful for the physical motion he is required to perform in order to correct this situation as the woman in the red dress starts to cry a little now.

  Coat, Damian. Now.

  And Damian grabs the ski-doo jacket off of the back of the chair where it has spent almost all afternoon, and even as John rushes Roger through the restaurant toward the door he’s explaining in cool tones that the customer is not always right in his restaurant.

  He is always right in his restaurant.

  And no one calls a member of his wait staff a faggot, least of all a skeet with rock hanging out of his face. And John is giving a small speech on respecting human dignity as he moves past Iris.

  She could not fucking roll her eyes back in her head farther.

  * * *

  George is charmed by the scene.

  She had stood horrified over by the linen vestibule holding folded cloth napkins in a stack between both palms. Transfixed by the language. The man’s sharp descriptors came as no surprise. His nature held firm to everything George presupposed about the class of people that caused scenes such as this in dining rooms such as these.

  Raw skeet, she had thought when she walked past the table hours earlier.

  The actress’s partner was wiping her eyes with his shirt sleeve as the other man gathered up phones and keys and things before heading out the door. The scorned-looking one did not make eye contact with the lady in red, who begged feebly for him to please not be mad at her as he walked toward the hostess station.

  This too made no sense to George at all.

  Why in heaven’s name would this sober, sensible-­looking woman request forgiveness from the wastage that was nearly too cockeyed to manoeuvre around the other seated diners? Clearly it was he who should be ashamed of himself. And yet it was the sister who was repenting. Absurd.

  The evening could be saved, though. The energy in the room could be righted with a little change in music. So George returned the music to the previous playlist, which was much more appropriate anyway. Ben knew nothing about setting the mood. No wonder he was still single. “Anyone’s Ghost” settled the room and people returned to eating before their food got cold.

  John had behaved right gallant, which made George feel vindicated for the day.

  It had been hard to give up her library. But her father had assured her it was the only way to recoup the loss while saving face. He and the Mayor would announce the casino development and the new restaurant in the same breath. No one would ever have to know that John had run The Hazel into the ground. They would say they were closing up for renovations and repay the debt to Canada Revenue while claiming transition.

  The whole of town would be consumed by the heritage houses coming down.

  No one would notice that The Hazel did not reopen. Then they would call the casino resto Georgina’s and people would love the feeling of rolling the word over their tongues. It would make them feel at home and comfortable but also brand new and young again. It wouldn’t matter in the least that it was inside of a warehouse of gambling where once history stood. They were rewriting history.

  It would be a destination, Big George said, and the Mayor agreed after attempting to disagree.

  Big George had steadied Major David’s opinions with a quick reference to having bought a house one could not afford. There would be no disputes from City Hall. So it was that the riddle fence admired for a century on a hilly heritage plot went from becoming a restored Victorian library from George’s dreamy vantage to a casino of her father’s magisterial design. George felt shortchanged even with her dad’s rebranding.

  But she still had John. And she would have a family, so her happiness remained visible.

  Iris hates how happy George looks watching John deal with the drunken man.

  It is not a right feeling to have. To hate another person’s pride. Loathe their joy. Everyone knows that these are not right feelings even while having them. But you cannot help them. Iris looks down at herself. The little white half-pinafore George insists she wear has a strawberry stain on it from leaning against the bar to reach up for the wine glasses. George doesn’t wear a pinny. Iris examines her dress underneath. She will always think of it as her emancipation dress. She wished she had known this upon dressing herself this morning. She would have chosen something more flattering to leave him. But she did not know she would end up here today. She is not even supposed to be here.

  She was only meant to be going to the bank to pay her cellphone bill. Which she has not done. She reaches into her purse and is comforted by the little glow before recollecting that this is no kind of insurance against disconnection. She has to call someone to see if the call will make its way through the network. But she doesn’t even know who to call. She calls Ben. Ben won’t mind. Ben is a nice man. When women call him, he answers his phone.

  But he will not receive any calls from Iris tonight because her call has been rerouted to her network provider so she hangs up.

  There is no point in begging them to turn her phone back on until her debt is paid, and she has no way to do that. Her credit cards are at home. And maxed out. Iris looks down at this tiny hurt monster that has been used to harness her and vows to never turn it back on. She will start over. Get a different number. This is what women do, right? When men don’t respect their boundaries. They set up roadblocks. Wall themselves in. Access denied.

  Iris is mesmerized watching Ben cut more citrus and wishing she liked him. Wishing it had not been John that she had liked. Maybe John would have left her be if she had been dating Ben. Or maybe if she wore hideous clothing. Or maybe or maybe . . .

  Or maybe nothing.

  John would fuck forbidden fruit wrapped in a soiled liquor store bag. In all instances, in every scenario, what a woman wears is irrelevant.

  What Iris got on don’t matter at all. At all. And Iris knows this, but the words John whispers into her ears have lodged themselves in her brain and she worries she will have to scrape herself of every syllable crusted onto her box lid. Each and every one delivered like naughty take-away from John Fisher’s handsome mouth. John knows well what manipulates her.

  Though sometimes when John cries, Iris softly thinks, fuck your crocodile tears, buddy.

  This time. The next time. Whenever George is out of town. Sometimes when she isn’t. Ouch. That stings. Overlap is upsetting. It makes everyone feel yucky. But who is gross? Is it grosser for Iris who knows? Or George who doesn’t? Or is it maybe, just maybe, grosser for the man
who moves between bodies like there is nothing a quick shower and shampoo can’t fix? Made new again every time he runs his head under the warm tap. Shakes the water clear, towels his abs off and wipes the stream from the mirror to survey his stance.

  A few side flexes. To the right. The left. Everything is okay. He is still hot. John will be fine.

  They may not be, all the ones in his wake, but John manages to get up and go go go.

  And yes, Iris opened the door. Continued to open the door. Stood in the dim hallway light in her nightdress. A girl-woman wearing a light pink knee-length gown with white piping around the collar. This nightdress will go missing later. But this night, this night she remembers now during her new reckoning where she watches John’s wife watch John, on this night she was wearing it and panties covered in light gold stars.

  You’re a star, Iris. You’re a fucking star, you are.

  John wants nothing to do with real girl-woman Iris. He wants the picture he painted in his head earlier while listening to Ben confess his feelings over pints of local lager that John will mark as spillage later and blame on the staff. Doesn’t matter which. Iris is a good candidate. His wife believes she’s an alcoholic anyway. George will believe anything. John has mixed half-truths with bold-faced lies deliciously. And now there is nothing he couldn’t tell her. John can convince women what they’re seeing is not what they’re seeing. He is that good at lying. He has had so much practice. He will put whomever in whatever place he wants. And some nights it was Iris he wanted to put in place.

  Go put on my shirt, he said.

  And she had. The blue one hanging on her door atop her matching dress. Under his favourite tie. Left hanging there since they had attended the Restaurant Association party months before. Left hanging there because they both liked to wake up and see it hanging there. Or at least Iris did. It shone out at her blue when she opened her eyes. A beacon of reality proclaiming that she wasn’t crazy. Look, here on the door is tangible textile proof that this is happening. She was not crazy. Is not crazy. Or blind.

  Iris is seeing things now.

  George is counting the candles on the bar again. She told Iris earlier there were not enough to turn the tables over thrice. Iris, who had been manning the book as the cancellations rang in, said they would likely not need as many candles as anticipated. Iris had motioned at the corner picture window that had long gone white.

  Because of the storm, she said. There was no chance they would have walk-ins enough to make up the cancellations. To which George responded that it was possible. Nothing else was open. But, but there’s a blizzard, Iris tried again. We shouldn’t even be here.

  You don’t decide that though, do you?

  And she was right. Iris didn’t decide that or anything. They all just fucking acted upon her. And she had searched the room for Damian’s eyes. He owed her. He would rescue her from this conversation. But Damian was busy recovering from the baymen who had been clearly doing cocaine in the bathroom all evening. They had reeked of bathroom adhesive. Everyone could tell they were high. They had a peculiar look about them. Rabid and speedy. Overly suspicious of Damian.

  Are you paying attention to me, Iris? I asked you a question.

  And Iris had not been paying attention to George then but she sure as hell was paying attention to her now. This was gory stuff and Iris wished a man with a chainsaw would finally saw her in half.

  George had wanted to know what her plan had been if there hadn’t been a storm.

  They would have needed the not nearly enough candles then. She was insisting that Iris should have made more. She was questioning Iris’s lack of forethought. And Iris wanted so badly to say how sorry she was that there aren’t enough candles. George advised them to burn the candles to the wicks to preserve ambience. They were only wasting wax the way they burned them now, barely half burned out. And Iris tried to caution it was because the glass jars purchased in bulk from the dollar store did not hold up to the heat. But George did not heed her and said it would be fine to burn them down tonight. So Iris let it be as she had no fight left in her for atmospheric lightness.

  Iris cannot even tell George something to her face.

  George is here this evening to fix everything and Iris is so fucking angry at this woman. She blames George. She looks across the dining room and she blames her. It is George’s fault. She let this happen. She keeps letting this happen. John can do whatever he likes to Iris while everyone pretends he is doing nothing to her. Even his wife. And trying to not cry at work is every woman’s nightmare since women entered the workforce.

  Iris bites down on the whole of her bottom lip and wills herself to not remember.

  That night Iris had turned on her heels, walked back into her bedroom, pulled the pink nightgown warm with sleep over her head before pulling John’s blue shirt down over her. She felt small in this much larger shirt. She didn’t think about what she was doing. She just did as she was told. In fact, she liked doing what she was told. It was a relief. And she walked out into that pool of dim hallway light dressed in John’s fantasy and stood in front of him as he looked her top to tail smacking his drunken lips like a shipwrecked sailor finally ashore. And he stepped toward her, mere steps, and placed one arm around her neck, sweeping her curls into his large left hand while he placed the whole of his right hand over her pubis, cupping her pussy entirely, his four fingers curved against the curve of her before hooking her up onto her tiptoes and whispering into her right ear, so close she could feel the moist word on her lobe.

  Mine.

  Just that. Up. Higher on her toes.

  Mine.

  Give that some space while Iris tries to keep her feet on the ground.

  Mine.

  Not I love you.

  Mine.

  Not I was thinking of you.

  Mine.

  Not even I wanted to see you.

  Mine.

  John forgot all the trappings of romantic relationship he had used to wrap Iris up in pretend love feelings.

  You’re ruined now for other men.

  In that moment a fissure cracked through and formed inside her as his hand hook lifted her high up by the cunt.

  I’ve ruined you.

  He told her this again and repeatedly just after she climaxed when there were no border guards standing to deflect his whispered assault and so the words just snuck in, took up residence in her heart.

  Ruined. Ruined, she thought with sweat still in the small of her back.

  Iris would never sleep soundly next to him again. And that night, after he had satiated himself, Iris would pick up that same phone that John used to harass her and point it at that door still housing that dress and that tie. The shirt now a wrecked victim on the floor. She will point that phone of hers at this sight that she sees every day and she will take another photograph. Iris will text that photograph to Jo in the middle of the night and these new photos that come in after dark will exist as an unspoken dialogue between the two estranged women consisting of one word: insurance.

  That is the sinister admission no one was ready to voice.

  Iris knows then, already, very early on, that there is something seriously wrong going on and she is unsure if she will make it out okay. Even after they’ve stopped speaking to each other, Iris adds to the conversation in photos because she knows she is in trouble. John and George are older and wealthier, a powerful couple with influential friends. Iris is young and poor, a single nobody with very little and no one now that she has alienated everyone who cared for her. John and George can’t even take Iris’s power because she has
none.

  Some women have so little power, it is laughable.

  John would laugh at her while saying her name. Iris, Iris, Iris don’t cry.

  He would laugh when she burned his cookbooks, page by page, in the sink.

  He would laugh when she cut up his whites to scrub the bile-covered bathroom floor.

  He would laugh at her because aren’t women funny? Not funny intentionally like a good comedian. But you know, funny. John would offer this malicious nonsense unsolicited to further solidify Iris’s failings as a woman and a human. Because the implication, effectively implied, is that Iris is guilty. If George was innocent of all and everything, then that means Iris is guilty. Though there is a small feeling in the grimy pit of Iris, well beyond the excavators and heavy machinery, that this is not wholly true bedrock John is slyly propping her on.

  Feeling the ground shift within her made Iris feel thoroughly groundless.

  This was what fuelled John further and helped him poison Iris against herself in piecemeal. What was worse than this was the uneasy fact that Iris was well aware of what she was ingesting daily. There is nothing so tragic as a woman aware a man is filling her full of toxins while remaining powerless to stop it. It is a grotesque poisoning.

  John loves Iris best when she is sick and bleeding. He cannot resist fucking an open wound. It was titillating to screw her through a fever. Or when she had drunk herself slurry.

  I don’t want to be with you this way. You have to respect my boundaries. Stop making excuses for your shitty behaviour. This is not fair. It is not right. Fine. Go be with your wife. Just be with her then if you want to be with her. Leave me alone. You have to just leave me alone. I don’t want to be treated like this anymore. You will always treat me this way. Please leave. Never come back. Don’t try to contact me. Respect what I am saying. I don’t accept your apology. Stop saying you’re sorry. Just be a better man. Make better choices. Jesus, John. Just leave it. Leave it be. Just leave me alone.