Desperate Times 2 Gun Control

by Nicholas Antinozzi

  Jimmy looked from Ken to Julie and back to Ken. “What is that supposed to mean?” he asked. “We’re not leaving, at least not until Bill is up and around.”

  “You’re right about that,” Ken said, moving roughly past Jimmy. He squatted down and he slid one of the .50 caliber cases from under the workbench. “Don’t you even think of leaving us stuck here with that tub of shit. Wherever you go, he goes. Are we clear on that?”

  “As a bell,” Julie said.

  “Good,” replied Ken.

  There was a long, awkward moment as Ken stopped what he was doing. His eyes fell on Jimmy. They were cold, and Jimmy returned the look with his iciest glare. “Come on, Julie,” he said. “I can see that we’re not wanted down here.”

  What hurt Jimmy worse than Ken’s silence was the fact that Wart wouldn’t look at either of them. Glen stared at them both impassively as they headed for the stairs. Jimmy knew he should let it go, but his ears were burning. As he reached for the railing, he turned and said what was on his mind. “Maybe you forgot how close we all came to being roasted alive while your buddy there held a gun on us. Are you going to show him the hand grenades, too? That’s real smart, Ken.”

  “Get up there before I hurt you,” grunted Ken, and the next sound was the scraping of the crate as it was slid across the floor and hoisted to the bench. “Like I was saying, you haven’t fired a gun until you’ve shot one of these,” Ken continued, as if Jimmy and Julie were already gone.

  They quickly climbed the stairs and found Patty and Paula working together in the kitchen. Both women were giggling at something as Jimmy opened the door. The room suddenly frosted over in silence as they continued walking around the table and out into the hallway. Jimmy looked back at Julie, and he could see the anger in her eyes. He continued walking into the living room with Julie at his heels. Cindy and Rita were sitting across from the cribbage board.

  “Did you come to finish him off?” Cindy asked, shuffling the tired deck of cards.

  “That’s not fair,” Rita said. “Your father has a way of getting under people’s skin and you know that. You should apologize to Julie.”

  Cindy’s head snapped back, and she quickly stood up to face Julie. Wordlessly, she tossed the deck of cards into the air and stormed over to the French doors. “It took him over a year to recover from his surgery,” she spat, opening the glass door. “Thanks for putting him back to square one.”

  Bill moaned painfully, as if on cue.

  Jimmy and Julie stared at each other for a long moment as the sound of the slamming door echoed off the stone fireplace. Rita stood and began gathering up the playing cards. “She’s been very emotional since she got back. She was in love. You both know that, right?”

  Julie shrugged her shoulders and turned to face the window. The sun was shining, and water droplets fell from the eaves. “I think I need to get out of here for a while,” she said, rubbing her eyes with her back to Jimmy. “Could we go for a walk?”

  “I’d love to go for a walk,” Rita said, cheerfully. “That’s a wonderful idea. Let me go find my jacket and boots.”

  Jimmy bent down and helped Rita pick up the last of the cards. He wondered at how much things could change in a single day. He could hear Julie’s quiet sobs as he handed Rita the cards he’d gathered. Doc’s face appeared from the other side of the French doors, and his expression was grim. He looked at Jimmy and sadly shook his head.

  Jimmy slung Jon’s Browning .308 over his shoulder as they walked out the back door. March had arrived some weeks ago, and the warm sunshine felt good on his cheeks. Rita led the way as they walked down the shoveled path to the gate. Rita wore her bright red ski jacket and a pair of earmuffs, although she probably didn’t need them in the forty-degree warmth. Julie had her wool-lined Levis jacket on over a pair of Steger Mukluks. Jimmy liked the way she looked, and his eyes lingered on her as she slowly walked in front of him. A slight breeze toyed with her long hair.

  “Please don’t hold what Cindy said against her,” Rita said. “She’s just a child, and she’s very emotional right now.”

  “I know that,” replied Julie. “I just hope she knows how sorry I am. I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

  “Everyone knows that,” Jimmy said, grunting as he slid the heavy lock open on the gate.

  “She’s a good kid,” Rita said, pushing against the pine logs of the gate. “Don’t let a bad moment ruin a good friendship. She’s just heartbroken right now.”

  “I know,” Julie said.

  Rita got the gate open far enough to walk through and stepped to the other side. “What a glorious day,” she said, and half a second later she was flung back as the sound of a gunshot exploded from somewhere very close.

  Jimmy reached Julie and grabbed her by the shoulder as she mindlessly tried to aid Rita. Another gunshot sounded, and Jimmy heard it thud against one of the pine logs. Julie screamed in terror. Rita had been shot in the head, and she was dead where she lay in the snow. Jimmy watched her body twitch as he slammed the gate shut with his shoulder.

  “Help me!” he screamed at Julie.

  The gate was peppered with a hail of gunfire as they shoved it closed and frantically fought with the heavy lock. Jimmy barely had time to think as the garage door was flung open and Ken emerged, carrying one of the .50 caliber weapons. “What the hell is going on?” he shouted, his voice barely audible over the barking gunfire. Wart and Glen followed him as he ran out to join them at the gate.

  “They killed Rita!” shrieked Julie. “Oh, my God, they shot her in the head!”

  Jimmy took Julie by the shoulders and shook her violently. “Get up to the house and get me one of the M-16’s! Bring me as many clips as you can carry!”

  “But, Rita…”

  “Rita is dead and we can’t do anything for her!”

  “Move it!” screamed Ken. “Kid, we’ve got to get up on the wall. How many do you think there are?”

  “Shit, I don’t know!” Jimmy screamed as another hail of gunfire erupted from the woods.

  “Drop your guns,” Glen said flatly, stepping behind Ken and placing the barrel of a stubby handgun to the base of Ken’s skull. “One wrong move and he gets it,” he growled at Jimmy.

  “Kill him!” screamed Ken. “Kill him or we’re all dead!”

  “If I had wanted you dead I would have killed you already,” Glen said as the gunfire outside trailed off. “We don’t want to kill anyone. and somebody is going to have hell to pay for killing Rita. She was a nice lady. Now, drop ‘em, both of you!”

  Ken let the big gun fall from his hands in the snow, and Jimmy felt his heart break as he did the same. Wart stood looking at him with his mouth wide open, and Julie’s eyes blazed with hatred.

  “Why?” asked Ken, his eyes glazed over with both shock and pain. “How could you do this to us?”

  “Why?” mimicked Glen. “I’ll tell you why. It’s because you’re such a complete idiot. Let’s get something straight here. I’ve never liked you, and Shirley can’t stand Patty. You know what it is, Ken? It’s all that holier-than-thou bullshit. Do you really think that you’re part of Team-God? You’re just a lucky son-of-a-bitch. You ain’t no better than me or Pete or any of the rest of the boys down at the Plant. You also got Pete and a lot of other folks killed. Don’t think that I forgot about that.”

  “Listen asshole, I didn’t get anyone killed.”

  “The hell you didn’t. None of that matters anymore. It’s all water under the bridge. We’re taking over. And if you don’t make any trouble, we’ll be nice enough to let you stay. You don’t have the balls to run an outfit like this. We’ve got to be proactive. Things have changed, Ken. You’ve got to kill or be killed. This is survival of the fittest and being all nicey-nice is just sticking everyone’s neck out there. I may well be an asshole, but who is holding the gun?”

  “You son of a bitch,” Jimmy spat. “I’ll kill you for this.”

  “You know what, Logan?” Glen said, as he hammered the
butt of his revolver against the back of Ken’s skull. “I never liked you.”

  Ken crumpled to the ground and Jimmy heard the sound of Patty screaming from the deck.

  “No,” Julie said, in a pleading voice. “Don’t do it, Glen.”

  “Open the gate, Glen!” shouted a very familiar voice from the other side of the wall.

  “I’m getting to it,” Glen hollered back.

  “Jenkins!” Jimmy shouted. “You bastard!”

  “Kill him!” Jenkins answered from where he stood. “Go on, Putnam, kill the little creep!”

  Glen spat and he turned his gun on Jimmy. His eyes shone with maniacal triumph as he stepped closer. He stopped less than five feet away with his gun trained on Jimmy’s forehead. “I’m getting there,” he shouted. “Gather everyone up and meet me at the gate!” He then turned to Jimmy. “Look at you now. The boxer with the quickest hands in the state, is that right? Go ahead and show us all how fast you are. Go ahead and go for your gun, I promise not to shoot until your hand touches the steel. Seriously, that way nobody can say it wasn’t a fair fight.”

  “No!” screamed Julie.

  “Shut up, bitch,” hissed Glen. “Or you’ll be the next to eat a bullet. Go ahead and say good-bye to your boyfriend.”

  Ken stirred, and it distracted Glen for just a second. Jimmy saw his chance and took it. Julie screamed as Glen refocused on Jimmy and pulled the trigger. The shot missed Jimmy’s left ear by less than an inch, and Jimmy froze with his hand hovering above the stock of the hunting rifle. He knew he was seconds away from death, and he prayed that it wasn’t painful.

  There was another gunshot, and Glen’s head suddenly exploded in splash of blood and gray matter. He fell face forward into the gore-splattered snow as Julie continued to scream. Jimmy turned to face the deck. Doc stood there with one of Ken’s hunting rifles. Smoke still trailed from the barrel. Doc dropped the gun to his side and let it fall from his hands to the wooden decking at his feet. “The Lord works in mysterious ways,” he announced to nobody in particular. He turned and slowly walked back into the house.

  “Glen?” called Jenkins.

  “He’s dead!” answered Jimmy. “You’d better run!”

  “You’re full of shit! Glen, what’s goin’ on in there?”

  “He’s dead, all right,” answered Wart. “His brains are blown all over the gate. I hope the two of you weren’t buddies.”

  “I’ll kill you all for that,” retorted Jenkins. “We were going to let you live, but that offer is over! We’ve got a hundred guns out here. Do you hear me? Your days are numbered!”

  “Bring it on!” shouted Wart. “I eat punks like you for breakfast!”

  Jimmy turned just as Julie sped past him. She had scooped up the .308 and was scrambling up the ladder to the walkway that ran the length of the wall. Jimmy gasped when in total disregard for her own safety, Julie threw the barrel of the rifle over the top of the wall and quickly began squeezing rounds off from the semiautomatic hunting rifle. Jimmy heard men screaming from the other side of the wall as she aimed and fired, aimed and fired, and from the sound of it, doing it as well as any professionally trained soldier. Gunfire was returned, but not before Julie emptied her clip and ducked back down behind the wall. Jimmy pumped his fist and ran toward the open garage door.

  “Grab me a can of ammo for this .50-cal!” shouted Wart. “I’m going up!”

  Patty was already down the stairs and tending to Ken who was already sitting up. Blood ran down from an angry gash on the side of his head. Patty held him in her arms and wept into his neck. Jimmy ran into the garage and crashed through the service door that led into the basement. There was a thundering report from the .50 caliber, followed quickly by another. Jimmy took a hard right into the oily light of the workshop. He squatted down where he thought the ammo cans for the big guns were stored. What he found was an olive green case and quickly fumbled with the latches. He smiled when he saw the content—it was the hand grenades. He filled his pockets with as many as he could carry. The ammo cans for the .50 calibers were way back in the corner, and Jimmy hefted one in each hand. The heavy cans seemed to stretch his shoulders, and he moved back toward the garage. The M-16’s were standing next to the door, and Jimmy set the cans down quickly and slung two of the carbines over his shoulders. He picked up the ammo cans and headed out the door. Gunfire seemed to be coming from everywhere.

  Wart caught Jimmy’s eye as he exited the open garage door into the sunlight. He waved at him, pointing at the smoking barrel of his weapon. Jimmy quickly crab-walked across the slushy snowpack; he didn’t want to risk a fall, not with a pocketful of hand grenades. Splinters of the wall were sent flying when bullets struck the seams where the logs met. He positioned himself under Wart and set one of the cans down in the snow. He then heaved up on the can he still held, and Wart took it from him. They wordlessly repeated the process.

  Jimmy was suddenly violently pulled back and nearly lost his balance. He turned to see Ken standing behind him, both of his hands wrapped around one of the M-16’s.

  “Goddamn it! Give me one of these!” Ken screamed.

  Jimmy quickly unslung the carbine in question, and Ken roared with anger as he scrambled up the makeshift ladder.

  “Give me the other one!” Julie shouted from further down the wall. “Hurry!” Jimmy ran to Julie and after a microsecond’s hesitation unslung the other M-16 and handed it up to her. Julie took the oiled-black weapon from him and in one fluid motion flipped the carbine to full auto and calmly sprayed the woods with deadly fire.

  Jimmy felt naked without a gun, and he gave a thought to returning to the garage for another of the M-16’s. He suddenly remembered the hand grenades.

  “I need more ammo!” shouted Julie as the wall above her was riddled with bullets.

  Jimmy fumbled for one of the grenades and finally was able to coax one from his jacket pocket. He studied it for a moment and quickly decided that a child could detonate a grenade.

  “Give it to me!” squealed Julie, a wild smile playing at the corners of her lips. “Please!”

  Jimmy carefully tossed her the grenade. “The rest are mine!” he shouted and ran to where most of the hostile fire was coming from. Jimmy decided that Jenkins hadn’t been kidding; it sounded like he had more than a hundred guns, or a whole lot more. He tore another grenade from his pocket and pulled the pin. A second later it was flying over the wall. Julie’s grenade exploded before Jimmy’s had even hit the ground. The sound of both grenades detonating mere seconds apart was deafening in the midday sunshine. The next sounds were the most horrible that Jimmy had ever heard. The shrill screams of wounded men filled the air, and the gunfire abruptly came to a halt. The terrible screaming continued, and Jimmy suddenly felt shame for what he had done. Somehow, despite the circumstances, it didn’t seem fair to use such a weapon. He was thinking about what Doc had said about the grenades, and the memory burned like acid in his stomach.

  “Permission to gather our wounded!” Jenkins cried in his northern-hillbilly voice.

  “Permission granted!” Ken shouted back. “Get those people out of here!”

  Jimmy felt an arm around his shoulder and looked over to see Patty. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she was smiling. The smell of gunpowder hung thick in the air. “You did what you had to do,” she said as if she had read his mind. “They attacked us, and we have to remember that.”

  “I know. Thanks, Patty.”

  “Now, will you do me a favor?”

  “Sure, what do you need?”

  “Could you drag Glen around back and clean up his mess?”

  Jimmy looked at Glen’s lifeless body lying face-down in the snow. He nodded and gave Patty a quick hug. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Thank you. Keep an eye on Ken for me, will you? I’m going back in the house. I have some questions for Miss Paula, and she had darn well better give me the right answers. I’m in no mood for any monkey business. I’ll se
e what I can find out, and then Rita and I can get started on dinner. Are you hungry? Would you like me to fix you a sandwich?”

  Jimmy shook his head. “Listen Patty,” he said. “I’ve got some bad news about Rita.”

  “She joined up with the other side,” lied Ken from his post at the wall. “I think she had a thing for one of the guys over there.”

  “That’s right,” agreed Julie. “She ran off just before the shooting started. I’m sorry, Patty.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Wart.

  “Keep your mouth shut and your eyes on the woods!” ordered Ken. “Let us handle this.”

  “Yes sir,” said Wart, rolling his large eyes and turning to peer over the top of the wall.

  “Well,” exclaimed Patty, “that certainly wasn’t very nice of her to leave without even a goodbye. What about her things? Do you know what I think? I think I’m going to set a new rule. Once you leave here, there is no coming back. Look at the trouble Glen and Paula started.”