by Paul Flower
The day after she’d told him that story, Mom’d talked about all the bad Dad did—about him being lazy and abusive, she called it. For the first time she talked about the gun she’d hidden and how it was already loaded. She told Jesse how she always relied on him for everything. She relied on him to think for her when she was tired and having a spell. She relied on him to wake up Dad when he was sleeping it off. She relied on him to keep Elvis in line. Now she needed him for this, for taking care of the man. She’d said it in a way that made him feel special. Now Jesse closed his eyes and pictured the gun aimed at Mom. He felt like he was going to puke, so he pictured aiming it at Dad.
She was right.
He could do it. He should do it. Nobody would ever know. No one would ever think too-tall Jesse, dumbnut Elvis’ twin brother, could kill a man. Jesse could see how dumb they’d look—everybody in town—if he did the killing and got away with it. Stupid, that’s how they’d look, standing there at the Dairy Queen and the post office when he walked in, a boy man-killer all normal looking, a perfect little angel. They’d look real real stupid and Mom would look proud.
The more he thought about it, the cooler it seemed that he’d make Mom proud. He couldn’t think of a time when she’d been proud of him.
Jesse’s face, a long, somber kid-face split by a nose that seemed too big for everything else, twisted into a crooked smile. He stretched, touching the end of the bed with his toes, and ran a hand over his butched-off brown hair. The idea of killing a man suddenly wasn’t an idea at all. It was a thing he was honest-to-Pete going to do today, doggone it; something as normal, natural and okay as Honeycomb cereal for breakfast and the sound a baseball card makes when it’s clothespinned to the spokes on your bike. It was something he had to do because he was the real man of the house. It was his job. The smile grew bigger as he watched a fly crawling across the crack in the ceiling. He imagined killing the fly and, as he did, he felt something different, something humming in his chest, like electricity was arcing over his heart, moving back and forth from lung to lung. It wasn’t a bad feeling at all.
Jesse swiped at the fly and grinned when he felt the thing tickling his palm, trying to get away. He let his fist fall to the mattress and kept it clenched, fighting the urge to crush the fly and the competing urge to let it go. He turned on his side and, with his free hand, flipped on the transistor radio that hung on his bedpost. Larry Lujack in Chicago was talking about the weather being hazy, hot and humid. Lujack started talking up the next song. It was The Beatles’ new one, “Strawberry Fields Forever,” the record Jesse wanted to buy.
Jesse let the fly go, snapped off the radio and slid off the bed.
Usually, he liked to be careful when he got ready. He had a thing about looking neat. That’s what Mom called it: a thing. But this morning was different. This morning he had a job to do. He tore off his pajamas, folded them sloppily and threw them in his drawer, telling himself he’d come back later to straighten them. He dressed in a rush, putting on his cut-off blue jeans, an old shirt, socks and PF Flyer tennis shoes. He did take an extra second or two to tuck in the shirt; he hated having it hanging out. Then he glanced at himself in the mirror and grinned. She was right. Heck yeah. She was right.
****
He usually hated the way the house smelled on muggy days. But that morning, the stink of cigarettes, cat pee and lousy housekeeping had been replaced by the smells of good things: bacon, sausage, eggs and coffee. It was like Dad was already gone; the house and life were better already.
Mom was bent over the kitchen table, her back to him. Jesse crept up behind her, shuffling quietly across the yellow, cracked linoleum, thinking he was going to yell, “BWAAM!” and scare her.
Mom whirled, her eyes wild, and jabbed a dirty table knife at him. “Haven’t I told you what time breakfast is?”
Jesse was already taller than Mom, but somehow she made him feel smaller. “Yes, Mom, you told me. I was just...” His voice came out squeaky.
“Then why’d you sleep through it? You sick? Or you getting lazy like every other man around here?”
“Sorry.” The word fell out of his mouth.
“I ain’t got all day to wait for you. I’m busy and I have things to take care of, you understand?” She pressed the knife into his nose. Jesse smelled eggs. “You don’t get nothing now, you hear me?”
“Yeah, Mom.” He didn’t care. His stomach was squirming.
“Don’t you never, never do that again,” she said, some of the edge coming off her voice.
“I won’t, Mom. Promise.”
Tears glistened on the rims of her eyes. “‘Course you won’t, baby,” she said softly. She started to turn back to the table.
Now, Jesse thought. Make it up to her. “I... I thought about what we’ve been talking about,” he said carefully.
Mom froze, holding a plastic plate smeared with egg yoke.
“I... let’s...” He didn’t know how to say it.
Mom put down the plate softly, like it was a fresh, unbroken egg. She put the knife on the plate, turned and smiled. “You want to show me what kind of man you are.” She stated it softly, nodding her head and expecting him to do the same.
“Yeah,” Jesse said hoarsely.
“Oh baby, that’s great, baby,” Mom said. She put a hand softly to each side of his face. The hands were cold and quivering. “You going to make your mom proud?” Her voice squeaked. The eyes, black pellets, searched his eyes, her brain reaching into his, scouring it, looking for doubt. Jesse felt his knees going to Silly Putty, but he held the gaze—buck up. She let go of him suddenly and hurried from the room. “I’ll be right back, honey.”
Jesse swallowed hard. His hands felt slimy; he wiped them on his shorts as he wandered to the little window over the sink. From the foyer, he heard the closet door shutting.
His eyes roved among the dirty dishes on the counter. Next to the black-iron frying pan there was a pink plastic bowl with a little milk in the bottom and a couple yellow Sugar Pops stuck to the inside near the rim. The bowl was glued to the plate by a smear of yellow egg yolk. He saw himself as the sheriff again, bringing the man the Sugar Pops and eggs, letting him fill his stomach before he took him out in the street and shot him.
“Here it is,” Mom whispered, sending prickles up his back.
Jesse turned. She was just inside the arched entry into the kitchen, holding something behind her back, part of the thing showing above her right shoulder. It looked like two black pipes welded together. He swallowed his disappointment. He’d thought the barrel would be shiny; that the gun would be smaller too—at least like the Winchesters he’d seen on TV. On TV, guys were always using sleek, easy-to-handle Winchesters.
“Well, come on now,” Mom said, a pained expression on her face. “If we’re going to do it today, we got us a lot of work to do, so we best get started.”
Jesse had meant to ease into this thing. But Mom was bringing the clunky gun around from behind her and laying it across his sweating palms. He heard the doors of escape slamming behind him.
Maybe not today, Mom. Slam.
Let’s think about another gun. Slam.
Let’s talk through this once more. Slam.
What about while he’s in bed, sleeping? Slam.
Could you give me a second? I have to go to the bathroom. Slam.
Slam. Slam. Slam. Slam. Slam.
He was suddenly above himself, floating, watching this boy, Jesse Icabone, boy-sheriff, kneeing the back door open and slipping into the yard, squinting against the glare of the sun, an ugly black-double-barreled gun gripped awkwardly in his hands. Jesse couldn’t hear the birds singing or the wind in the trees. There was a humming in his ears, a humming that sounded like angels, something God might like to hear. The hum grew inside him, mixing with the flutter of wings, a million dove wings, he thought, the music of heaven, rising in his chest.<
br />
He’d expected to circle around to the front yard and sneak up on the man, but what was this? The idiot was in the backyard, right in front of him, not twenty yards away. He was bent over, his back to the house, fussing with the stupid lawnmower. Had he heard the door? Of course he had, but he wasn’t looking. The stupid jerk had no idea what was coming. He couldn’t hear the angels singing louder and louder, the doves beating their wings to the music in Jesse’s head. He couldn’t see the gun, even this huge, stupid gun.
Hurry, hurry, Jesse whispered to himself, tears suddenly running in hot rivers down his cheeks. The angels and doves were hurting his head now; they were loud, too too loud. He shuffled to within just ten yards—an easy shot at the back of this man, this dumb idiot man. Jesse watched the gun come up, squinted against the pain of the music and the birds, all the stupid birds. Then, without warning, the man shifted his weight and his shaggy-haired head began to turn. No, no, Jesse’s thoughts screamed down to the Self in the yard. Don’t let him move. Don’t.
Jesse turned and let the gun drop behind him. The angels and doves evaporated. He was no longer above himself, watching. He was there, in the backyard, wiping wildly at the tears.
“What’s up, par’ner?” The man had turned completely.
Jesse looked to his feet. The dandelions, buckhorn and grass were tall and the gun was behind him; the man couldn’t see it clearly, at least Jesse thought he couldn’t.
Hurry. Think fast. Jesse glanced up, still wiping at his face. “Oh, nothing. Just um... just going hunting with the BB gun. Got something in my eye, though.”
About fifty yards away, over the man’s shoulder, something—someone?—darted through the woods that bordered the yard. Twigs snapped. The man was putting down his tools and starting to stand. “Want me to help you out, bud—with that eye, I mean?”
Jesse glanced to the man, to his own feet, to the woods. There was something in the man’s voice, something that sounded funny. And who was in the woods? This was all wrong, all horribly, terribly wrong. “Um, ah, no,” he said, wiping at the eye. “I got it. I got it out, I think.”
The man frowned, his eyes clouding. He opened his mouth, acting like he was going to say something important, paused, seemed to reconsider, then he gave Jesse a tight little smile.
“Suit yourself,” the man said, then turned and settled back to work.
Jesse looked to the woods. There was a cough from behind him. Jesse turned. The back door was open a little; Mom stood just inside, her face was hazy and distorted by the screen and the shadows. With a rush of shame, Jesse picked up the gun, swung it to his shoulder and wheeled. Yes, he thought, yes. The man’s back was to him; he was squatting in his tight-fitting jeans, his white T-shirt riding up his skinny back, showing a pale stretch of skin above the belt and just an inch or so of the dirty waistband on his underwear. The stupid, simple idiot didn’t have any idea.
Jesse sighted down the barrel at the man at the skin above the underwear. She was right, Jesse thought to himself. She was right.
“Jess. Please. Don’t. Please no.” The voice was so quiet, Jesse could barely believe it had come from the man. “Please, bud, no,” he said again, his voice reaching out and squeezing Jesse’s heart.
Jesse paused, his fingers frozen on the triggers of the shotgun. The shaggy-haired head turned again. The skinny back, Jesse’s target, twisted away. The eyes, the blue-gray eyes that looked so much like Jesse’s and Elvis’ came around and locked on his. The face, long and narrow with a big hooked nose, was sad and hurt and something else, angry maybe. Jesse had never seen his father like this. No. His father opened his mouth to speak again. Jesse could see the word in his eyes: Please.
No.
BWAAM.
Chapter Three
Jesse had been knocked to his back by the kick of the gun.
He struggled to his feet, grimacing against the hollow ache in his shoulder and trying to force the air back in his lungs. For a few seconds, everything was hazy. The events of the morning shuffled through his brain in no predictable order; flashes of images overlapped and careened past one another. Nothing had gone the way he’d figured it would. He closed his eyes, but the world kiltered and swayed, so he opened them again.
“WHHHHY? WHYYYYYYY?” The voice from the woods, half-whisper and half-scream, swirled around the yard on the dirty breeze. Jesse’s knees nearly buckled again. It sounded weird—unreal—a fake voice from a movie or something, and it quivered down his back like a wiggle of electricity. Jesse took a step as though to leave, to run, get away, but he stopped himself, eyes cloudy, frowning. Wait, he thought, wait. No. Get a grip.
He turned and looked at his father. The face, the pasty-gray face, was so twisted with pain that it punched Jesse’s gut. Then the tortured death dance began, and Jesse felt himself go light, airy—empty. It reminded him of the day the week before when he’d watched the robin hatching in the gnarly apple tree at the edge of the woods. He’d shinnied up in the tree and out on this big limb, and there was the nest. The old momma robin had squawked and carried on, but Jesse had sat there, quiet and still, as the beak poked out of the pale blue shell, then the little wet head, and finally the fragile, almost-naked bird.
Watching the bird being born had been too big for words, really, or for feeling. This was like that, but bigger, awesome, unreal. Jesse stood, frozen, as the familiar head kicked against the right front wheel of the Craftsman lawnmower. The cowboy-booted feet cut muddy scars in the soft green of the yard. The man’s skinny hands clawed the air like he was trying to pull up on some magic chin-up bar to get out of the dark, deep pit he was falling into. Jesse took it all in, gawking at the way his father let his life leak away; it spouted out of him like the black-red hole in him was a break in a dam. The blood throbbed onto his white tank top T-shirt, spread down into his jeans then ran onto the ground. The angels returned, humming, humming, humming in a wild, rushing chorus that sounded like fire, musical fire, fire fanned by the wings of a million soaring doves. Jesse, killer, felt something deep and powerful rumbling in his chest, something too big for words. Then, suddenly, his dad stopped gyrating, his mouth slack, his eyes staring past the lawnmower at some point in the sky. The angels, the wings, the fire faded. There was nothing.
The screen door slammed.
Jesse Tieter, M.D., his eyes bluish-gray and empty, stared across the crowded restaurant at the idiot waitress. She’d slammed the cash drawer like she was having a bad day, like someone as backwards and simple knew what a bad day was.
****
He had come of age in Davenport, the intelligent, intense boy living the lie as his mother had concocted it, living as though his father had deserted the family and he, the bright son, had been shipped away to live with his mother’s sister and her husband. The boy who began life as Jesse Icabone from Michigan became Jesse Tieter from Iowa. In high school, he had been quiet, almost withdrawn, a brilliant young man who felt awkward in social situations, who preferred three hours in the library to two hours screwing around with other kids. Focused and hard-working, the valedictorian of his class, he had been distant with his aunt and uncle. He’d cut off most contact with them as soon as he was able to live without their financial support.
Jesse had worked his way through college and med school. During his undergrad years at the University of Iowa, he’d met the perfect girl, someone equally quiet and hard-working who didn’t expect much more than that from him. They loved each other in a quiet and reserved way. They’d married the summer after earning their degrees—his, pre-med; hers, elementary ed. Gretchen, pretty and strong-willed, had knocked on doors in Chicago, landing a job teaching Kindergarten at an inner-city school only weeks before his first semester at Northwestern. She waited tables at night. He studied.
His view of their first years together had become distorted. He recalled suppers at midnight—warmed-over pizza illuminated by a candle he’d
made in an empty milk carton—and lovemaking on the beanbag chair in front of the black-and-white TV junk-picked from the neighbor’s trash. In truth, for Gretchen, their early years had been tense and exhausting. A gifted neurosurgeon, a young and ambitious one, Jesse Tieter, M.D. had in fact focused not on candle-making or lovemaking, but on staking a claim in the medical hierarchy of Chicago. Beanbags and pizza had been a sideshow, career the main event. Jesse was intense and driven, a zealot for his own cause. Not that Gretchen regretted the results. The long study and work shifts had paid off; after completing his education and residency and shunning offers from hospitals across the country, he and a former classmate had formed Neurology Partners of the Great Lakes. The practice was now regarded as one of the Midwest’s leaders in technique and treatment.
Jesse and Gretchen had established roots in suburban Evanston, where they’d bought and sold three different homes before settling in their current one, a four-bedroom Tudor Gretchen lusted after and had jokingly called “the house we’ll die in.” They had gained a small circle of friends and Robbie, their now eight-year-old-redheaded dynamo.
Of the people who knew Jesse—never “Jess,” a name he viewed as only slightly lower in class than Jesse—Tieter, many called themselves acquaintances or colleagues. Few considered him a friend. Gretchen was gentle, kind and well-accepted, although guarded in revealing herself to others. Jesse was an enigma. A brilliant, intense workaholic with a passion for late hours and a lust for perfection. He had a brain for brains, his partner said, but not much time for people. There was something different about him, those who knew him often said. Something missing, something “you just couldn’t put your finger on.” His wife and son felt this missing thing, but in the nature of families, they had learned to live with it.