The Shotgun Rule

by Charlie Huston

  Dreams where soldiers attack their house and he sneaks around with a toy gun that shoots real bullets and he kills them all. Moments in the middle of the day where he’s by himself doing homework and suddenly sees himself with a knife, walking up behind some jock who picked on him in school and sticking it in his eye while he’s talking to his jock friends and then just going crazy and cutting them all up. Things inside his head that he doesn’t know where they come from and he can’t tell anyone because they scare him so much.

  He looks into the bowl. Apples are the most likely. He closes his eyes and reaches into the bowl. Apple. He drops it back in the bowl and fishes out a strawberry.

  He wishes George and Paul and Hector hadn’t taken off without him. Being alone sucks.

  He finishes the fruit salad, washes the bowl, and rinses his hands and wipes them on a paper towel and uses it to blow his nose.

  Making sure one more time that the guys aren’t lurking somewhere in the house waiting to ambush him and scare him shitless, he goes to the stereo and puts on Madman Across the Water, one of his mom’s favorites. He turns the volume up and goes to his room and takes out a fresh piece of graph paper.

  He starts to draw a new map, ignoring the grid of lines this time, drawing jagged twisting lines, caves and tunnels and dead ends. A labyrinth with more monsters in it for the guys.

  After a couple minutes he stops drawing and goes back in the drawer and finds the picture of Alexandra that was in Timo’s things. He looks at it, covering Te quiero, Timo with his thumb.

  “Tiny Dancer” plays in the livingroom.

  He pictures hitting Timo with a battle ax.

  ImsuchadildoImsuchadildoImsuchadildo.

  – Chester. Muchacho, it’s Geezer. Got a minute? Not bad, no complaints. Well, that’s a fucking lie, course I got complaints. Man ain’t got complaints ain’t alive. Man that can’t open his mouth to bitch is…the word? The word when someone’s out of it, asleep, knocked out, but forever? No, like that, but the other one. Someone gets hit by a hammer they go in a coma, but if the hammer hits you then you’re what? Comatose. That’s it. Man ain’t got something to bitch about, he must be comatose. Yeah, yeah, then he’d really have something to bitch about, just couldn’t, yeah. Hey, Chester, can we pass the fucking time later, I got something. A bond? Why the fuck else do I call you? Yes, a bond. A big fucking bond. Two big fucking bonds. Yeah, them. No, two. The little one is a minor, they released him to his parents. Too bad for him, what I hear he’d be better off staying in a cell. His old man’s gonna beat the shit out of him. That’s sure as hell what I’d do I was his dad. So his older brothers. Yeah, it’s a load. No. No. Tell you what, no, you just put it up. Fuck do I care that’s not the way you do business? That’s not my problem. You, no, you put up the bond. They’re not going anywhere. Only place they’re going is to do some work for me. They take off, we can talk. Till then, just bond their ass out of jail. Fuck do I care how you make money? I care about you bond the fucking Arroyos and tell them to get their asses over to my place. You worry about making money off some useless cocksucker out there who isn’t gonna have someone come in your office one night and hit you with a fucking hammer until you’re fucking comatose.

  Geezer hangs up the phone.

  Fucking people. What are they thinking some times? Guy asking him, How am I gonna make money if I don’t get my ten percent? If there was ever someone else’s problem, that’s it. Go around expecting other people to take care of your business for you, you get what you deserve.

  He should know. Look at this shit with the Arroyos. What he gets for trusting a litter of spic puppies to take care of shit in a responsible manner.

  Now it’s all about doing a job yourself if you want it done right.

  Gotta get the spics out on bond. Gotta get them over here and tell them some bullshit story about how it’s all gonna be OK. How he’s gonna set them up with a real deal lawyer who’s gonna get them off. Yeah, right. Get a bunch of spic thugs off manufacturing and possession with intent to distribute and all that other shit. Fuckers are lucky the judge set any kind of bail. So, gotta tell them that fairy tale. Then gotta have them deal with these punk kids and get the rest of the stash back and…fuck. You ever get a break? And after the kids, gotta deal with that bitch Amy Whelan sticking her tits in his area of commerce. His markets. Knew she was gonna be trouble when she started in with the pills. Thought she got the message about not expanding her product line, turns out she’s just plain stupid. Runs in that family. Seeing the experience he’s had with Whelans, should have taken that stupidity into consideration with her in the first place. Well, that shit’s gonna get sorted out with everything else. Gonna make a clean sweep of everything.

  Including the spics.

  Gonna have to take care of that before they get it through their thick spic skulls that they’re fucked for life.

  And do it all without pissing up Oakland’s tree any more than it’s been pissed up already. Fuckers don’t care to hear about legal troubles or what shit your employees drop you in, just want to see the envelopes with the dollars inside. Fuck they care a lab gets busted? Rent on the town is due, pay up. The half key the brothers say was missing from their fridge will cover it. Give some space to think, get the new lab going.

  Running your own business, is there anything worse?

  He leans as far forward as his gut will allow, puts one hand on the coffee table and the other on the edge of the couch and pushes himself to his feet, taking the grabber with him because he won’t be able to bend for it once he’s standing.

  Making a short mental list, a list that starts with gun and ends with garbage bags.

  Hector comes back to the Whelans’ with his mohawk reestablished. He hears Elton John playing but doesn’t say anything, just turns it off, tunes the radio to KSAN, and “Baby’s on Fire” comes on. He goes into Andy’s room, watches him drawing one of his dungeons, and sits on the floor and looks through a pile of old comic books until he finds one with the Guardians of the Galaxy in it.

  Andy barely notices him, rolling dice, sketching twisting lines, exploring probabilities, deep inside a world of small things.

  George and Paul get back from the record store.

  George turns off KSAN and puts the copy of British Steel he bought at the record store on the turntable. He drops the needle on “Breaking the Law” and turns it up.

  Paul goes in the kitchen and finds a pair of scissors and sits at the table and cuts the sleeves from his new shirt so his arms will show when he’s wearing it. He tosses the dismembered sleeves in the garbage and puts on the shirt and goes into the bathroom and looks in the mirror. It looks badass, the Diary of a Madman cover on the front and the picture of Ozzy lifting Randy Rhodes in the air on the back.

  He remembers how he locked himself in his room when he heard the news that Randy had died. The best guitar player to come around since Jimi, dead at twenty-five. Just wanting to sit in his room and listen to Blizzard and Madman all day long, but his dad kept knocking on the door and asking if he was OK, ruining everything. Again.

  It feels suddenly hotter in the bathroom. The spike digs between his eyes and knocks the air out of his lungs. He chokes and bends over the sink and presses his forehead against the cool countertop. The spike goes a little deeper. He fumbles with the cold water tap and sticks his head under the faucet and tries to breathe slowly as water runs over the back of his scalp and his neck. The spike pulls out, slowly.

  He stays bent at the sink for a few minutes, turns off the water, and looks at himself in the mirror, pale, red eyed, hair dripping.

  He makes sure the door is locked and drops to the floor and does a quick set of pushups and looks at himself in the mirror again with his chest and arms pumped.

  Badass.

  They hang around the house until it’s too hot to stand it and then they ride to the bowling alley and blow a joint out back and go inside and eat lunch at the counter and play some video games. Andy mostly watching be
cause he’s so bad at the games it just makes him feel like he’s throwing his quarters away.

  Suchadildo.

  They’re late getting back to the Whelans’ for dinner because George hits a new level on Missile Command and goes for the high score and gets it.

  Mr. Whelan gives them a ration of shit and tells Paul and Hector that the kitchen isn’t a restaurant where you eat whenever you want to and if they want their dining privileges to continue they can damn well be there when the family sits down. George and Andy he just gives a look and asks them if this is going to happen again any time soon and they tell him no. He tells them to empty the ashes from the Weber and get some coals going and scrape the grill, and goes inside to make the burger patties while his wife cuts tomatoes and chops iceberg lettuce and peels slices of American cheese from a yellow stack.

  They eat in the backyard, sitting around an old picnic table Mr. Whelan salvaged from a building site. Right after the meal he’s walking around the yard with his fourth beer in his hand, kicking stones from the ground he’s going to rototill the following day, giving his sons and their friends a bad time, asking them if they have their back braces ready for the Sunday rock haul. Telling them to start drinking water now, gonna be hotter than hell. Warning that he’ll be getting them up at the crack of dawn on Sunday to try and beat the heat. Laughing at the looks on their faces as they think about how much it’s going to suck.

  Paul helps Mrs. Whelan clear the plates. Something he always does.

  – I thought Sunday was the Lord’s day, sir.

  Bob Whelan yanks one of the weeds he let grow over the last couple weeks.

  – Young Mr. Cheney, if Jesus can get up on Easter Sunday to move a rock, you can do it this Sunday.

  They have popsicles for dessert and the boys say they’re going back to the bowling alley and they get their bikes and take off.

  Bob Whelan comes up behind his wife at the kitchen sink and reaches around her and puts his hands on her tits.

  – Looking good, baby.

  – Stop it.

  – Mmm, feeling good, too.

  – You’re drunk.

  – Drunk? On five, six beers? Baby, the day I can’t knock over a sixer and keep my wits is the day I give up beer.

  – Uh huh.

  – It’s Friday.

  – I know what day it is.

  – Date night.

  – I know what it is.

  – Empty house.

  – Not for long.

  – That’s my point.

  – Let me wash these dishes.

  – Let me help.

  He presses against her back, slides a hand, cold from his beer can, down the front of her cutoffs.

  – Stop it. Bob! Stop it, your hand’s cold. Stop it!

  He doesn’t stop. And they go to the bedroom.

  Part Two

  The House They Came to Rob

  – Cops impounded my car, vato.

  – Fuck do I care about your fucking car. Ain’t your fucking vato, neither.

  Fernando raises his hands above his head.

  – Hey, no shit you ain’t my vato. Don’t worry about not being my vato. Worry about the cops having my car. Worry about when I finally get it back and it still has that hole you put in the window.

  – Send me a bill.

  – A bill. Ese, I give a shit about the bill. I care about you broke my rear windshield.

  He pulls Hector’s chain out of his pocket.

  – A fucking chain you threw at my car. My car. Fuck you and the bill, you broke my glass.

  He lashes Hector’s face with the chain.

  Hector folds in half, hands over his face, face between his knees, eyes squeezed shut, mouth closed tight around the shriek that comes up his throat. He opens his eyes and watches the blood that runs out of his face and between his fingers and trickles down to pool on the warped hardwood floor between his feet while Fernando whips his shoulders with the chain, the Levi’s jacket on his back the only thing that keeps his skin from being ribboned.

  – Save a little for me, big brother.

  Fernando stops beating Hector and looks at Ramon coming in the front door.

  – What’s up?

  Ramon knocks the door closed with his crutch.

  – Cheney got away.

  – Got away? Get Timo and go find him. What if he calls the cops?

  – Kid’s got a half kilo of meth. Ain’t calling the cops.

  Fernando drops the chain on the floor.

  – Hope he don’t, little bro, fucking hope he don’t.

  Ramon leans against the wall.

  – You hope he don’t, man, I been in prison. Shit don’t touch me. I can do that shit I have to. Worry ’bout how you handle a little real time. Where’s Timo?

  – Yo, ese.

  Timo comes down the hall, joint between his lips, trailing smoke.

  Ramon lays out his palm and they trade skin, Timo slipping him the joint.

  He takes a toke.

  – Thanks, bro. What’s up?

  – Whelan and his kid bro are out cold.

  – Want to wake those bitches?

  – Let’s do it.

  Fernando holds up a hand.

  – Don’t wake shit. I say to wake shit?

  Ramon holds out the joint.

  – Bro, take a hit, chill out. Ain’t nothing. Just gonna wake them up. Ask some questions. Find out where the shit is.

  – Nobody asking questions. Nobody asking questions till the man gets here.

  Ramon and Timo bug their eyes at each other.

  Timo smiles big at his big brother.

  – Get all jefe on us, ese? What’s with that? This your thing all a sudden? We all not in the same shit? We all not takin’ the same bust?

  Fernando takes two steps and pops Timo in the nose he broke two days ago in their last fight.

  Timo screams and goes down.

  Ramon cocks his fist, but Fernando has him by the neck. Ramon unclenches his fist.

  Fernando nods.

  – That’s right, bro, relax that shit.

  Ramon points at Timo.

  – What the fuck?

  Fernando lets him go.

  – Little shit talking about we all got the same bust. He’s a fucking minor. No priors. Nothing. Bust means shit to him. He’s talking jailhouse tough shit he gets from you. And you? Acting like it’s a fucking joke? Joint don’t mean nothing to you, bro? That your story now? What I remember when I went up there to visit, I remember I seen what you look like comin’ down that hall, sittin’ on the other side of that window. I remember you so lonely you were crying. Remember what I said that day?

  Ramon touches the bandage around his thigh where the cops put a bullet in him.

  – Yeah.

  – Say it.

  – Said. Said it was no good me being inside. Being away from my brothers. Said not to forget how it felt, not being with blood. Said outside we had each other. Inside we got nobody.

  – That’s right. Inside we’re alone. And we’re not going inside. Not you, not any of us. You want to go against those charges with a public defender? Some whitey from the county gonna get you off that shit? The man is gonna get us off that shit. We do his thing, he’s gonna get us a real lawyer. That’s what I want. Till we got that settled, you’re right, I am the jefe. We all work together, but I am the boss and you gotta listen to me. Gotta follow what I say. Do that, stay together, stay on the outside. Stay family. Blood?

  Ramon puts out his hand.

  – Blood.

  Fernando takes his brother’s hand.

  – Blood.

  Timo sits up, fingering his nose.

  – Thit’s brothen again, futhcker.

  Fernando helps him to his feet.

  – Come on, blood, let’s clean that shit up.

  He takes his brother back down the hall to the bathroom.

  Ramon watches their backs.

  – Jefe.

  He smiles, takes a few step
s and, leaning on his crutch, bends and picks up the snake of bloody chain. He looks at Hector, still folded and holding his face.

  – Check you out, ese, you’re all fucked up. How’s shit like that happen, holmes? How’d you get into this shit?

  He takes a seat on the couch, leaning forward to take the hacksaw from his belt and tuck it next to the armrest. He stretches his wounded leg.

  – I don’t want to fuck with you while you’re down, but you gotta be told, you ain’t got it so bad.

  He taps his thigh.

  – This shit, taking a.38 in the leg? That hurts. No lie. Know what the bullet did? Skipped off the bone. Check that out. Doc said it could just as easily shattered the motherfucker. ’Stead, it skipped off the bone and went right out my leg. Told him I wanted to keep that bullet, good luck charm there ever was one. Said they can’t give it to me. Said it’s evidence. Evidence in the resisting arrest part of the case. Cops got a case against us, it’s so big it’s got fucking parts. Makes my head hurt as bad as my leg. Take it from me, little man, you ain’t got it so bad.

  He leans back.

  – Still, this shit is all fucked up. This brown on brown thing? Know what I’m talking about, holmes? Yeah you do. This ain’t right. Mean, here you are, three white dudes and one Chicano. And, whoa, stop the presses, who’s in here getting fucked up? Two white dudes in the back room sleeping it off, other white dude ditched this shit. Cue up the same sorryass story.

  He wiggles the chain.

  – And us, here we are, three brothers, hermanos, the real deal lowrider vatos. Who we waiting on? That’s right. White dude. In the meantime, how we spending our siesta? Beating on a fellow Chicano. That seem right? There something wrong with this picture? Know there is. Blanco Nortinos steal all of California from us, right? That’s how this shit started, that’s how far back. Still there’s places like this, towns where we got the numbers. Still we can’t seem to do shit any different than before. Ain’t right, ese. All us Chicos here and hardly any Mr. Browns in sight, and we’re still fucking each other up instead of taking it to them.