Random Acts

by Franklin Horton

  “I agree,” Amanda said. “But what if I had another job opportunity?”

  “I would be open to it as long as I knew you’d be somewhere safe all day. I don’t think I could allow you to go work on another construction site where I didn’t know the people.”

  “It wouldn’t be in construction,” Amanda said. “It would be at the bike shop in town.”

  “What’s the allure of this bike shop? You had to get all decked out the other day just to pick up your bike and now you want to work there?”

  “I’ve made a friend there. I’d like to work around people my own age. You guys don’t talk about anything but guns, politics, and hunting. It gets a little old.”

  Cole went around the table and hugged his daughter. He wasn’t an overly affectionate guy but he wanted her to know that this was not a sensitive topic. She was not hurting his feelings by bringing this up. In fact, he wanted her to feel comfortable coming to him with anything. Who knew how much time they even had together? In a year, she could decide she wanted to go away to college or move out on her own. She’d be old enough. If their time together was limited, he wanted it to be honest, open time with no games and no bullshit.

  “Look, Amanda, I wanted you on my job because I didn’t want you home all day. I understand you wanting to be around people your own age. I’m fine with taking a job at the bike shop. In fact, I’m proud of you for wanting to work and for finding a job on your own. You remind me so much of myself sometimes. I didn’t realize there was this much of me inside there.”

  Amanda hugged her dad back. “Thanks, Dad. I was kind of nervous about bringing it up. I thought you might be mad.”

  Cole looked genuinely confused, even hurt by that remark. “I don’t get it. Why would you think we couldn’t talk about this?”

  Amanda hesitated.

  “Tell me,” Cole said. “I can see there’s a reason.”

  “Mom said you were unreasonable,” Amanda said. “She said…a lot of things.”

  Cole sighed. “Do I seem unreasonable to you?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t think that’s something most people would say about me,” Cole said. “Most people who have known me think I’m pretty fair and pretty reasonable.”

  “Then why did Mom say it? What happened between you guys?” The question had slipped out before Amanda knew it was happening. She was just thinking out loud. She hadn’t intended to ask. Now it was out there.

  Cole picked up another magazine and started thumbing rounds into it. “That’s a sensitive topic, sweetie. I’m not sure I’m ready to go there yet. Can I ask you to respect that?”

  This, again, was not the reaction she’d expected from him. He wasn’t angry. He appeared wounded. To hear her mother tell it, her dad had never been this reasonable.

  “Of course, Dad. I’m sorry I brought it up.”

  “No, that’s okay. You can bring up anything with me. I promise. I’m just not ready to talk to you about it yet.”

  Amanda was feeling open and unfiltered at the moment. Perhaps she was saying things that she should not have been speaking out loud. Before she could stop herself, she kept going. “I found one of Mom’s old social media accounts. From when I was a kid. I’ve been looking at those old pictures and saving some of them.”

  Cole nodded but didn’t look up from what he was doing. She couldn’t tell if he was mad, upset, or just numb.

  “I feel like I’m learning new things about her. It’s like finding an old photo album that you never knew existed.”

  “Social media can be a lot different than a photo album,” her dad warned. “Be careful about what doors you open. There are things you can’t un-see once you’ve seen them.”

  Amanda frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Exactly what I said. Just be careful.”

  She still didn’t completely understand what he meant by that. Anxious to change the subject, she pulled her Dad to her. “Hey, can we get a selfie?”

  Her dad laughed. “I’m not sure I understand this whole selfie thing.”

  “That’s okay. I understand it enough for the both of us.”

  She snapped a pic of the two of them together, her holding the 9mm Shield. She typed a quick description. #mynewlife #rangetime #shootingwithdad

  “You know, Dad, you should open a few social media accounts.”

  Cole frowned. “Why the hell would I want to do something like that?”

  “There’s all kinds of interest groups on there. You could socialize with other people who like the same things you like, guns, carpentry, the outdoors.”

  “I socialize with people who like those things every day. Real people. In person.”

  Amanda laughed. “I don’t understand what you don’t like about it. I know a lot of people your age who use social media. Fox and Mom used it all the time.”

  “Nothing surprising there,” Cole muttered.

  “What’s that about?”

  “Nothing,” Cole said.

  Amanda had a good time shooting with her dad. They laughed and joked. She became comfortable with several of the handguns and learned the differences between them. She could feel herself getting better with each magazine. It was one thing for someone to tell you how to hold the gun and how to aim but there was no substitute for practice, for real trigger time. There she saw the effect of different hand positions, different finger placements on the trigger, and different sight pictures.

  When the light began to fade, Cole told her it was time to pack up for the evening. While he hauled the guns and range bag back inside, Amanda picked up as much of the spent brass as she could and dumped it into a bucket in the garage. Cole didn’t regularly reload 9mm but he wanted to save his brass just in case. Like many gun guys, he was always concerned that the government might find some way to restrict ammunition sales as a way to stick it to gun owners. He wanted to be ready.

  Cole stacked the gun cases on the kitchen table and retrieved his cleaning kit from the spare room.

  “If you’re going to enjoy shooting you have to learn to enjoy cleaning too,” Cole said when Amanda came in the house. “I’m going to show you how to strip these weapons and do a basic cleaning.”

  “Sure,” Amanda said. “I want to learn.” She sat down at the table and placed her phone beside her. She hadn’t even started on her first handgun when her text notification went off. She picked up the phone and could not help but smile.

  “Let me guess, it’s about the job?” Cole asked.

  “Yes,” Amanda said, reading the message. “You sure it’s okay if I accept?”

  Cole nodded. “Not a problem. I’m fine with it.”

  Amanda replied to the text: Dad’s cool with it. Yay! When do I start?

  The reply was immediate.

  Ben: Great. Can you come by the shop tomorrow or the next day? We’ll go over the details.

  Amanda: Sure. I’ll text you tomorrow and let you know when.

  Ben: Cya then.

  Amanda wasn’t even aware she was grinning at her phone until she felt her dad staring at her. “What?”

  “Oh nothing,” he said.

  “You going to show me how to clean or not?” she asked, feigning impatience.

  “Of course,” he replied. “If you can push bicycle boy out of your head long enough to pay attention.”

  “I’m paying attention,” Amanda snarled. “Get on with it.”

  The two of them spent the next hour disassembling, cleaning, and reassembling the guns. Cole told her what to do but had Amanda perform each step of the operation. When they were done, they put everything back in the safe except for Cole’s S&W Shield. It went to his room with him.

  “So do I get one more day of work out of you?” he asked.

  “I guess so,” she said. “I have to run by the bike shop at some point though.”

  “Then you better head to bed. I get to drag you out of bed at five A.M. for at least one more day.”

  Amanda hug
ged her dad and headed off to her room. She took a quick shower before bed and checked her social media accounts. She responded to comments on the pictures she’d posted throughout the day. She liked and commented on the posts of her friends back in Virginia. After nearly falling asleep several times, she gave in and put her phone on the charger for the night.

  19

  Victor’s phone dinged with another private message. Just as he expected, it was from CamaroChick19. He read it with great interest, but also a degree of confusion. He wasn’t certain what to make of it. For one thing, he still didn’t understand why this person he barely knew was trying to talk him out of his knockout game.

  Why was she trying to talk him out of doing something he really wanted to do? He needed a breakout viral video and this could be it. Maybe somewhere deep down inside he knew she was right. Perhaps he shouldn't be acting so recklessly. Who was he kidding? He had poor impulse control. If he wanted to do something he did it. He accepted that about himself and he totally fucking owned it.

  Was CamaroChick19 reacting out of her own benevolence? Was she just a good person who tried to help people do the right thing? The internet-savvy part of him wondered if this might be some kind of scam. Something like those Nigerian princes who were always asking you to help them get their funds out of their country. Yet if she was a scammer, why was she offering him encouragement and trying to keep him out of trouble? Scammers didn’t usually go out of their way for their victims. That part didn’t make any sense to him.

  Victor clicked on the link to open her larger social media profile. It had been recently updated. It wasn't just a handful of pictures and no other content. There were consistent updates, comments from other social media users, and an extensive friends list. There were regular posts and shares. There were lists of things she liked, books she’d read, and movies she'd seen. She had to be a real person.

  The username itself told him nothing. Victor rolled off the bed and went to his computer, bringing up the same social media site on his desktop, which would allow him access to more advanced tools than his phone would. He searched for CamaroChick19’s profile, then saved her profile picture to his hard drive. He went to Google, navigated to its image search engine, pasted the picture into the image search, and clicked the button.

  In an amazingly short time Google began matching the picture with other places the exact same picture had been used on the internet. Victor found other social media accounts that used the same picture. Other than the CamaroChick19 account, all of the social media accounts using that picture had the same name attached to them.

  Amanda Castle.

  So he had a name now. A real name.

  Victor clicked on one of the more popular social media accounts and found a wealth of information. There was an email address, a phone number, and a list of family members. There was also a wealth of other posts that provided more information about CamaroChick19, or Amanda, as he now knew her.

  Victor clicked back and forth between the profile CamaroChick19 had used to contact him and the profile on the more popular social media site using her real name. He found no contradictory information, nothing to indicate that Amanda Castle and CamaroChick19 were not the same person. After an hour, he had reached one conclusion.

  Amanda Castle and CamaroChick19 were indeed the same person.

  Opening the messaging app, Victor banged out a reply to CamaroChick19. “I don’t know why you care if I do something crazy. It’s my ass if I get in trouble, not yours. I REALLY want to do this knockout game. If I get good footage, it could be my breakout video. It could be the start of something big. It could change my life.”

  Victor sent the message, then sat back in his desk chair. His stomach growled and he recalled he hadn’t eaten in a while. He decided to go upstairs and find some dinner. What he found instead was Stanley sitting at the kitchen drinking a cup of Sanka while Clara finished getting her things together for their trip to the Cherokee casinos.

  “Well,” Stanley said with the most malicious smile Victor had ever seen, “look what the cat dragged out the basement. A fucking sewer rat. Greasy black fur like a rat. Smells like shit. Yep, it’s a rat alright.”

  Victor looked hard at Stanley. This wasn’t the day for the old man to be messing with him. People like his mother and Stanley saw him as weak, and he probably was by their standards. He’d been run over by adults his entire life. His mom, his dad, Stanley. He couldn’t recall a moment that an adult was ever nurturing or encouraging to him. Everything was always about what he’d done wrong or what a disappointment he was. One day he would show them. He would show them he was strong. He would show them strength like they’d never seen before.

  They would be sorry.

  “What you got to say for yourself, shit-rat? You coming up here to say goodbye before we go and gamble away your toy store earnings? I’m going to enjoy it too.”

  Victor pulled his eyes away from Stanley’s soulless orbs and went to the refrigerator. He opened the door and leaned in, looking for something to eat, and trying to block the bad thoughts.

  “You’re letting the cold out,” his mother said, tucking a few last things in her purse.

  “It’s hard to look inside without letting the cold out,” Victor said. “You want me to look in without letting the cold out, get one with a glass door.”

  She sighed loudly but didn’t comment.

  “You’re about as big as that damn refrigerator,” Stanley said. “I can’t even see the thing for your big fat ass. You probably just ought to stay out of there and skip a meal.”

  Victor raised up and shut the door. “I’ll find something later,” he said, heading back to the basement. He couldn’t handle their chatter now, couldn’t even handle the sight of them.

  “You should buy some damn groceries for a change,” Stanley said. “You ever think what it costs to fucking feed something like you on a regular basis? It ain’t cheap, I can tell you that. And your poor ole mother on a fixed income.”

  Victor felt his face turning red but he continued toward the basement door. Usually his defenses were better and the comments just rolled off him. He’d learned that over the course of his life. Today he was so distracted by everything else in his life—the job loss, the CamaroChick19 messages, planning a knockout game—that his force field was running at less than optimal power. Their jabs and comments were reaching him. He could feel the sting. The burn.

  “What? You’re not going to kiss your mother goodbye?” Stanley asked. “What an ungrateful little bitch. Somebody should knock some respect into you. In the Navy they would have. Pussy like you wouldn’t have lasted. Somebody would have chucked you overboard like a dead cat.”

  Victor paused and turned. “Bye, Mom.”

  “Bye, Mommy,” Stanley mocked, locking a hate-filled gaze on Victor.

  Victor had no idea why Stanley disliked him so strongly. It had been that way since the moment they met. Victor’s emotions were starting to get out of control. He went to the basement stairs and shut the door behind him. He stood completely still on the top step, taking deep breaths, and trying to blow out the rage building inside him. They continued to talk about him.

  “I apologize for talking about the female privates there, Clara, but he really is a damn pussy,” Stanley said.

  “I know,” Clara said. “I’ve said it myself. I don’t know what to do with the big dumb bastard. He can’t fend for himself. There’s something fucked up in his head. I think he came out with a lot of loose connections.”

  Victor and his mother’s relationship had never been about love. It had been about manipulation, cruelty, and domination. He was aware the pregnancy resulting in his birth came about by accident. He was a mistake that caused his mother to make another mistake, marrying his father. Victor became the lifelong physical manifestation of her ruined life, her unattained dreams, her faded youth. She never let him forget that.

  He listened to his mother and Stanley talk about him a little longer befor
e they went out the back door. Even after it slammed behind them, Victor stood on the dark steps thinking about what he had heard. He had no champions in this world. Most days he didn't notice because it had always been that way. Some days though, when the entire world was closing in on him, he wondered what it would be like.

  He heard feet on the back steps and the back door to the house was opened again. They must have forgotten something. With an irrational terror, Victor detected the scuff of penny loafers approaching the closed door to the basement. It was an old door, stained dark and worn by many fingers. The lock required a skeleton key that had been lost for as long as Victor could remember.

  "Hey, Victor," came a voice through the keyhole. "I know you were still standing there listening to us, you sack of shit. You heard what your mother said. She thinks you’re worthless too. The best thing you could do is be gone when we get back. Leave town and never come back.”

  Victor stood in the dark paralyzed with fear, hoping the door at the top the steps would not open. It didn't. Instead he heard faint metal-on-metal grating, then the click of the barrel bolt inside the kitchen being shut, locking Victor in the basement.

  “Enjoy your weekend at home while I'm living it up with your mother and blowing your money."

  Victor wasn’t certain how long he sat on the dark steps dwelling on his circumstances. Despite having heard the barrel bolt closing he tried the door anyway. It was indeed locked from the kitchen side. Victor was no stranger to navigating the steps in the darkness and effortlessly reached his bedroom. He clicked on the lights and looked around.

  He certainly had enough soft drinks, energy drinks, and half-finished bottles of water to not die of dehydration. If he finished all those, there was always the laundry sink. Starvation was unlikely too. There was an extensive buffet of junk food laying around, and he was certain his refrigerator held enough thin, curling slices of dehydrated pizza that he could build an entire pie.