Catch & Release (22 page)

Next thing you know, I'm in a sort of one-street town. This town looks deader than Elkhorn, to be honest. But there's a gas station. Looks vacant, but the door opens when we push it and there's a guy sitting on a stool behind the counter.

The pumps are old, so cash is good. When I ask about the bathroom, the guy waves in the direction of the store just down the street. There isn't even a cat or a dog anywhere. Faded banners hang from the streetlights. This is the home of the Combine Demolition Derby, according to the banners. That explains a lot. Once a year, people come here to watch big machines in a slow-dance cage match. Then, when it's over, the broken machines just sit there and rust. This is not the weekend when that happens, so nothing is happening. Unless you count machines dissolving into rust, because that is happening, that is always happening. While I go pee in the little bathroom, I think I'm rusting too. I'm dissolving into blood and pee and sweat and tears. A demolition derby is probably the best thing I can hope for. I flush the toilet and splash water on my face.

There isn't much that's appetizing on the shelves, but I grab a warm six-pack of root beer, a box of crackers, and a jar of peanut butter. The woman at the counter looks a little beat down and bored. She sets the book she's reading pages-down on the counter by the cash register. It's a romance. I will never look like the half-dressed girl on the cover. I look at the woman ringing up my crackers. She's never going to look like the girl on that cover either. I hand her the money. She hands me my change. She picks up the paperback before I pick up the bag of food. She doesn't seem that enthusiastic, but it's hard to tell. She just seems so bored. Neither of us has a said a word to the other.

When I get in the Caddie, Odd says, “You wanna stick around here for a few days?”

Is he that excited about farm equipment destruction? Does he want to see a thresher get thrashed? Well, of course he does. How many days is it to the big event, anyway?

“If we stay until Thursday we can enter the cribbage tournament,” says Odd, “The prize is a box of meat. I saw it on the gas station bulletin board. How 'bout that? A box of meat!” His smile at me proves he thinks that's kind of funny. He's standing by the passenger-side door. I guess I'm still driving. Hey, that's something. I'm a driving person again. It isn't a box of meat, but it's something. I'm moving my story down the road.

 

We're eating a picnic of saltines and peanut butter washed down with root beer and vodka. It's a pretty messed-up meal.

“You know, Polly, if you'd had the gun you coulda shot that snake,” says Odd.

“No way I could have shot that snake even if I wanted to, and why should I want to? It was just defending itself. Live and let live,” I say. That's pretty much the line I've heard my whole life about snakes.

“Don't think you'd be so liberal if it was you that got bit,” says Odd.

“Well, it didn't really bite
you
,” I say.

“This is my goddamn leg and this is the goddamn leg it bit,” says Odd.

“Well, even if I did want to kill a snake, no way could I have shot it. Snake is like
this
wide,” I hold up a cracker, “And that wouldn't be easy to hit.” I eat the cracker and take a nice deep swallow of the vodka in the flask. There's not that much left. This picnic is probably the last of the vodka— then we'll have to resort to what's left of the whiskey. Unless Odd decides to rob another liquor store.

“You just need practice,” says Odd, “That's a situation that can be rectified.” He takes a handful of crackers and walks across the road and sticks a couple of crackers and a root-beer can on the top of a big black fence post. “Get the gun.”

Well, sure, why not? We're a gazillion miles from anywhere, and we have more peanut butter than vodka. Might as well shoot some poor innocent saltines. Better that than a snake.

Odd pays me no mind while I rummage down into my sleeping bag for the sock full of gun and the sock full of bullets. He's just leaning against the grill of the car and staring off into the wide nothing wheat fields and the wide nothing sky. I load before I walk back to the front of D'Elegance.

“See that, right there? Those crackers are my brother Buck's balls,” says Odd.

The first shot doesn't even hit anything as far as I can see. The second hits something, because the can and crackers fly off and land in front of the fence post.

We walk over to visit scene of the crime. There's no bullet hole in the can. The crackers are busted, but if one of them had taken a direct hit it seems like it would be blown to smithereens.

“Here it is,” says Odd. The bullet hole isn't that obvious because the post is stained black with creosote.

“You would have killed him,” I say and point to the hole. “Would have hit his femoral artery.”

“The target's not exactly anatomically correct,” says Odd, “Although Buck is a dickhead.” Odd picks up the root-beer can and props a couple more crackers up against it. “Well, Polly, who you gonna shoot?”

“I thought I was just shooting imaginary snakes,” I say.

“I thought you weren't a snake shooter,” says Odd.

“I'm not a people shooter, either,” I say.

“You sure about that? 'Cause I think you might find it relaxing to shoot somebody who needs shot.”

“Doesn't seem right . . .”

“Polly, it's a can and some crackers . . .”

“OK. I'm going to shoot Bridger.”

“Atta girl,” says Odd, “It'll do you good.”

I walk back and rest my butt steady on the car. Then I lift the gun and fire. The can and crackers are still there. I hold the gun with both hands, steady, and fire again; I take a step and fire again, I'm almost on top of the damn target and CRACK, I finally get some satisfaction. The can bounces to the dirt. I put the gun down carefully on the other side of the fence and then shimmy between the lines of barbed wire. I pick up the gun and walk up to the can. I turn the gun sideways like they do on TV when the shooter is badass. I put another bullet into Bridger. And another. And another.

“Alrighty then, that can's pretty darn dead, Polly. You can stop,” says Odd. He holds the wires of the fence apart, which is thoughtful. And he's right about the shooting. I feel very relaxed. Then he reaches for the gun. His hands, I notice for the first time, are so much bigger than my hands. Big, like the paws of a puppy. He takes the gun and pumps one more round into Bridger, or the can that is Bridger's heart.

“I'm with you, Polly,” he says.

When I look at him, his dark pupils almost swallow his gray eyes. I can feel my eye open, too, and the bottom falls out of my world. But then I shake my head . . . no, no, no. He's just a puppy, but I don't know who I'm talking to, him or me, but the answer is no. I don't know if I said no to love or to murder. I just don't.

 

We sit on the hood of the car, leaning up against the windshield. It's pretty comfortable once a person moves the windshield wipers up and out of the way. To the east the sky is turning lavender and gray; to the west it is simmering orange.

“We ought to pitch the tents while we can still see to do it. We'll be lucky if we can find a level patch,” I say.

“I'm not sleeping in no tent,” says Odd.

“OK, I guess it doesn't look like it'll rain. It's going to be a starry night.”

“I'm sleeping in D'Elegance. Snakes,” says Odd.

“That snake is a hundred miles away,” I say.

“Not the only snake in the world. I been bit once today. That's plenty for me,” says Odd.

“Look once you get in the tent and zip it up, no snakes can get inside . . .”

“So they just wait until I unzip it to get up and take a leak, then BAM. Probably get me right in the face—or worse. I don't need that.”

“I never heard of that happening in my whole life,” I say.

“So what? You're bearanoid, and you never got attacked by a bear. I can be crazy about snakes if I wanna be,” says Odd.

“That backseat isn't even comfortable for me, and I'm a lot shorter than you.”

“I'll just recline the front seat. That's comfortable as hell,” says Odd.

“So you're never going to sleep in a tent again?”

“Not in no place full of snakes I'm not,” says Odd, “but I might invent me a portable snake fence a person could put around a tent. Be about an inch high and electrified. A person'd have to be careful about taking a leak, though, with a system like that.”

Neither of us moves to pitch a tent. The night seeps across the sky, but the air is still warm and there aren't any mosquitoes. The stars creep out, one a time, a handful at a time, until the sky is full.

 

When I put away the peanut butter and crackers, I hide the gun again. I think for a moment about finding a new place, but I like having it close it when I'm asleep. There is no better place than snug inside a bloody sock. My housekeeping is done. I check my phone. The screen glows bright in the dark; the letters are little dark stars on a bright sky.

From Dad: “Odd shd call brother now.”

From Mom: sixteen messages I don't read.

“Scootch down for a sec,” I say when I bring my sleeping bag back to the front of the car. “We can share . . .” It's way too warm to climb into a sleeping bag, but it feels really comforting to use it like a big, flat pillow over the glass and metal. “So,” I say when I get settled, “your brother is still waiting for a call.”

“Piss on that,” says Odd.

“Any particular reason you want to, like . . . shoot him in the balls? I thought you were . . . proud? of him. He's on the radio . . .”

“Piss on that,” says Odd.

“Shooting star,” I say.

“You can see pretty good with that one eye,” says Odd.

“I can see the stars. I can watch TV. I can thread the eye of hook.”

“You can drive.”

“I can,” I say. “Seeing is going OK. Being seen still sort of sucks.”

“Well, Polly, you look OK to me,” says Odd. It's dark and he's staring at the sky, but it's a thoughtful gesture.

“I still don't know why you want to shoot Buck,” I say after a while.

“Two words: Truck Nutz.”

“What?”

“Truck Nutz. Plastic balls—stupid prick's still swinging a pair off the back hitch of his truck. That's his mentality. He's a prick. He's been raining shit on me since I can remember. If you had a brother, you might not have to ask.”

“What I said about being an only child. That's not exactly true. I might have a bunch of brothers and sisters. My mom put them all up for adoption a few years ago,” I say. “They were snowflake babies. You know what those are, Odd? Leftover fertilized eggs. They freeze them. They can last for years, just waiting for somebody to thaw them out so they can start growing.”

“Weird,” says Odd.

“Tell me about it. For all I know one of my little brothers or sisters is being born right now, tonight.” And I think about how that is. How it is to be born. I don't remember that. I don't think my mom even remembers that, because she told me about seeing me for the first time and how I looked bigger than her leg and she couldn't really believe I had come out of her . . . they swooped in and took me away . . . she met me again in the NICU, the newborn intensive unit . . . she couldn't touch me because I was under a hard plastic bubble full of oxygen until I stabilized . . . and other babies were there with gauze over their eyes and wires attached to their brains . . . and Mom told me one had a card on his incubator that said “Shawn the Man” . . . but he was not bigger than a can of pop . . . and she was so frightened until the nurse came and said, “This one's strong. She wants to live.” . . . and I did.