The Shooting. James Boice

looks at him, touches his face, searching for something in it, then stands up for him. —You’re being mean. Don’t make fun of him.

      Somebody changes the record to the Beatles and they talk about that as Lee’s father breaks off from the circle and goes outside, Lee following, and stands on the back porch watching the stars and listening to the wolves out in the trees and their human counterparts inside.

      —Did your mother bring anybody around here when I was gone? Any new friends? Any new uncles? They are in the basement, his father bent over the worktable, his guns splayed naked and incapacitated before him, rubbing their holes and tubes with oil that smells like bananas. —Were there ever people here like there were people here last night?

      —No, Lee says.

      —Sure there were. Of course she brought them around. How many?

      —None.

      —You should know that your mother’s a reckless person, Lee. She is selfish. And irresponsible. And she lies. Most of the things that come out of her mouth are a lie. She can’t even help it. And it’s dangerous. And people get hurt. She lies to you, you know. Do you know why I came back? I came back to protect you from her. His father falls silent then as he puts down the oil rag and lifts from the table the rifle he has cleaned and puts it against his shoulder, peers down the sights at the wall as though the rifle lets him see through the wall into another realm. He looks up at Lee, one eye still squinted, tanned flesh crinkling at the corners of it. —Now tell me the truth.

      The truth. There were nights, late—there were the sounds of tires on the gravel drive starting at the bottom of their hill and climbing, climbing louder and louder still until they were so loud beneath Lee’s bedroom window that he sat up in bed and turned to the window over his headboard and pulled the curtains aside to look down at a strange car, rattling idle with its headlights on, and there would be the doors opening on both sides and music spilling out—Bob Dylan, Gladys Knight—and on one side would emerge the bare white leg of his mother, its toes pointed out, no shoe on. And on the other side a man’s leg would emerge, trousers on and a beautiful slim brown shoe. Then there would be laughing, then shushing. The headlights would turn off. Then the sound of the doors closing. Then more laughing. Even though the lights were off and it was all night, Lee on his knees in his bed with face smooshed against the window could still see. And Lee would see the man, or some other man—skinny men, long-haired men, black men, even women sometimes who only looked like men; men who were men nothing like Lee’s father was a man—Lee would then see this man waiting at the front of the car for Lee’s mother, giggling and barefoot and stumbling against the car, drink in one hand, shoes in her other hand. Ssssssh, she would whisper, laughing, the man holding out his arm to put around her waist and walk with her inside and out of Lee’s view.

      Lee’s father looks at Lee now with the rifle against his shoulder and the oil that smells like bananas. He looks like he can see through Lee’s eyes to see what Lee sees—the cars, the bare feet, the men. His father just nods, puts down the rifle, picks up another gun, a handgun, an old revolver like cowboys have. He sighs, pours oil onto the rag, rubs it inside the gun’s empty chamber. —She’s ashamed of me. Embarrassed. After all I’ve done for her. Well, don’t worry, you and I are going to spend more time together once she’s gone.

      —Where is she going?

      —Doesn’t matter.

      —Why is she leaving?

      —Because she has to.

      —I don’t want her to.

      —She has to. She has problems. One day you’ll understand. You’re not safe with her here. All I want is you to be safe. Don’t you want to be safe?

      —Yes.

      —I know it’s hard, it makes your daddy very sad too. Your daddy’s heart is broken, he’s been crying. He’d like nothing more for us to be a family out here. It’s all he ever wanted. But men like us know that sometimes the right thing is the hardest thing to do. Those men your momma brought around here ever teach you that? How to do what’s right even if it’s hard?

      Lee says no.

      —I didn’t think so. He looks at Lee again, grinning. —Hey, you like this gun? I’ve noticed you looking at it. Of course you have been, it’s beautiful. It’s a very special gun. If you’re a good boy, maybe one day soon I’ll teach you to shoot it. And then maybe one day maybe I’ll give it to you. Like your granddaddy gave it to me. And his dad gave it to him. This is your inheritance, son. Your real one, I mean. Your momma’s boyfriends ever teach you how to handle a firearm? How to protect yourself and your family?

      Lee shakes his head no.

      —Of course not. Well, don’t worry. Daddy’s home now.

      They come up the driveway and they get out of the car wearing suits. He follows her through the house, out to the driveway where they wait. She is furious, weeping, the stomping of her heels and the jingling of her bracelets echoing, staff carrying her suitcases. —He’s the liar! she is saying. —He’s paranoid! Insane! She is dressed in a bright orange dress and her lips are painted red and her eyes blue and her hair is different again.

      —Don’t go, Lee says.

      —The lawyers say I don’t have a choice.

      —It’s not fair.

      —No, it’s not, of course it’s not, but it’s the way it is, so for now we just have to do what he says and not make it worse by antagonizing him, and we’ll, I don’t know, figure it out. She stops being furious and becomes sad; she bends down to him, hugs him, and cries. Then she stops being sad and becomes very happy, and it is like she was only pretending to be furious and then only pretending to be sad, or maybe it is like she is only pretending to be very happy.

      —Hey, she says, —you know what? Maybe this will turn out to be okay. Maybe whether I like it or not, a boy does need his father and you haven’t had him. A father teaches a boy how to be a man. Momma can’t teach you that. You want to learn to be a man, don’t you?

      —No! he cries.

      She laughs at him, a high, loud song of a laugh: Oh, ha ha ha! —It will be good, she says, and kisses him again. —Anyway, at least this will give me the chance to work again and be me again. And then I’ll be happy, and Momma hasn’t been happy for some time, she should never have let him convince me to come here. I need a break. I’ll take a break and figure it out, and when I do you can come see me and even be with me. And everything will be good. I promise.

      He passes the living room where his father sits reading the newspaper in the big chair he brought in. His things are everywhere; the house is filled with old, massive American things pregnant with the ghosts of a sacred other world: war uniforms and badges for heroism, tools and instruments, fifes, drums, tricornered hats, funny black shoes, black hats with buckles. There are Thomas Jefferson and George Mason and Patrick Henry, shelves lined with American poets of individualism. Only his father’s pictures hang on the walls now, scenes of war and homesteads, portraits of humble bearded generals praying before battle, of the proud, righteous, bullet-frayed underdog star-spangled banner in the dawn above water, of lone cowboys, of free frontier families singing hymns at the hearth, shotgun above it. His father calls to him, tells him to come here. He puts down the newspaper and stands over Lee. He puts his arm out and makes a muscle. —Feel that, he tells Lee, and Lee does. —Hang from it, he says, and Lee does.

      They wrestle on the floor. He gives Lee sips of beer in a teeny, tiny mug, a micro version of his own, even says ALASKA on it like his does. He brings Lee down with him to the shooting range he has resurrected at the foot of the property near the trees—a pile of sand for a backstop and some tree stumps on which to set bottles and cans and watermelons and the pictures his mother left—string art, nude people at Woodstock, John Lennon, Martin Luther King Jr., hairy Vietnam War protestors—and blast them with noise so loud Lee must stuff his fingers into his ears as he watches from behind him. His father uses the gun. The special one. The one that will be Lee’s. Lee