The Shooting. James Boice

will come with Porky and the cows and the chickens. He will name them all. —When? he keeps asking his father. —When are they coming?

      —Soon, soon. Next week maybe. Depends on the guy.

      —When is next week?

      —I don’t know. Five days maybe. Five sleeps.

      Five sleeps. In five sleeps Lee will have Porky. That was yesterday, he thinks now, in the barn. So four sleeps now. Four. He cannot bear to wait four sleeps.

      A force shuts the door and the windows too and Lee is suddenly alone in hot blackness. He pushes against the door but it does not open. He pushes harder and the door seems to push back against him. He can see nothing. It is very hot, he cannot breathe, he is a pig, dying. —Help! he cries, pushing and pulling on the door, the door rattling and pushing back.

      A voice on the other side mocks him with oinks and snorts and high whining echoes of his own crying. —Where that piggy at? That piggy in there? Knock, knock, little piggy! Little pig, little pig, let me in! Heeee! Heeee! You gon’ squeal, piggy! You gon’ squeal! Heeeeeee! Heeeeeeee! HEEEEEEEEE! HEEEEEEEE!

      —Let me out! Lee begs.

      —You ain’t never gettin’ out, little piggy!

      Then there is relentless knocking, pounding from the outside, and Lee backs away against the wall to get away from it. It gets louder and louder, the banging now on the inside walls of his skull.

      —Leave me alone!

       —You ain’t never getting outta here, boy! You ain’t never getting out!

      —Please!

      —Pwea-he-he-hease! Heeeee! HEEEEEE!

      The knocking grows more violent and the squeals and snorts more savage and deranged. Lee slides to the floor, shouting, —Go away! He reaches for his hip, pulls from the waistband of his Levi’s his cork gun. He points it at the door. —Go away! he cries. —I’m warning you!

       —HEEEEEEEEEE!

      He pulls the trigger. The pounding stops. The squealing and the torment stop. The death goes away. And he is alone and peaceful in the dark. When he tries the door again it opens. The sunlight floods in and he inhales it like oxygen itself. Lee steps outside, silent, face wet and even puffier than it already was, lower lip trembling. The trees in the distance sway in the breeze. The trees, the breeze, the distance itself, he understands, are terror. All is death.

      Over in the garden stands his father, his back to Lee, still chuckling to himself as he twists a can of pesticide to the nozzle of the hose.

      At last his mother calls and says she hears he has not been doing well at school. He says he hates school, he’s not good at it, he does not want school he wants the animals, and his eye hurts, and he’s hungry, and when she sounds very angry at what he is saying he feels angry too and tells her things are not good here anymore, why did she leave him here, he wants to come see her in New York, he wants to come now, but she says he can’t, that she’s not in New York anymore, now she is in Africa, for work, and he does not know where Africa is but he is not allowed to go there, the custody agreement she says, but as soon as she gets back to the States the custody agreement will allow it and things will be good again. He asks when that will be and she says she doesn’t know, it’s hard to say right now, but she says, —Will you try to do better in school? and he says he will and she says, —Will you think of being with me in New York every day and dream of being with me in New York every night? And he says he will, and he does. But months go by, and years, and she never gets back to the States, and he never stops dreaming of being with his mother in New York.

      Lee listens to his father on the phone with the school, yelling about Lee. —Is your nurse a doctor? Did she go to medical school and become a doctor? Answer me: Is she a doctor?

      He listens to his father on the phone with his mother, yelling about Lee. —He’s fine, it’s clearing up, he’s doing completely fine, he’s a good healthy boy, he’s just impatient about the livestock getting here, it’s all he’s been talking about, you know how he is when he gets his mind set on something, he needs to learn patience. Anyway, you left the damn country so you get zero say in this, thank you very much. He listens and says, —Go right ahead and call them then. I dare you. They can go right ahead and try coming up here onto my property. Go right ahead and try.

      When he hangs up his face is red and he is shaking. He tells Lee to come here. He holds Lee’s face in his sweaty hands and looks at Lee’s eye and says they are crazy, it’s fine, it’s clearing up, says school is a machine. Then he takes Lee to town for more guns and ammunition to keep themselves safe.

      His father has put on tight jeans and snakeskin boots, a cowboy hat and a bright red western shirt; has tobacco in the pouch of his lip, carries a cup to spit in; has the gun on his hip in its holster. The men in the store stare at him as he enters, looking him up and down. —Howdy, he grunts at them. They nod back. He asks the salesman to see one of these new semiautomatic polymer pistols from Austria. Lee stands on tiptoes to see over the counter as the bearded salesman, speaking in intimate quiet tones like a doctor, explains to Lee’s father about the lightweight body, the safety trigger, the brilliant engineering that avoids jams and minimizes kick, the unique grip required and the high level of accuracy that results from it.

      —Get a load of this thing, Lee, it looks like a daggone space gun, don’t it? I think I’ll stick to my granddaddy’s gun, thank you very much. He gestures to it on his hip. —Tried and true. Battle-tested.

      Says the salesman, —Cops and military have been switching over from those to these. This is what they’re all carrying nowadays. Much more reliable. Fires twice as many rounds without having to reload—He sees Lee’s eye and cuts himself off. He is large, his face emotionless, but it breaks into quiet horror. —Good Lord, he whispers.

      Lee’s father glares at the salesman as though daring him to say another word about the eye. —Cops and military, huh? How much they going for?

      —Three-fifty and tax.

      —Gimme four of ’em.

      —Four?

      —Four. What caliber are they? You got hollow points for ’em?

      —Nine millimeter, and yes, sir, we do.

      —Okay, gimme a shitload of hollow points. Turns to Lee. —What about you, buckaroo? You want one? You do, don’t you? He turns back to the salesman. —Give me one more, for my son.

      —Five, then?

      —Excellent math. Hell, better yet? Make it ten.

      The man has now forgotten all about the eye. A buoyancy has entered his hefty frame now as he says, —That’s my entire stock.

      —Is that a problem?

      —No, sir, not at all. He hurries into the back to fetch them. Comes out with the guns in their big bombproof-seeming cases stacked in his arms over his face, places them on the counter. Returns to the back for the bullets. —Hundred boxes is all I got. Hundred okay?

      —I reckon that’ll do, says Lee’s father. —For now. He winks at Lee. Fills out the forms, pays. —You ever make a sale this big before?

      —No, sir, no, I have not.

      Lee’s father winks at Lee again and drums his knuckles happily on the glass countertop.

      The man hands them their new weapons and ammunition and hurries around from behind the counter to get the door for them, grinning so broadly and strangely now that Lee thinks he will hug his father. —Y’all come back any time now, any time at all.

      They drive off, passing a hospital, Lee peering out at it through his good eye. They go home, go directly to the range to shoot the brand-new space guns. The space guns are supposed to hit the bull’s-eye without your even aiming them, they are supposed to fire without your even feeling it or hearing it—isn’t that what the