The Family Fang: A Novel (3 page)

Arden said, “That sounds like just about the worst thing I’ve ever heard of.”

“And,” Buster continued, finding that he could not stop talking about it now that he had started, “there was this table with food laid out for all the people on set and these naked guys would be standing over the table, constructing these sad little sandwiches and eating handfuls of M&Ms.”

“Jesus Christ,” said David, shaking his head.

“And then you had to write about it, which I bet sucked,” Joseph said.

“Yeah,” Buster said, pleased that Joseph understood the strangeness of writing about things you despise, “and so I wrote this bizarre article about how Hester Bangs wasn’t an actress, wasn’t even a porn star, that she was more like a professional athlete. She was like a marathoner, and that, as disturbing as it was to witness, I had so much admiration for her ability to do it.”

Kenny nodded in agreement. “That sounds like a good article.”

“Well,” Buster finished, “three weeks after it comes out, some other porn star breaks the record by more than two hundred guys.”

Everyone in the car laughed so loudly that they almost didn’t hear the policeman tapping on the window.

As soon as he saw the cop, Buster had the overwhelming feeling that he needed to hide his contraband, the small detail being that he had nothing illegal on his person. Kenny rolled down the window and the officer ducked his head inside the car. “Parked on the side of the road, boys,” he said, “not a smart idea.”

“Okay, sir,” Kenny said, “we’re just about to get moving.”

The officer stared at Buster in the backseat, his eyes flickering with the disorientation of not knowing someone in his town.

“Friend of yours?” he asked, pointing at Buster.

“Yeah,” said Joseph.

“Army?” asked the cop.

“Special Forces,” said Arden, placing a hushing finger to his lips.

“Huh,” said the cop, “real Black Ops shit?”

Despite a lifetime spent lying without effort, Buster could only manage a weak nod in agreement.

“Okay, move it out, then,” the cop said, flicking his wrist and pointing toward the horizon.

“Special Forces,” Buster whispered to himself, everyone giddy with anticipation.

At the liquor store, Buster, emboldened by the feeling that he had made friends for the first time in years, used almost the absolute last of the cash in his wallet to buy all the alcohol the soldiers wanted. He felt warm and authentic inside his new clothes and thought, handing over all he owned to the liquor-store clerk, that he could live here forever.

N
ow it was Buster’s turn. He leaned over a massive air cannon mounted on a tripod, which the soldiers referred to as
Air Force One
. Instead of potatoes, the gun used two-liter soda bottles as ammunition. “See, we don’t like to call them spud guns,” said David, who seemed, as the night progressed, to become more tightly wound. “Some shoot ping-pong balls and some shoot soda bottles and some shoot tennis balls that you fill with pennies. The best term would be pneumatic or combustion artillery.” Joseph shook his head. “I call them spud guns,” he said. Arden said, “I only ever have called them spud guns.” “Yeah, whatever,” replied David, “but I’m just trying to say that, for the article, the best term is still pneumatic or combustion artillery.”

Kenny walked Buster through the steps one more time, and, though it was complicated and would result in serious injury if not performed correctly, Buster felt as though he understood each maneuver intuitively. He loaded the cannon and then turned on the air compressor until it reached the correct PSI. “Okay,” said Joseph, “we’re not going to pretend that this is better than sex or anything, but you’re going to be very happy after you do this.”

Buster wanted to be very happy; in his desperate moments of self-absorption, he felt that the earth was powered by the intensity of his emotions. When he mentioned this to a psychiatrist, the doctor said, “Well, if that’s the case, don’t you think you should be out doing something a bit more, I don’t know, worthwhile?”

He depressed the chamber-release trigger and there was a resonant thoomp followed by a soft, sustained shushing sound like air escaping from an expertly slashed tire. Someone handed him a pair of binoculars, and Buster watched the trajectory of the bottle until it landed almost three hundred yards away. He was surprised to find that, long after he had fired the cannon, the happiness he derived from it had not abated. “Does this ever get old?” Buster asked, and all four of the men answered, without hesitation, “No.”

Two sacks of potatoes emptied, the men stood in a circle and occasionally mentioned that someone should go buy some more beer without anyone volunteering to do so.

Through his alcoholic impairment, Buster began to formulate the basic premise of his article, ex-soldiers building fake weapons to alternately forget and remember their wartime experiences. All he needed were facts to support this idea. “How often do you do this?” Buster asked. The men looked at him like it should have been obvious. “Every goddamned night,” Kenny said, “unless there’s something good on TV, which is pretty much never.”

“We don’t have jobs, Buster,” said Joseph. “We’re living with our parents and we don’t have girlfriends. We just drink and blow shit up.”

“You’re making it sound like it’s a bad thing,” Arden said to Joseph.

“Well I don’t mean to,” said Joseph, and looked at Buster. “It only sounds that way when I say it out loud.”

“So,” Buster began, unsure of the correct way to phrase his question, “does all of this, shooting off potato guns, ever remind you of your time over in Iraq?” As soon as he finished his question, everyone around him seemed, momentarily, incredibly sober. “Are you asking if we have flashbacks or something?” asked David. “Well,” Buster continued, beginning to realize that he had been better off shooting potatoes into the atmosphere, “I just wonder if shooting these spud guns makes you think about your time in the army.” Joseph laughed softly. “Everything makes me think about the army. I wake up and I go to the bathroom and I think about how, in Iraq, there were just pools of piss and shit in the streets. And then I get dressed and I think about how, when I would put on my uniform, I was already sweating before I buttoned my shirt. And then I eat breakfast and think about how every single goddamn thing I ate over there had sand in it. It’s hard not to think about it.”

“I thought maybe these spud guns were a way to get back some of the excitement of being over there,” Buster weakly offered, feeling the article slip away from him.

“In Iraq, I filled out reports regarding the air quality in Baghdad,” Arden replied.

“It was boring as hell,” said Kenny, “until it wasn’t, and then it was fucking terrifying.”

“But you had guns, right?” Buster asked.

“Well, we all had weapons. I had a 9 mm Beretta and an M4 carbine,” Joseph continued, “but other than training, target practice, I never fired my weapon while I was over there.”

“You didn’t shoot anyone in Iraq?”

“No,” Joseph answered, “thank God.” Buster looked around at the other men, who all smiled and shook their heads. “What did you guys do?” he asked. Joseph and Kenny helped set up Tactical Operations Centers. David was a logistical adviser to the Iraqi army. “Accounting, mostly,” he said.

“What about your fingers?” Buster asked, pointing to the missing digits on Joseph’s left hand. “Hell, Buster, I didn’t lose them in Iraq,” he said. “I was testing out accelerants for a new spud gun, and I exploded them off my hand.”

“Oh,” said Buster.

“You sound disappointed,” said Kenny.

“No, I’m not,” Buster answered quickly.

“We’re just bored,” said Joseph. “That’s the simplest answer. It’s like, no matter where you are or what you’re doing, you have to try like hell to keep from getting bored to death.”

Kenny killed his last beer and bent over to pick up another potato gun, smaller than the others, a silver canister attached to the gun by a tube, the barrel outfitted with a scope. “Like this, for instance,” Kenny said, holding the gun out for Buster to inspect. “Look down the barrel of this one,” he continued, but Buster hesitated, looking around at the other men. “It’s okay,” said Joseph, holding up his disfigured hand, “it’s totally safe.”

Buster leaned over the barrel but couldn’t see anything of note. “What am I looking at?” he asked. “It’s rifled,” said Kenny, “like a real weapon.” Buster slid his fingers inside the barrel and felt the grooves inside the PVC. “What does that do?” he asked. “Accuracy,” said Kenny. “You can hit a damn target from fifty yards away. Here, Joseph, show him.”

Kenny handed the gun to Joseph and then picked up an empty beer can. He began to walk away from the crowd, counting off each measured step until he was at a fair distance from them. Like a waiter holding a tray of food, he held the beer can in his open palm, just over his head. “This seems like the worst kind of idea,” said Buster, but Joseph reassured him. “I wouldn’t do it if I couldn’t do it,” he told Buster. Arden tore open a new bag of potatoes and handed one to Joseph, who began to delicately force the vegetable down the sharpened barrel, leaving behind a sheared-off portion of potato. “See,” said Joseph, “we’ve got a little ball of ammunition in there now.” He turned on the gas, filled the chamber with the correct amount, and then took aim through the scope. When the trigger was pulled, Buster saw only the flare of ignited gas that trailed the potato. Once he heard the sound of aluminum compacting, he noticed Kenny, still in full possession of his hand, picking the demolished beer can off the ground and holding it up for the rest of them to see. “That was incredible,” Buster said, punching Joseph’s shoulder. “Not bad, huh?” said Joseph, who seemed embarrassed or excited or both.

“Me next,” said Arden, who grabbed one of the last full cans of beer and started jogging out to where Kenny was standing. Arden placed the can on top of his head, William Tell–style, and waited for Joseph to aim and fire. “Should we take bets?” asked David, but the odds seemed so lopsided that they didn’t feel it would be worth the trouble. “No point putting it off any longer,” Joseph said, and then fired the potato gun. And missed. “C’mon, now,” yelled Arden, “that was off by a mile.” Kenny sidled up to Buster, holding the beer can that Joseph had obliterated with the potato gun. The can looked like a piece of shrapnel pulled from an unlucky body, jagged edges and splattered with warm pieces of potato. The webbing between Kenny’s thumb and forefinger was bleeding, but he did not seem to care. “I wish we had a video camera,” he said. “These are the kind of things you want to remember.”

Joseph reloaded and missed again. And again. “I guess I’m trying to aim a little high because I’m afraid that I’m going to shoot him in the face,” he said. “You should ignore that fear,” said Kenny, who began to urinate in full view of everyone. Joseph once again shoved a potato down the barrel of the gun, his face now serious and pale. The temperature seemed to have dropped twenty degrees in the last half hour. Joseph took an extraordinarily long time to sight the target through the scope and then fired, the concussive sound reverberating in the cold air, a sound that Buster thought he would never grow tired of hearing. The can atop Arden’s head exploded in a mushroom cloud of beer, sending the target almost twenty yards beyond Arden, who was soaking wet and covered in chunks of potato. He walked back to the other men, his teeth chattering, reeking of beer and French fries. Buster handed him the beer he was drinking and Arden finished it in one gulp. David picked up another beer and offered it to Buster. “Should we keep pushing our luck?” he asked.

Buster considered the beer and then looked at Joseph. “I don’t know,” Buster said. “It would make for a good article,” Kenny said, “either way.” Though Buster could not reject the truth of this statement, he found that he could not will his legs to move. Joseph took the gun off of his shoulder and offered it to Buster. “You can shoot me, instead,” he said, “that would be a good story too.” Buster began to laugh but he realized that Joseph was serious. “It’s okay,” Joseph said. “I’m pretty sure you can do it.”

“It’s a rifled barrel,” said Arden, “it’s pretty damn accurate.” It dawned on Buster that they were all spectacularly drunk and yet operating at a fairly high level of awareness. Their judgment was impaired, admittedly, but Buster felt himself believing that there was logic to their actions. Buster assessed the situation. It was a distinct possibility that he would hurt someone, but he could not be hurt; he felt immune to whatever disaster might try to attach itself to him. “I’m invincible,” he said, and everyone else nodded in agreement. Buster grabbed the beer and began to walk away from the other men. “Don’t miss,” he shouted over his shoulder, and Joseph replied, “I won’t.”

Buster was shaking so hard that it was impossible to balance the can on his head. “Give me a second,” he yelled. He closed his eyes, forced his lungs to take in deep, sustained breaths, and felt his body begin to go numb. He imagined that the doctors had just taken him off of life support and he was dying in slow increments. Finally, he was dead, and then he took another breath and, all of a sudden, he wasn’t. When he opened his eyes, he was ready for whatever would come next.

It was beginning to grow dark, but he could clearly see Joseph bring the gun into position. Buster closed his eyes, held his breath, and, before he realized that the gun had been fired, a gust of heat and wind passed over him and deconstructed the beer can atop his head, the sound of something irrevocably giving up its shape and becoming, in an instant, something new.