Wingshooters (12 page)

“Well … Charlie. It could cause Earl a problem. If the teacher officially reported it, we’d have to investigate.”

“Well, did he?” He sounded angry and impatient.

“No,” said Ray. “The teacher told Baker about it, and Baker convinced him to let him handle it. He called me directly instead of going through the department. And now I’m trying to figure out what to do.”

My grandfather took a moment to answer. “Well, what would you do if it was somebody else?”

Ray sighed. “Get the kid looked at, I guess. And if it’s as bad as they say, I’d have my men go and pick up the father.”

“But it’s
not
someone else.”

“No,” Ray said. “It’s Earl.”

And for the first time his voice seemed to loosen a bit, as if something he was holding tight was slipping free. I thought Ray Davis was generally a decent sort, too uncertain, maybe, too deferential to be the face of the law. And it occurred to me that although Earl was his friend, he wasn’t sure about the best course of action. Maybe he was looking to Charlie for permission to go talk to Kevin and question his father—maybe that would give him the courage he needed. But if so, he didn’t get it, because when Charlie spoke again, he said, “That nosy bastard. I knew those niggers would bring nothing but trouble.”

Ray didn’t respond. Maybe he was still thinking about what to do, but Charlie’s stance on the matter was clear. His voice was more distinct now—he must have been facing Ray, or his anger added volume to his words.

“They got no right to tell a man how to raise his children. Or what he can or can’t do in order to discipline ’em. Hell, I took Stewart over my own knee when he was a boy, and now it looks like I didn’t do it near
enough
.”

“We all do that, Charlie. But this is different.”

“Earl’s own daddy was tough on him,” Charlie continued. “
Too
tough, some folks might say. I know Earl had a hard time of it, but it kept him in line. And now he’s just trying to keep his own boys out of trouble.” He paused, and I remembered the scar on Earl’s arm, about the size of the end of a cigar. When Charlie spoke again, his voice had the tone of a command. “Don’t talk to the boy, Raymond. I’m sure it’s all blown out of proportion. Just talk to Earl, and let him know what’s going on.”

When Ray spoke again, he sounded resolved but not happy. “So you think I should just tell him that people are looking out?”

I could almost see Charlie nod. “Yes. That’s what you’d do for me, Ray. That’s what you’d do for any of us. Or else why even bother to call yourself a friend?”

Ray was silent, and I could imagine him looking down the street, the lights coming on in the living rooms all along Dryden Road. “I don’t even know how to bring it up, Charlie,” he said finally. “I mean, how do you tell a man …?”

“Tell him they’re sticking their black noses where they don’t belong. Tell him you know who’s in the right here, and that you’re going to stand by him. This is bullshit, Ray. You know it is. This is bullshit, and you need to put a stop to it.”

But when the men came inside, I wasn’t sure from Ray’s expression that he knew it was bullshit at all. He had the chastened look of a young man given an unpleasant task by his father. He left quickly, maybe to see Earl Watson, and then Charlie went into the kitchen for another beer. My grandfather was angry and preoccupied; he’d been in a sour mood already and this had made things worse. Neither my grandmother nor I dared to approach him. And when he came back to the living room, where she and I had already gone, he lay down on the couch, turned on the TV, and didn’t speak a word to either one of us.

I don’t know what Ray said to Earl, but I know he said something, because the next time I saw Earl he was drawn-in and tense, even more ill-tempered than he’d been all fall. I wouldn’t have chosen to be around him, but my grandfather had taken me with him, as he always did, to run his Saturday-morning errands. After we’d picked up a rake and trash bags at Kmart and a tailpipe at the auto supplies shop, we pulled up in front of Earl’s gun store. Charlie said, “’Lo, Earl,” by way of greeting as we walked through the door, and then he sat down in one of the folding metal chairs that Earl had set up by the counter. He patted the other chair to indicate that I should sit.

“’Lo, Charlie,” Watson answered, not acknowledging me. “Hey Jake,” he yelled, “bring Charlie here some coffee!”

I’d thought Earl was alone, but after a minute or two, Jake Watson came in from the back office and handed my grandfather a Styrofoam cup. At first I wasn’t sure he had noticed me. But then his thin lips curled into a smirk, which gave me a little spasm of fear. Jake sat on a high stool behind the counter and crossed his arms, looking at me, and I thought of the times during the summer when I’d passed him and his friends out near Six Mile Creek, sitting on top of their cars and smoking pot or drinking beer. If they saw me, they’d stir themselves enough to throw rocks, and I’d bike past them as fast as I could. Although Earl didn’t know—I assumed—about the pot and the rock throwing, he had to realize that Jake got into trouble. From what I heard, he’d been suspended from the high school more than once for fighting or for arguing with his teachers. Now, looking back, it’s tempting to explain Jake’s behavior as anxiety over the war, especially since some of his older friends had been drafted; especially since one of them had come home without his legs. But the war had ended more than a year ago, and so his surliness couldn’t be blamed on the threat of the draft.

The gun shop was set up like a jewelry store, with a U-shaped glass counter and wide display cases against the two side walls. Above the cases were advertising posters for some of the store’s best sellers—Remington, Smith & Wesson, Ithaca, and Colt, even one for Italian Berettas. Earl had inherited the store from his father and then expanded the business; he also taught gun safety classes out at the firing range, including a class specifically for kids. I had taken the class myself the previous fall at Charlie’s behest, shooting round after round with a little .22-caliber single-action army revolver. The gun seemed small and insignificant compared to Charlie’s heftier pistols, but I’d liked the feel of it, the warmth of the metal, the sense of contained power. From there I’d graduated to a .410-gauge shotgun to prepare for bird hunting, which was almost easier because I could brace the butt against my shoulder.

There were no customers in the store that day, which was unusual—it was a week before the opening of deer hunting season, one of the busiest times of the year. Earl was cleaning a used Colt 1911, dabbing polish onto a cloth and gently stroking the barrel. He worked with focus and pleasure, not speaking to us yet; then he turned and put the gun back into the display case. The longer-barrel pistols, as well as the rifles and shotguns, were in the cases against the wall. The smaller handguns were in the counter displays in their felt-lined cases, as harmless and still as watches. Earl ran his eyes over his entire inventory almost tenderly, as if the guns were living things that required his care. His eyes were red and the lines in his forehead and cheeks looked deeper than usual. Then he turned toward us and placed his fists on the counter.

“Got a new Browning Citori over and under you might want to look at, Charlie,” he said. “Best wingshooting gun I’ve ever seen.”

My grandfather sat with his hands cupping his knees and his legs spread wide, slouching a bit, totally at ease. “I’m getting too old for wingshooting, Earl. Those birds get smaller every year, and they move too goddamn fast. Deer are better for me now—they’re a bigger target, so I can actually see ’em. You going to make it out with us next weekend?”

Earl nodded. “I hope so. Trying to figure out whether to open next Saturday. I’m usually in the store the first day of the season, but I sure would like to get out there.”

Charlie nodded. “Well, come with us then,” he said. “Pete and I fixed the ladder going up to the stand, so even you could get your big ass up there now.”

“Well, I’ll try to get my new part-time man to come in so I can go. And this season,” he said, pulling himself up straight, “I’m going to take my boy out with me.” I looked at him, and so did my grandfather. It was clear which boy he was talking about, and which one he wasn’t, and his knowledge that we knew how he divided his sons turned his face red, and tightened his fists.

“Kevin’s just too soft for hunting,” he said by way of explanation. “He can’t even put a worm on a hook.”

But the mention of Kevin’s name let something new into the store, like a draft bringing in a foul odor. My grandfather looked down, embarrassed.

Earl said, “Ah, hell,” and turned away in disgust, and slammed the display case shut. When I glanced over at Jake to see his reaction—his face showed nothing—I realized for the first time how much he looked like his brother. He too had lush black hair that was a bit long. He too had a compact body and short, stubby fingers, but he was put together differently, with more strength and ease, and on him the bushy hair and stockiness suggested power, not disarray. No one had ever knocked him over or taken him down a notch. No one had ever looked at him and found him lacking.

As the silence continued between the two men, I knew that Ray had talked to Earl, but that my grandfather hadn’t. I wondered if they’d speak of Kevin, or if the presence of Jake and me would stop them. Either way, I wanted to be out of there. Earl scared me now, even more than he had before. I kept remembering the scars on Kevin’s back, the oozing of the still-fresh wounds. I couldn’t imagine a person doing that to someone else, especially not a parent to a child. My father had never raised a hand to me, my mother either—something I’d never even thought about before but that now made me think I was lucky. I glanced over at Charlie to see if he was going to say something. But just then, Earl looked out the window and exclaimed, “Well, I’ll be god-damned.”

I turned toward the window, and saw what he saw—Mr. Garrett walking alone on the other side of Buffalo Street. It seemed that he too was out doing Saturday errands—he was carrying a couple of shopping bags—and I wondered why his wife wasn’t with him. I felt my grandfather sit up straight beside me; felt the air sharpen to a fine, dangerous point. Earl’s face contorted into an ugly mask of itself. Never taking his eyes off Mr. Garrett, he stepped out from behind the counter. He walked out through the front door and onto the sidewalk.

Mr. Garrett didn’t see him at first. He was walking leisurely, stopping to look in store windows, swinging his bags in a big, loose arc, like a boy who’d just finished running an errand for his mother and was dallying before he went home. He was dressed more casually than usual, in jeans, a green canvas jacket, and sneakers. But the jeans only drew attention to the length of his legs, and revealed muscles you couldn’t see when he wore dress slacks. Watching him, even from a fifty-foot distance, I thought, what an impressive-looking man.

But that’s not what Earl Watson was thinking. Jake got up off his stool and followed Earl out the door, my grandfather an arm’s length away from him. I stood and walked over to the doorway. And from that proximity I could see the look on Earl’s face, the sheer and open hatred. His eyes were narrowed and his lips pressed tight, and a small spot appeared in the center of his cheek, stark white against the darkening red. His fists opened and closed and I could feel the tension radiating off his body.

Mr. Garrett must have felt something, too, for now he looked across the street and saw us there. And he must have seen me first, because his face softened a bit—but then his eyes settled on Earl. I don’t know if he knew who Earl Watson was, if he knew this was Kevin’s father. But the hostility in Earl’s face was unmistakable. Mr. Garrett looked at him for a long, hard second. Then he nodded slowly—an acknowledgment more than a greeting—and continued down the street.

The next Wednesday after school, I took my bike from the garage and headed out into the country. It was dreary outside, cold but not unbearable, the beginning of the long haul into winter. The trees seemed worn and tired; the fallen leaves had all turned limp and brown. The ground was muddy from a recent rain, and the cold had caused the mud to coagulate into hard brittle lumps, which made for a bumpy ride. I’d left Brett at home—this was something I needed to do by myself, and besides, I wasn’t going to the park. Instead, I rode all the way out to the satellite clinic, where I knew Mrs. Garrett worked on Wednesdays. I didn’t know why I wanted to see Mrs. Garrett; I just knew that I had to go there, had to see her after the Saturday stare-down between Earl Watson and her husband.

The clinic was in a building that had once been a package store next to the original highway. When the old highway became obsolete with the opening of Route 5, the store, without its main source of customers, had failed. This all happened long before my time, but I knew that the store had tried to revive itself at various times as an auto supplies shop, a feed store, and even a bar, until finally all commercial efforts stopped and the building was left to deteriorate. I had passed it occasionally on my rides into the country, and I had never, in my short time in Deerhorn, known it to be anything but a boarded-up place with empty beer cans strewn in front and tall weeds sprouting up through the cracks in the stairs.

But as I approached the old building—which was about half a mile east of Route 5 on Besemer Road—I was amazed by the transformation. The boards had been replaced by plain but functional windows. The cracked stairs had been removed, replaced by new stairs with metal railings. The old wooden sign, which had been painted over countless times to reflect the building’s different incarnations, was gone, and in its place was a brand-new sign, with bold red and black letters, that said,
Deerhorn-Central Wisconsin Satellite Clinic.
And for the first time in all the times I had seen this place, there was evidence of people—cars in the parking lot; two mothers talking at the bottom of the stairs while their children played peek-a-boo around their legs; figures moving behind the new windows. It was a remarkable change. The building didn’t look very big from outside, and I couldn’t picture how it might have been laid out. But it was bustling with activity. I noticed, through the wide front window, a row of people in what must have been the waiting room, and as I stood with my bike at the edge of the parking lot, several more people came out the door. I recognized Sammy Tyler, one of the trailer children and a third grader who got marched to the showers with Billy Coles every week. I wondered what might have been wrong with him, remembering the strange growth on his cheek, his graying teeth, the spots of thinning hair. As the Tylers moved to the end of the parking lot and walked down the road, I realized why there were so few cars for the number of patients waiting inside—because not many of the country people owned them.