Sometime past midnight, me and Turd stumble into this neighborhood where, save a couple smashed windows, bashed gutters, staved in porches and such, all the houses look the same.
“Cookie cutter equality,” Turd calls it. “Socialism 101.”
Turd’s voice is big and deep, but he’s shorter and skinnier than me. And me? Bryan Lamonge? Normal kids in high school use to call me Paper, I was so thin. They’d lean beefy elbows on my head, say, “’sup, Paper? What’s on your mind, Sheet?” and laugh every time. After the leaning and the laughing came the stuffing of my scrawny ass inside one locker or another. I was what those normal ones called a Sheet. We had one called Bat, one called Dirty, another named Dumb and so on and so forth. Might have been ok if Sheets was a club, doing meetings, saying hey in the halls and such. But we was just the shamed and shat upon. None of us related, none of us named Sheet for real, and none of us happy.
I’m with Turd, now, stumbling through cookie cutter country on a night so hot and sticky the crickets, katydids and whatnots is all called in sick. Quiet’s what I’m saying, but for the sound of me and my buddy sweating and saying back and forth about socialists sapping freedom from God fearing white men like us.
Turd Turkenberg is a year or two older than me and he didn’t go to no high school. If he had, he’d have stopped that Sheet business right quick. Same like he did last week, when we became buds. We were chatting out behind Walmart like two short, skinny white homeless men might about the economy and such, when this hefty old boy used to be one of the normals copped a lean for old time’s sake and asked me what was up. “Friend,” rumbled Turd. “The man’s name is Bryan,” and that normal moved along.
Turd is skinnier and shorter by half a head than me. He’s got thinness to burn and two short legs give him the look of a sawed-off refugee. He might could fit inside a smelly locker, but I can’t picture him sobbing in there, waiting to be set loose. That is not his way.
His fat rich man’s voice demands respect. A voice you expect to hear setting callers straight on radio talk shows, which Turd could do easy as he’s smart like that. But he’s no more rich than he is fat, else he’d buy shoes without holes in the soles, own a house and whatnot. Also, he’s not on the radio because, for the last week, he’s been too busy being my buddy twenty four seven. My numero uno and solo homie, which, don’t confuse us with the gays. That aint us.
Me and Turd, we roll together don’t matter the weather. That is a true fact and also the name of a good Christian rap song I’m making up in my head. Someday, you’ll see me singing it on America’s Got Talent, which Turd says I’ve got plenty of.
We’re a little drunk, maybe, this hot night. A little loud. Could be we woke someone. Can’t say who. Can’t say where, either, due to bad lighting, sweaty eye-balls and every house looking like the next. Still, somebody steps out of his place, hollers, “Hey, Fuckwads. Keep it down out there!” Which is disrespectful. Plus, it’s that suppression of freedom we been talking about.
So, me and Turd? We’re mobilizing. Hoofing up Bianca Lane, righteous as monks, drunk, wet, and smelling like grown-ass men intent on settling up with whoever disrespected us.
Halfway up the street, I ask, “Which house you figure’s that motherfucker’s?” and Turd looks at me, shrugs and says, “No idea, Bryan.”
We stand in the road, sweat dripping steady off our ears and noses, clothes soaked and sticking gross to our bodies. I wipe my nose and say, “Well, let’s go home, then,” like either of us has a place somewhere.
Turd ignores me. He’s cringing, fidgeting, jumping around like ants found him out. He sticks a hand down his pants and scratches, like I’ve seen him do many a time. Nothing unnatural about it. Just a God-fearing man, trying to separate balls from briefs in this heavy American heat. He’s still jumping around when the hand comes out, still shuffling his feet, which, I’ll be honest, makes me giggle.
Now his face looks pained, like he’s thinking deep.
“Those comrades in their hovels, Bryan,” he says at last, jerking his head toward the houses. “Do you believe a one of them considered silencing our abuser? Do you believe there’s anyone righteous enough among them to have told our abuser to shut up and let us be? Listen,” he says, lowering his voice some, “it’s always best to deal with evil doers mano y mano.” He pauses and I nod, letting him know I’m up on that Español. “Mano y mano just isn’t possible here, Bryan, because, well, socialism. We are always blessed, Bryan. Always guided by scripture. ‘Thou shalt hold every man accountable for whatsoever doth spew from his neighbor’s mouth.’ Litigitous 3:14.”
I nod in agreement. Turd knows his verses.
I try wiping sweat off my brow, but my forearm is wetter than hot pussy. I sigh. Then I watch Turd reach into his back pocket, withdraw a Smith & Wesson, and – bam! – blow out the windshield of a parked Toyota.
I won’t lie. Seeing Turd pull that gun, hearing the blast, watching that windshield shatter – it shook me. Here we’d been carrying on all night about freedom this, liberty that; proclaiming our God-given rights as White Americans, which, the right to own, carry and fire any kind of gun a man wants is number one with a bullet.
So, we’d been drinking more than we’d been talking. Drinking steady since mid-morning, and I forgot Turd had the gun. Forgot about the old couple in the retirement community a few miles back whose open window we’d climbed through at sunrise. Not to rob, not to hurt. Just to educate. Teach the folks inside the dangers of leaving windows open and such.
The old woman looked like bones in a bag and she had one of those beds with hand cranks, side rails and whatnots you see in hospitals. Still, it was clear she called the shots in that house. She was just lying in bed ringing a cowbell and yelling at the old man, “Give them what they want, Marvin. Give them what they come for.”
We didn’t ask for a thing. Didn’t open our mouths hardly. Didn’t matter. Old Marvin gave us booze – Jack Daniels, Scotch and gin. Gave us cash, too, along with guns, pretzels, and totes to carry everything off in. We divvied up the whole business and tossed the totes soon as we left those folks.
Well, now. Occurs to me I got a gun, too! I peel my shirt from my hips and pull the damn thing from my waste-band. “Hey,” I say pointing the gun at a Honda Civic one driveway over, “hey now,” and I squeeze the trigger, fall on my ass and miss the Civic by a couple yards.
Turd gives me a what-the-fuck look, so, I explain, “Never shot a gun before.”
Turd glances down at me and shakes his head, like he can’t believe he’s been hanging around me all week. Like now he sees I’m a Sheet for real with no business being with him on this mission to punish a disrespecting communist. Like I don’t deserve respect myself from any normal person on the planet. And, me? I’m thinking, he’s likely right, for he never isn’t. I wish I’d joined the gun club back in high school. Screw the normals didn’t want me joining. Shoot those fuckers. Which I didn’t. Join. Screw. Shoot.
Breathe, I tell myself. Focus on the now. I’m in a communist neighborhood trying to stand up. Battling gravity, feeling shame for popping my gun cherry this late in life.
Turd mutters something under his breath, pivots and, without bothering to aim, fires at the Civic, finishing what I’d started by sending that foreign piece of shit’s headlight to kingdom come.
Turd Turkenberg: Bible scholar, crack shot, best bud a man could have.
Then the Civic’s alarm starts beeping, growing louder and crazier by the second. Dogs all barking, lights coming on inside houses on all sides of us. Men – tall, short, fat, thin, black, white, brown and whatnot; young and old; flabby and ripped, near nude and full-on pajama-wearing. Sheets and normals alike by the looks of ‘em, all tumbling out onto their porches, bearing firearms of all makes and models.
A smile lights Turd’s face. “My fellow Americans” he calls out, waving his Smith & Wesson for all to see. “Newbie there,” he says nodding in my direction, “Newbie just fired his first!”
We’re in the middle of the road, Turd sweating buckets but still grinning and bouncing like he’s emceeing a dance, or preaching hot, me struggling to stay upright and trembling like it’s cold, which it’s not. I’m scared. Maybe pissed off, too. Sounds like Turd’s blaming me for setting off that alarm. Which I never.
The gunmen on the porches stare at us both for what seems like hours. I try explaining myself, but I’m stuttering and can’t get past, “Hey now.” Worse, I can’t stop blubbering. I keep telling myself this is no place for crybabies or wimps, but telling it makes me blubber more. And these commies, they come down off their porches, make a circle around us, closing tighter every time I blubber.
Finally, I bite my lip, shut my eyes and wait for what’s coming.
A cricket chirps somewhere. An owl hoots. Then I hear Turd clearing his throat. “No guns, no glory,” he says in his preacher’s voice. “Thus sayeth the Lord, gentlemen. Juveniles, 9:15.” He lets that sink in for a moment, then blames me again for all the late night racket, this time pausing between words to make sure they’re getting it: “Newbie. Just. Fired. His. First.”
More silence. I take a peak from behind my eyelids. Communists have us circled tight. Sweat from my nose dribbles on someone’s slippers. There’s some mumbling, some head scratching. Lots of fingers pointing at me.
Turd keeps preaching. “Consider the Newbie of the field,” he thunders, “and rejoice with all who rejoiceth in freedom!”
There’s another moment of silence, then the sound of men cheering, guns firing overhead in celebration. I hit the ground again, feeling part of something big, joyous and real. I stay grounded long as I can, eyes wide open, puckering up and planting wet ones on the hot, sweet, American asphalt.
Bob Shar is a former factory worker, sportswriter, burned out little magazine masochist (founded/edited/ obsessed over/went broke running The Crescent Review, 1983-88), disreputable bar mitzvah instructor, and retired librarian. His stories have appeared — or are forthcoming — in Stoneboat, 2 Bridges Review, Bartleby Snopes,Bacopa Literary Review, Blue Lake Review, South Carolina Review and elsewhere. He’s recently widowed, rapidly balding, slow talking and arthritic, expecting fame, fortune and fabulous women to start banging on his door in Winston-Salem, NC, momentarily.
–Art by Felix Lu