I should take the gun and throw it into the river. The cool morning raises a chill up my back and touches my ears. The ceiling fan spins silently, driving me into the bedroom for my favorite cardigan. I don’t turn off the fan because the little gold chain pulled off in my hand, so it runs and runs. Like it’s making fun of me for being such a loser. The cardigan is gray and fuzzy and once it’s on my shoulders I’m wrapped in a pleasant warmth. My feet are in slippers. A coffee cup steams from the round table by my chair. I cannot lose these comforts, but taped to the kitchen window, a white paper clearly states I can and will. Courtesy of the Sheriff and the BANK if such a thing could ever be called a courtesy.
The gun flashes through my mind. When I shot at the trees. It’s solid cold weight and the recoil. BOOM—puncture—echo! Repeat! The silent unknowable trees stare as stout as ever. The smell of gun smoke calls out my sin. I regret injuring them. What did a tree ever do to me, except help me breathe.
I tell myself, do a gratitude list, before you fall into the gray glum of depression. Gratitude is an action word—the attitude of gratitude can change things. Five quick ones: I can walk, talk, see, hear, and taste. Easy ones. Especially sight, I could not live without seeing, or so I envision. I need five more: coffee, my fingers (some people have hooks), my cardigan, Goings (my ironic dog), and Cinnamon Life cereal (dry, no milk—that sucks). I would say shelter, but when the knock bangs on the door, we will be homeless. Number eleven: Shelter—for now.
“Come here, Goings,” he wanders over in his ironic way, and has no idea that his dog bed and he will ride in the backseat of my old Dodge Neon, his new home. We will, no doubt, be parking on the edge of gas station parking lots living out of the bathroom. I wish I had a van and we could join the nomadic “Van Life.” And still park at the edge of gas station parking lots living out of the bathroom. I guess it will be “The old car life”.
“I love you little buddy.” Goings does a spin that Tonya Harding would appreciate. His black fur is soft and warm, he’s kinda fat. A cute white stripe goes down his nose. A white star on his fluffy chest. He is a border collie—the rocket scientist of dogs. Goings, Goings, Goings, almost gone from his home is my bestie, my family, and we’ll have to ride it out. Like Bon Scott of AC/DC, sang “Ride on.” I wish I believed in God—more. I packed my King James Bible, so I haven’t completely lost faith. Right under the 9 mm in the glove box.
A surprisingly reasonable knock taps on the door. Sort of persistent, though, like E.A. Poe’s “rap-tap-tap-tapping. on the chamber door.” The silver star. A big son of a gun. His desert colored shirt fills up the whole doorway. His arms have a forest of red hair. I hate arm hair.
“Hello sir, you must vacate the premises, by order of the Winningham State Bank.”
“OK, NP. We’ll go.” I already have the car packed and hand him the keys like he is the new proud owner. “Let’s go, Goings.” I’m trying to be reasonable and polite. The other, not so reasonable me, thought about gutting the house and going on a rampage.
I lead Goings past the hulking cop. Goings sniffs at the big man’s shiny black shoes. The red-haired cop gives Goings a hard stare, and his hand falls onto his pistol’s, butt. “Take it easy, he’s not going to hurt you.” He’s a dog shooter—one of those cops—with an itchy dog killing finger. I give him the same hard look he gave my dog. The look says hurt my dog and you’ll have to kill me, too. Just so we understand each other.
Goings is innocent of these things. He wags his tail like crazy and loves riding in the car. “Say goodbye to our home, Goings” The cop crosses his arms in a stance. That can only be read as NO TRESPASSING. I turn and say, “Asshole.” I don’t think he heard me or I’m sure he would have committed an act of violence on my person. Then he would have found himself on the other end of the gun. I remind myself—keep an attitude of gratitude. Anyway, I’m persona non grata here. My home is not mine anymore, so I’m leaving—just leave us alone.
We head over the bridge and the river looks like a fat glistening orange snake in the setting sun. We have no one and nowhere to go. I inspect the area below the bridge and on a wild impulse; I crank the wheel and we are bouncing on the dusty ruts with a stripe of weeds rushing under the carriage. River cat tails lop over in a breeze. There’s something dead. The sweet smell of it almost makes me leave. It smells bad, but we’re here. We only drove about a mile.
I dump a Fuji water bottle into Goings’ silver bowl, and feed him dog chow with a little wet food from a can on top in his special blue bowl with white dog paws. I sit in a lawn chair, crunching Life Cereal sipping the last of the water.
Thoughts of the cop run through my head. How he wanted to shoot Goings. Then reality hits me. I’m living outside. We live outside. I’m homeless. A desolate hollow feeling rises somewhere in my chest, like a single lonely sail has risen on a vast gray ocean. The bugs start in like they are laughing with their chattering buzz, and cars thump over the bridge. I look up and see a white face looking down, and then streams away. Already we have become a spectacle.
I should put my fishing rod on a forked stick. Make it look like I’m a fisherman or fisher person to be politically correct. Make it seem like I am very patiently fishing. It might take some time if they are not biting. It might take all night into next week. I am already learning to camouflage my homelessness. I wish I had brought a tarp or a net with weeds stuffed into it to cover my rusty red Dodge, eyesore. Hiding it like a Ukrainian artillery gun searching for Russian foot soldiers.
Goings walks around our camp by the river nearly under the bridge, which has flooded and killed vegetation then receded, dried, cracked and stinks. The river stink is fading. We are part of it now. I think he is searching for his dog bed. He likes to take a nap after he eats. We are both very spoiled. I wonder if Goings will turn into a savage after a while. Will he start killing things? I thought about how much money I was saving not paying for electricity. Not that I had any money. How I had been fighting the electric bill, fighting the mortgage, fighting the supervisor at the door factory who fired me, and fighting the depression. Maybe now I won’t have time for depression. Do animals feel depression and self pity? I doubt the vole has time for that with a Kestrel’s talons flying down on them, or the raccoon with hunger screaming in its belly, driving it to tear up bags of trash for pizza rolls and eggshells.
This could be liberating. Someday when I become a famous writer or caricature artist or a seasoned knob polisher for my next meal. I can look back on this and say, “Inspiration!” Maybe it will be the title of a self-help book? Will I become a thief?
I put a cricket on the hook and cast its squirming legs out into the river. Hoping for a big carp. Something that might feed me for an entire week. I open the car door so Goings can get on his dog bed. I would lay it outside, but I don’t want it to get dirty. I think dirt is going to become a constant companion.
The night is on top of us. The mosquitoes whine in my ears like itchy sirens. Cars thump over the bridge. After midnight I wake to a loud squealing of tires above us. Then something huge hits the water and belly flops. I don’t want to know what that was. Goings snores on the back seat. He is not much of a watchdog. I reach from the passenger seat, that is kicked way back, and pet his soft fur. It’s a restless night for me and right when I get to sleep for a minute the awful sun comes up and it’s hot and merciless. Then I slip back slumbering under my problems again.
A persistent knock wakes me. The big cop is standing outside the car window. He evicts us for the second time.
I drive into Winningham and we stop at a grimy Speedway Gas station. I go straight to the bathroom. My tooth brush is in a shaving kit bag. I foam up and rinse. A big dumpy guy with acne scars wearing a Speedway cap barges in and stares at me instead of the mirror. I should have locked the door. He smells like onion rings and sweat. He runs the chicken roaster. I’ve seen him behind the counter before, dipping out potato wedges. He always gave me the smallest ones.
“Are you homeless?” How he knows this already baffles me. He must have an instinct for it.
“No, the whole world is my home.”
“I don’t want you loitering around the gas station. This bathroom is for paying customers.”
“Do you own this gas station?’
“No.” He had a dumb look in his eye, but very obstinate in his posture. He leans forward. Suddenly I smell the pink cakes in the urinal and I think I might puke. I really wanted to leave anyway, but I still had to use the bathroom.
“Are you the manager?”
“No.”
“Then don’t worry about it.” I’ve had enough of these people running me off. My hand wraps around a small pair of metal scissors, for trimming my mustache. The end pokes out of my fist. It is the only gleaming thing in the abysmal bathroom. Now I’m the one leaning forward. I think, is this how it’s going to be? Is this how you become a slasher?
The Chicken man goes chicken and pushes the door open, but says, “I’m calling the cops.”
After I get done with those important bathroom duties, using the amenities I took for granted: a mirror, water, toilet and TP—those things. I pull over past where you air up the tires on the farthest edge of the gas station. Maybe he will think I left. I should go, but I’m tired of being run off.
Traffic whirls by speeding ten or fifteen miles over the speed limit. Most of them are on their phones, distracted and barreling down the street. All these people out there, grabbing at the world. They want everything. They want to stop me from what I want too. I wouldn’t mind getting my gun out and opening fire on the traffic—paint some windshields red. I stop and try to be reasonable.
I do a little Gratitude mantra: I can walk, talk, see, hear, taste. The sun’s out, God loves me, I’m not in jail, Goings (my ironic dog), that’s nine or ten… I get into my glove-box and get the gun and stuff it down my pants and hang my sleep wrinkled shirt over it. The power of the gun brings a deep abiding serenity that is hard to understand. Number ten I’m grateful to have a fully loaded Taurus GX2 pistol.
I set Goings’ dog food dish on the oil stained cement by the passenger side away from the traffic and pour his dog food into his blue bowl. I put Goings on a leash and he gobbles up his dry dog food. I’m already out of the wet food I put on top.
Goings has his habits. He has to use the bathroom. I lead him over to a small patch of grass where a telephone pole grows out of it. He waters it and then he does a little circle and hunches up like a rabbit. I study the telephone pole reading a homemade flyer, giving Goings his privacy. Someone on 4th Street is having a yard sale today. TOOLS and BABY CLOTHES. The cop pulls in and he comes up to me.
“Get that fucking mutt off the grass.” He says.
He starts to say something else, but his eyes get so big I thought they might fall out of his skull. The recoil of the gun jumps in my hand and a brass shell ejects and tumbles like it might fly forever before hitting the pavement, while this act of slow motion was happening and the sun was glinting off the magic ejecting shell the cop died. His whole life and everything he had become, stopped. Everything he was and wanted—gone. His last foul words silenced by the loudest and last noise he will ever hear.
Then I went into the gas station and executed the chicken man. Unloaded the whole clip into him. The punctures are not like the silent trees I shot. These are soft and screaming! He was hard to kill, like trying to kill a sleeping bag, or THE BLOB, or skin filled with yellow fat and no organs, but he went down. Knocking Styrofoam cups and red straws everywhere. I rifled through the cash register, then knocked everything off the counter stealing rolls of lottery tickets. Like a cyclone blew through there. I put those in a Speedway plastic sack. I got us a big broasted Charlie’s Chicken breast and cleaned out the potato wedges, so I guess I will become a thief.
I tear off strips of the chicken breast for Goings, careful not to give him any bones. My ride and die little buddy, Goings, eats again while I cruise down Jefferson street and we pull into the bank parking lot. The sirens are whooping across town. I guess something has happened? I reload the clip with greasy chicken fingers. The bullets smell like chicken, and my thoughts smell like the river.
The mortgage is due on a certain bank manager’s life. Him and I made a pact. But he didn’t know it was a pledge of death.
Goings yawns and climbs onto his dog bed in the back seat. He makes his home where he can find it.
Image: Gas station at night with lights shining on the pumps from Pixabay.com
literally stories 
Oh my. This started off a sad but also sadly all too realistic tale, laced with the lack of humanity shown towards the narrator but then twisted into something more brutal with an ending that had me worried more about the dog. Very well paced with a nice attention to detail that made the concluding contrast all the sharper.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Steven
I was worried about the dog, too. Not sure what is in store for the poor creature. Animals seem to live from moment to moment. Maybe there is a sort of peace in that?
Thanks for your excellent comments!
Christopher
LikeLike
Hi Christopher,
I know that the MC was a murderer but he did gain some sympathy due to those anal fuckwits who go out their way to stick their noses in where they don’t belong or the JobsWorths and the unscrupulous.
There is an old saying that goes, ‘With strangers, you never know who you are talking to.’ I also think, ‘Watch who you piss off’ is good advice.
‘Goings’ is a cracking name for a dog. (Still not as good as DeFur’ though!!)
It’s weird with this, you know it won’t end well but you kinda hope it does!
This mixes up emotions and that is all good!!!
Excellent!!
Hugh
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hi Hugh
I’m glad the MC came across as sympathetic (to a degree). That’s excellent to hear! In the writing journey, I always hear how sympathy has to be there, so the reader will care about the main character or characters.
This is so true… ‘With strangers, you never know who you are talking to.’ I also think, ‘Watch who you piss off’ is good advice.”
People are often on a collision course. If they have a gun–don’t wear bright colors.
Goings and DeFur ridin’ the range! lol!
Thanks for your great comments!
Christopher
LikeLike
Hugh – Didn’t know what I was going to say, but I couldn’t have said it better. One wonders about those that go out and kill their family or strangers. What led them to that? Bad food at a restaurant? A feud with the family? As indicated, we may not know what is in another’s head until it is too late.
LikeLike
I don’t think it takes much…
Right, Hugh did put an insightful point on another aspect of the human condition.
Tip for the day: Wear subdued clothes to Walmart or wherever you may get your sustenance. If a loud popping suddenly rings out try to blend.
LikeLike
This was so well constructed. We were led towards a conclusion that we dreaded and yet we still had to go. Life is so brutal at times and it’s a small slip of circumstance that can change things from horrible to absolutely tragic. I also was left worrying about the dog. Another super story from you. Thanks – dd
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Diane
Happy the unhappy story came across well! Yes, people are basically nuts hidden by smiles and a sort of goodwill that can quickly turn into gunshots.
I liked what Hugh said, above, about being careful with strangers.
I felt sad for the dog, too. They don’t have many choices in who they hook their wagons too.
Thanks for your kind words!
Christopher
LikeLike
PS: Great picture of a gas station! Love the complete black and vibrant colors.
LikeLike
Christopher
The world forces the antihero into action, usually because s/he has no other choice. They face people who go “by the book” without any sense of fairness let alone context. This tells the truth, which is usually hard times. Brilliant once again!
Leila
LikeLike
Hi Leila
That is a great way to summarize this story. The world most definitely pushes people or corners them. Nothing quite so infuriating as when you’re down and out, and some jack-wagon sticks their foot out. lol.
And these cops with their power trips… Rhymes with pricks.
The whole world puts up a No Trespassing sign when you become homeless.
Thanks for your excellent comments!
Christopher (CJA, in other circles)
LikeLiked by 1 person
A well-crafted story in which the ending deems inevitable by the time we get there. Poor Goings has no idea of what’s coming. I wonder how the MC got to the where he was before we meet him? It’s a story ripe for both a prequel and a sequel.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Christopher!
As an artist you are a reality tester, which means that you fearlessly explore what’s real in the world around us, which is an antidote to all the delusions people labor beneath. Norman Mailer as well as Hemingway would’ve loved your stories of American violence for their hard-hitting, controversial, provocative, and extremely realistic depictions. Your narrator in this tale is an American Everyman who inhabits an extremely specific setting that could also be anywhere in the USA, from Maine to California and Florida to Washington State plus all points in between. That combination of representative/symbolic and extremely specific and individual is extremely strong in this story as in all your tales.
The narrator and Goings in this tale are like a platonic Bonnie and Clyde, pushed further and further into a corner until they start striking out in more ways than one.
We inhabit a societal system that is cruel, based on competition and conflict. Nature itself is cruel, based on competition and conflict, but one would think that a so-called advanced civilization would be able to take the edge off. Instead we have maniacs blowing everyone away with their guns, multiple deadly shootings every single day all across the land in America. Much of that has to do with the insane availability of guns, but much more of that has to do with how this cruel, atomized society drives people literally insane and then hangs them out to dry.
The fact that you were able to make this cold-blooded killer seem so highly sympathetic is an amazing artistic feat. And the absurd violence is even comical somehow too, not that one is celebrating murder, only that absurd outcomes have a flavor of the comic about them even when brutal or deadly. A hard fact of life beneath the veil.
You’re an absolute master at creating suspense via the withholding information.
You’re also an amazingly NATURAL-sounding writer in the sense that the voices in your stories FLOW so, so well. You never break the fictional dream through unintended intrusions and you never make mistakes. Literally never!
Warren Zevon has a song called “The Indifference of Heaven” which begins with these lines:
“Time marches on, time stands still, / Time on my hands, time to kill, / Blood on my hands, and my hands in the till, / Down at the 7-11.”
Another line in that song says, “They tell us these are the good times / But they don’t live around here, / No, they don’t live around here.”
The Democrats last time and the Republicans now are always telling everyone how great the economy is. How many multiple millions of Americans are there who know otherwise.
If America wants to understand (and maybe even overcome someday) its own violence they will read your stories!
Dale
LikeLike
Hi Dale
I think your comments are of true artistic value. This could be a stand alone essay on our society.
I must read Norman Mailer. Lately I’ve been reading a few tales by Stephen Crane.
Yes when people get knocked around they fight back. You’re right this society is full of competition and strife. It is a powder keg sitting on a powder keg.
I was hoping someone might spot some humor in it. lol. The absurdity of this kind of reactive violence. That our society is chock full. I’m glad you found him sympathetic, before he went bat shit. Sympathy has to be there in a story.
“The Indifference of Heaven” There is some cold truth in those lines!
It’s funny how politics is really just for a few and those few are scared to death of the masses.
Thanks for the truly interesting and kind comments!
Christopher
LikeLike
CJA
Yes,
I found plenty of humor in this story, even AFTER he murders the cop and heads off to get the other guy. There’s that thing in the world called poetic justice, which is the flipside of injustice: some people get what’s coming to them. Of course, that doesn’t translate into the real world and I don’t think all asshole people should be summarily executed. But many Buddhists believe that EVERYBODY gets what’s coming to them, no matter what that is. The law officer and the gas station chicken worker in this story (in the fictional way) get what’s coming to them, and that is both cathartic, and hilarious (as well as tragic).
Making violence seem funny can be a mere sensationalization of it. Or it can be, as here, somehow a complex reflection of real life and therefore an unspoken narrative comment on real life and therefore a truth-telling. The way you handle violence in your stories is both complex and epic.
The narrator remains sympathetic after the murder/s but the murderer, once he or she commits murder, also does lose some of the reader’s empathy. Which is a dramatic CHANGE in the story, and therefore as it should be.
Steven Crane is great! And what a wonderful writer to read now. He knows about the struggle for existence sometimes like no other.
My two favorite stories by him are “The Open Boat” and “The Blue Hotel,” in that order. And those are two of my favorite short stories of all time by any author. Especially “The Open Boat,” but also “The Blue Hotel.” There would and could have been no Hemingway without Stephen Crane. “The Open Boat” is an allegory of all life, and one of the most realistic stories that will ever be written. Crane also wrote some of the best experimental poetry of any American ever. And also of course The Red Badge of Courage, a historical novel decades ahead of its time. So realistic everyone thought he’d been in the war even though he was born AFTER the war.
His self-published short novel Maggie: A Girl of the Streets is also light years ahead of its time!
Dale
LikeLike
DWB
It’s truly, expert, how you analyze stories. It’s a real joy to read your comments!
The Buddhists are a great and wise order. I can’t stand what China has done to Tibet. And now the real estate developer Trump has deregulated the protections for Clean Air and Water. He is monstrously against the environment and climate protections that Obama and Biden upheld. All for the rich oil and gas companies. Everything he does is for the rich, and what he does for the poor and middle class is just to appease a revolution–like all the bad ones do. He’ll send out a few checks pretty soon, like crumbs from a king’s dinner table.
Glad the violence doesn’t come off as slapstick. I didn’t even think about the terrible change that happened to the MC. But it’s there… His rampage left his poor dog in uncertainty.
Those sound like great stories by S. Crane. Can’t wait to read those. “A Dark Brown Dog,” is a sad one.
Thanks!
CJA
LikeLike
PS
Norman Mailer is really relevant to a tale like this. Some of his best work is the live interviews he gave and dialogues he was in, on TV, in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, ’00s…Many hours of Norman talking all available on U Toob (I like misspelling corporate names)…with William F. Buckley, Dick Cavett, Charlie Rose, etc.
Norman’s book about Gary Gilmore called THE EXECUTIONER’S SONG is a brilliant work that’s too long (at a thousand pages) but Norman also made his book into a truly great film (he wrote the script) where Tommy Lee Jones plays Gilmore, the killer who wanted to be executed by firing squad for his crimes, and whose last words were: “Let’s do it.” (Gilmore didn’t believe that death is the end…) Rosanna Arquette plays Gary’s girlfriend (and is gorgeous)…I saw this film again not too long ago and it holds up amazingly well (it came out in 1982)…
LikeLike
Hi DWB
I didn’t know N. Mailer wrote “The Executioner’s Song,” Tommy Lee Jones is one of my favorite actors. N.M. sounds like a fantastic discovery. Sorry for the late response to your comments. I just saw these this morning.
There’s a really explosive debate between Gore Vidal and William F Buckley. They must have hated each other.
Thanks for the tip on N.M on “U Toob,” lol.
CJA
LikeLike
Christopher
Here’s one of Stephen Crane’s poems, called “I saw a man pursuing the horizon”:
I saw a man pursuing the horizon; / Round and round they sped. / I was disturbed at this; / I accosted the man. / “It is futile,” I said, / “You can never – ” / “YOU LIE!” he cried, / And ran on.
Crane died in 1900 (at age 28) and so, obviously, that poem was written before the twentieth century had hardly begun, so, for sure, he was one of the most original, ahead-of-his-time American poets of all time. Literally decades ahead of his time (probably what helped kill him so young) (well, that and his habit/s of nonstop drinking, smoking, and opium-taking…). He was also homeless for long stretches. He also got targeted by the cops when he tried to stop them from arresting a prostitute.
Dale
LikeLike
Dale
That is mysterious almost like eastern philosophy. I like it! Maybe it is futile, chasing horizons ( beautiful image) but a person has the right to their dreams. Even if they might be insane. S. Crane said a lot in those few lines. I had to read it a few times to get it clicking in my mind. Good poetry is so worth contemplating.
What a loss having died at 28, and an absolute giant in literature. I had no idea he died so young and homeless. Sounds like a man of character too.
Christopher
LikeLike
Hi David
Yes it is sad for Goings, not knowing… Pets are such vulnerable creatures. I hope he cracked the windows.
Good idea! There could be a lot there about the MC.
Thanks for your excellent and thought provoking comments!
Christopher
LikeLike
Not an easy story to write while retaining empathy for the narrator. Goings didn’t hurt nor did the occasional listing of blessings. Nice job! — Gerry
LikeLike
Hi Gerry
Glad the empathy came through, while he went sideways.
Thanks for your comments!
Christopher
LikeLike
Great storytelling. A man and his dog. A clear and beautiful insight into the man’s true character before it all turned upside down. I always hope for a happy ending but alas …
LikeLike
Hi Karen
Glad you liked the story.
Thanks so much for your kind comments!
Christopher
LikeLike
This is why guns are so dangerous. Without the gun, he would have been so much more circumspect, but that was the only power he had left. From the protagonist’s view, everything that goes wrong is someone else’s fault…but we root for him because he has a reason to be depressed and angry and he loves his dog. I like the way I absorbed into his perspective and felt sorry for him, then when he blasts the policeman and other random people away I felt it well, somewhat justified. That’s the skill in the weaving of the character into his story.
LikeLike
Hi Harrison
I totally agree. This is why in the Old West they made you check your gun at the town limits.
Glad you could find sympathy for the MC. We know how important that is in writing fiction.
He didn’t have much left besides his poor dog.
Thanks for your excellent comments!
Christopher
LikeLiked by 3 people