“Pistol in the Mud”
By Emily Mills
When I found that damn thing, all bashed up and rusty, I almost couldn’t breathe. My throat got all tight and it was like my brain just shut off. I don’t normally cry or nothing like that, but I wanted to, so I did a little. When daddy saw my cheeks all wet and dirty, I didn’t have to tell him nothing. He just sat me down and hugged me for a long while.
I never wrote nothing before, but I guess I like it because I don’t say much out loud. Seems like a lot a noise that isn’t necessary. But this is OK, this writing stuff down thing my daddy told me I should try. That’s all he does, uses his hands to speak, on account of him being deaf. That means he don’t hear nothing. Not me talking, not music, not wind or nothing. But he’s happy enough, and he’s smarter than any person I know who can hear. He’s always been super good to me, even when my mama died. Though he’s been different since then. I’d say quieter, only he never made much in the way of sound, so it’s something else.
Anyway, I’m trying this writing stuff down thing because I don’t speak what I want to say very well. And this is kind of the first time I’ve ever really had anything to say. It’s like the words are picking at the insides of my eyelids, trying to get out.
But I can’t promise nothing eloquent or whatever. I’m just gonna put down on paper whatever words make themselves known and see what happens. It may be important, it may not be, but next to my mom dying, what I’m gonna tell you about was the most awful thing that’s ever happened to me in my life. It started with that damn pistol, even though it was broke, when Dale and I found it in the woods near the stream we was always playing in.
***
“What the hell is that?” he asked me. He was hunched over some dead animal that was lying in the water, poking at it with a stick. I just held the thing up, all covered in mud and leaves, and smiled. We’d never found nothing like it before. “Is that a gun?”
“ What’s it look like?” I said. Dale came over to me pretty quick and snatched up the pistol. He turned it over in his hands, just whistling quietly and looking it over.
“It’s broke,” he said kind of sadly.
“How do you know?”
“ Cuz it doesn’t have a hammer or a trigger. They’re gone. Can’t fire a gun without a trigger.” He wiped the mud off on his sweatshirt and kept on looking the thing over. It was like he was hypnotized by it. “I had a gun once, a air rifle. Shot little plastic pellets. My pop gave it to me for my tenth birthday and I went out that day to practice with it. Only I wasn’t a very good shot—stop laughing! Not like I’d ever used one before, OK? So shut up. Anyway,” he kept on, getting worked up for one of his stories. He was always telling stories about everything. Dale did enough talking for both of us. “Pop came out to help me practice with it, and when I finally hit something—this old squirrel that was always eating food from our bird feeders—pop was all proud. But I started crying—shut the hell up! I never killed nothing before, all right? You ever killed nothing?”
“No.”
“So shut up then.” Dale tucked the pistol into the waistband on his jeans and walked away from me. “Anyway, pop got all quiet and weird and just patted me on the back and went inside. Then mom came stormin’ out of the house and grabbed the gun away from me. Course she slapped me something good and told me to stop killing things and I never saw the gun again.”
Dale scooped up a handful of rocks from next to the creek and rolled them around in his hands. He was never worried about getting dirty. I think, after living with his mom for so long, he just figured he would always get beat for something so it wasn’t worth worrying. Anyway, I didn’t say nothing, just started running my hands through the cold water.
“Why don’t you never say nothing?” he asked.
“What for?”
“ Dunno, just, you’re so quiet. You got me doing all the talking all the time when we’re together. It’s weird is all.” He waited. When I just stared at him, he turned toward the creek and threw one of his little rocks into it. I could tell he was frustrated. He always threw stuff when he was.
“Dale.”
“Yeah?” he said, still facing the creek.
“How come you never try an’ kiss me?” I asked. I don’t know what got into me. It just suddenly seemed like the thing to ask, because I’d been wondering lately. I thought it might be interesting, at least, more than throwing shit into the water and poking at dead things. I think he was surprised though, because his shoulders got all stiff and he stopped moving.
“You want me to kiss you?” he asked.
“No, I mean, I just asked is all.”
“Oh.” He fidgeted and threw another rock. “Didn’t think of it, I guess. Not that you aren’t pretty or whatever. But, well, what would I do that for?”
I shrugged and kicked at a pile of leaves. We didn’t say nothing to each other for a good long while. I started thinking about dinner and if dad needed anything from the store. I only had three bucks on me--I was playing with the change in my pocket--so I’d have to go home first no matter what. Suddenly Dale was standing right behind me, looking guilty and with no more rocks in his hand.
“Um,” he said. His face was all red, more than normal, and he wouldn’t look me in the eye. But then he leaned forward and kissed me on the lips. It was pretty quick, warm, and really strange. “You are pretty…or whatever,” he said, looking at the ground. “I’ll, um, see you later, tomorrow…later.” And then he just turned heel and walked away from me toward his house on the other side of the ridge.
I don’t know why he kissed me. I don’t know why I asked him about it. We’d been friends since I could remember anything about anything and actually, one time I kissed him when we were in kindergarten, but that was on a dare and I won a dollar for it. I wasn’t even sure that I liked him that way. But I guess I’m glad he did it.
***
Daddy was finished making dinner by the time I got home. I’d stayed at the creek for a bit longer, just to sit and look at the minnows, and by the time I got in the sun was going down. He made lasagna, with a lot of meat how I liked it. We’d been eating for some time before he asked me about my day. I know it’s supposed to be different, but I actually like talking to my dad because it’s so quiet. Just little wooshes of air when our hands move.
He asked what we did in school, the usual, and I told him about Dale and me going to the creek. Dad laughed because pretty much what I did every day was hang out with Dale, usually at the creek. He asked if we’d found anything cool today and I almost told him about the pistol, but I didn’t. I’m not sure why, because usually I tell him lots of things. But I did tell him about Dale kissing me, and he got all still and just looked down at his plate for a minute. Finally, he nodded like he’d agreed on something with himself and told me that me and Dale were at the age and things like that might start happening. I could tell he was starting into some kind of ‘talk,’ so I cut him off and said that it probably wouldn’t happen again and anyway Dale and I didn’t really like each other like that. Plus if any guy ever tried anything stupid with me I’d punch him in the junk. Dad looked happy about that, if a little pained, and that was how the conversation ended.
It was kinda chilly that night but I left my window open. I like feeling the colder air around me when I’m wrapped up all hot inside my blankets. The moon was just a sliver in the sky—my mom called them toenail moons—and I remember I was staring at it, falling asleep, when Dale showed up at my window.
“Wake up!”
I was in that half sleep, half awake place when he yelled in at me and I about had a heart attack. I sat upright so fast that I got dizzy and had to lie back down.
“Dale?”
“Yeah, sorry, but you gotta get up quick, come out here.” He was trying to whisper but I could hear him straining. I got up and went to the window. In the moonlight, I couldn’t see his face real well, but I could tell that he’d been beat up real good. A huge, purple bruise ran down one side of his head, his lip and nose were both bleeding, one eye was swollen shut, and he was hunched over like his whole body was broken.
“What happened?” I asked. I was suddenly very awake. I’d seen the results of his mom’s anger before, but this was the worst ever.
“Just c’mere first, I’ll tell you in a minute, OK?”
I got dressed real quick, jumped out the window and followed him into the woods. He limped the whole way and I had to help him sit when we got to a spot that was hidden from any of the houses in the area.
He didn’t say nothing for a minute, just seemed to be catching his breath, wheezing and spitting up blood. I couldn’t think of nothing else to do so I sat down next to him and rubbed his back a little.
“What happened?” I asked again. He coughed and rubbed his head.
“It was mom, a’course,” he said. “Same stupid reasons. But she’d been drinkin’ and all the usual shit, and she found the fuckin’ gun.”
“Crap.” It was all I could think of to say.
“Yeah. I was dumb and left the stupid thing out in plain sight in my room. And a’course she comes barreling in without knocking. And she sees it and goes off the freakin’ handle. And she’s hittin’ me and I’m just trying to duck because, y’know, you’re not supposed to fight your own ma! But then she picks up the gun and starts hittin’ me with that!”
I couldn’t believe it. His mom was crazy, sure, but I never took her for being that nuts. The nasty, ugly cuts and bruises all over his body made more sense then. I was trying to think of something smart and good to say, but being as I’m not great at that under normal circumstances, he started talking again before I had come up with anything.
“Look, I think…I mean, something happened and I can’t go home. Not ever.”
“Why not?” I asked. I noticed that Dale was shivering. I was pretty sure his good eye was watery, too.
“I can’t go back. I didn’t know what I was doing, I didn’t know--” he just kinda trailed off. He started rocking back and forth a little, like you see the crazies do in the movies. I knew something really bad had happened, but I didn’t know what.
“Dale. Look at me,” I said. He stopped rocking and looked me right in the eye. “Dale. You’re OK. You can stay at my house for awhile, ‘til we get stuff worked out.”
“No,” he said. “I hafta go somewhere else, somewhere nobody can find me. Shit, I don’t know how to do this.”
“Do what?” I was getting frustrated and mad. Not at him, really, but I wanted to shake him and make him tell me what was going on. But he looked so weak, like if you kicked a puppy.
“You can’t tell no one,” he said and grabbed my hands real tight. “Not no one, OK?”
“OK, OK.”
“Promise?”
“I promise!” I yelled. He hushed me and held my hands even tighter. That’s when I finally noticed his own hands at all. There was something slick on them, smooshed warm between our palms.
“I buried the gun. By the creek. Do you think anyone would find it there?” he asked. I lifted up his left hand and tried to see it better in the moonlight. It was covered in something dark and liquid, and some of it had come off on my hands, too.
“No, I don’t suspect they would,” I said, distracted by my discovery. “Dale. What did you do?”
“The gun’s broke,” he mumbled. “I had to stop her. I couldn’t see , there was blood in my eyes. She woulda killed me. She woulda, I know it. So I had to stop her. But I don’t remember nothing, I swear I don’t. I just remember tryin’ to get that stupid old gun away from her and then, next thing I know, I was running to your house and my hands….”
He pulled his hands away from me and tucked them into the pocket on the front of his hoodie. Slowly, treating him like an animal that might get spooked, I reached out and pulled his hands back out from the pocket. I held them and looked at them, knowing for sure what I think I already understood—that he had blood all over himself, and it wasn’t just his own. My stomach felt hollow and heavy all at once.
“She’s dead,” I said. Dale looked like he was gonna throw up. I regretted even saying that out loud, but I knew it must be true. He’d never defended himself before, never thrown a punch or done much more than curl into a ball when his mom came at him. Dale’s not a big kid, not violent, though he talks big sometimes. But nobody can take getting smacked around so often like that, not without snapping eventually. That’s what I suspect, anyway. I think he just finally snapped.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. He took a deep breath and just sat there for a minute, but then he leaned toward me and kissed me again. This time it lasted for awhile and I remember thinking, after this, everything will be different. I only thought I meant things between me and him. But I was more right than that.
As soon as he pulled away from me, his face changed. He looked real old. Then he stood up, buried his fists in his pockets again, and just turned and walked away from me. I couldn’t think of nothing to say. That was the last time I saw him.
***
The next day at school, Dale wasn’t there. The teachers were all skittish, they were afraid to talk to me much. No one would tell me anything, though, and I just got angrier and angrier as the day went on. I didn’t speak to no one. I ran home when the last bell rang, but dad wasn’t back from work yet. So I ran to Dale’s house, but I had to stop short because it was surrounded by cops. There was yellow tape all over the place, blocking the driveway and the front door. I hid behind some bushes, but I wasn’t really sure why I was worried about being seen. Something just told me not to let them see me so I wouldn’t have to tell nothing to nobody. I saw them rolling a stretcher with a body bag on it out to an ambulance.
I just started running then, crying I think, until I made it to the creek and just kind of tumbled into it. I didn’t care, I let myself fall into the water. Drowning didn’t seem too awful, but there wasn’t enough water to do it. I crawled up onto shore and just sat, staring without seeing.
I knew he was gone, but I didn’t know if he’d been taken or if he’d run. And I knew for sure what he had done. Only I couldn’t be angry with him, couldn’t blame him, because I’d seen what she’d done to him over so many years. Even now I don’t feel bad about being OK with what he done. I know it’s wrong to kill somebody, and I wish he’d been able to find another way out. But what’s done is done, and I was just pissed that even after she was dead, his mother still won.
It got dark, but I kept on sitting there by the creek, just staring, not realizing what time it was. Finally, I stood up and kicked a rock into the water. Something metal was buried in the mud underneath. It didn’t take me long to know what it was, so I dug it out and held it up under the dim shine of the moon. Under all the muck that covered it, plugged up every opening, there were dark stains and tiny clumps of hair. I felt like throwing up, and my hands shook so badly I almost dropped it. But instead I swallowed hard and took it down to the cold water, and then I washed it clean.