Gun Church

Thirty-Five

Leaving was finally at hand. The time since Christmas dinner passed with accelerating momentum: each day evaporating faster than the day before it until there was only one tomorrow left. I no longer gave much thought to the death of Lance Mabry and when I did, I felt foolish for ever entertaining my old narcissism. The day I went back to school to clear out my office, I’d hoped to run into the campus maintenance man to apologize for missing him that day at the Dew Drop Inn. I figured that what he had to say couldn’t have been too important, that his wounded arm and wounded pride had finally recovered. Except for my bed and a few miscellaneous items, the van was packed. After the farewell party at the chapel, there would only be sleep. Then, early in the morning, State Highway 87 East and I-95 North.

This close to leaving, it would have been impossible not to look back at my life. Sometimes you look back at the road you’ve taken, but since September it was more like the road had taken me. That I’d simply been the passenger along for the ride. My time in Brixton was now divided into two distinct parts, BV and AV: Before Vuchovich and After Vuchovich. I thought back to how the St. Pauli Girl, dressed in an unzipped brown hoodie and skin-tight jeans, had showed up at my house soon after Frank Vuchovich’s death: how her nipples hardened in the crisp night air, how she’d given me a soft and solitary kiss and handed me a sheet of paper, an invitation into a world I could never have imagined. Now with Renee sitting next to me in the car, a fancy cherrywood case on her lap, I knew where I was headed. The road was no longer my master. I no longer needed an invitation or a set of directions to where I was going.

I turned to look at Renee as I drove over the last hill before reaching Hardentine. We’d spent New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day at the MacClaren Arms, a rather grand old hotel across from the state capitol building. It was the most fun I’d had in a very long time. I suspect it was the first time Renee had done anything like it. We did formal dress-up and danced and overate and drank a little too much. When we fell into bed well after midnight, we fucked with half our clothes still on, and passed out. The next morning we finished getting undressed and went at it for hours. A room service breakfast never tasted so good. Being with her, watching her enjoy the things she’d only ever seen in movies made it all worth it. I hoped it would help motivate her to get out of Brixton, to show her there was a world of possibilities, and to want more for herself than to die by the inch as a miner’s lonely wife.

Shooting with Jim using the Python was also a lot of fun. Okay, it wasn’t like half-dressed, drunken sex with Renee, but it was good.

“Kicks like a motherfucker,” he said, firing my Christmas gift and taking off a small tree branch at nearly fifty paces, “but it’s a really accurate revolver if you know what you’re doing. And, Kip, you know what you’re doing. You’re better at this than I ever thought you could be.”

“Thanks, Jim. That’s high praise coming from you.” And it was.

We also talked some about what he was going to do with his life once he got his associate’s degree in June.

“My mom works for Dixon Mining and I could get a job there anytime. But this life, this place isn’t for me and I know that as much as the chapel is everything to me, it’s a dead end, too. I’d die of boredom here, but don’t worry about me, Kip. I’ve got a plan to get out of here that’s working out pretty fair so far.”

I waited for him to give me more details, but none was forthcoming. It seemed he’d said about all he wanted to say on the subject.

Along with shooting and running together, Jim came with me to do all the errands I knew Renee would have hated doing as I prepared to leave. You know, the stuff that meant goodbye was for real and probably forever. He came with me to my old local bank to close my account, to the nearby branch of a mega-bank to open a new one, and to rent the van I’d be driving north in the morning. He came with me to the post office when I filled out the change-of-address form to have my mail forwarded to my new place.

Meg’s assistant had landed me a two-bedroom apartment on the top floor of an old Victorian house on a quiet street in the Ditmas Park section of Brooklyn. The rent, she said, was a steal at about the same rate I was paying for the house in Brixton. Only in New York City would it be considered a steal and I explained to Meg that her definition of quiet didn’t remotely resemble the Brixton definition. There was no quiet in Brooklyn, ever.

Renee had been holding up pretty well until we got to the hangar at the abandoned base. There were no tears, not yet. I had no doubt they would come, but later, in the dark and quiet of my bedroom. That’s when Renee always let down her guard. She was most comfortable letting me see her after I’d been inside her and with the dark obscuring my view. Now her mood seemed to fluctuate between melancholy and edginess.

“Why did you bring this?” she asked me about the Python, handing me the case.

“Jim wants me to show it to everyone. He’s proud that he got it for me. I don’t mind.”

She didn’t say the words, but her expression said them loudly enough: I don’t like it.

There were bound to be many things about that night and the following weeks she wasn’t going to like. The next few weeks were going to be full of painful transitions for everyone involved. I didn’t think myself immune from missing her.

I put the gun case on the hood of the car and held Renee tightly in my arms.

“Come on,” I said. “let’s get this over with so we can be alone.”

With the exception of the maintenance guy, they were all there when we walked in: the whole freak show roster including Stan Petrovic, and even he managed to be civil or what passed for his version of civility. Although it was clear he was already tanked up, he shook my hand and then ignored me. Jim and Renee notwithstanding, I wouldn’t get teary-eyed for any of the chapel losers: not the fat boy, the skater kid, the girl with the bad teeth, the sheriff’s deputy, the security guard, the grill man, et al. Only one thing tied us together and not very tightly, and not for very much longer. They meant no more to me than any other group of ghosts who’d drifted in and out of my life. No more than people who’d stood at the same subway platform with me.

Still, I didn’t like that the maintenance guy wasn’t here. It was one thing not to run into him again the few times I’d been back to campus, but I had fully expected him to be there. That said, I didn’t mention it to anyone, especially not to Jim. He was such a stickler for the rules. How could I explain about the clandestine meeting that never happened? Besides, come the morning, I wouldn’t need to waste an ounce more of energy on the rules or Brixton. The world of Gun Church might’ve gotten its start here, but now it existed on the page and in my head.

It was fucking bizarre. They’d strung a sign above the entrance to the chapel that read GOOD LUCK IN THE BIG APPLE. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that New Yorkers never called New York the Big Apple. There were handshakes, a kiss or two, beers-lots of beers-and even a goodbye cake. The cake part of the festivities felt more surreal than shooting ever had. At least there was no pinata, nor was anyone suggesting we play Pin the Tail on the Donkey.

Once the cake was dispensed with, they began passing my Christmas present around. I was relieved to have their focus shift away from me and to the Python. They were loading it up and taking pot shots into the mattresses at the back wall. Fine by me. I half-hoped one of them would break the thing so I’d have an obvious excuse to leave it behind. As it was, I had arranged for Renee to keep it at the house in Brixton for me until I figured out what I was going to do with it. I knew that stalling for time wasn’t much of a strategy. I figured if I procrastinated long enough, the situation might take care of itself.

Jim brought out a bottle of Laphroaig Single Malt-Kant Huxley’s favorite scotch. He poured a round of thimble-sized shots for everyone. I thought there was some chapel rule against shooting and drinking alcohol stronger than beer, but who the fuck cared? The minute the bottle came out, Renee’s demeanor changed again. No longer just tense or sad, she looked undone. She literally grabbed my forearm, urging me to leave.

“Please, Kip, let’s go home. I don’t know how much longer I can hold myself together in front of other people and I want time alone with you.”

There was palpable desperation in her voice, and although I kind of dreaded the heartache coming once we got home, I agreed to leave. But as we made our move to exit, Jim stepped between us as if cutting in on a dance.

“Come on, Kip,” he said, taking my arm as Renee had. “They want to see you fire the Python, then you can split.”

I shrugged my shoulders at Renee and went with Jim.

Someone had set up a row of beer cans on a plank at the far end of the chapel. The deputy sheriff, who’d just finished loading the big Colt, handed it to me. “Go for it,” he said.

“Go! Go! Go! Go!” the rest of them chanted. “Go! Go! Go!” It was the same thing the cop had shouted as my students escaped from the classroom after I grabbed Frank Vuchovich’s gun.

I went, nicking the first can, then obliterating the rest, beer soaking the mattresses behind them. I opened the cylinder, dumping the spent shells to the ground. They clinked like off-key wind chimes against the concrete floor. There was a round of applause as I handed the Colt back to the deputy, but someone wasn’t clapping.

“You’re pretty fucking good with beer cans … for a cunt,” Stan Petrovic snarled, the near-empty bottle of scotch in his hand. He had mean-drunk eyes and a red, feral face.

I didn’t say anything and walked away. Once I was out of there, I thought, I would never have to deal with the asshole again. But it wasn’t going to be that easy. He stepped directly in my path, putting himself halfway between Renee and me.

“What’s wrong, cunt? Your bitch in heat? Gotta go home and fuck her in the ass before you leave her to the rest of us? I heard she likes it in the ass, the same way Jim’s momma used to like it.” He growled, hurling the scotch bottle at my head. I ducked just in time and it smashed against the chapel floor behind me. I bit down hard on the inside of my cheeks and tried to think of anything else.

Stan wasn’t close to finished. “Come on, faggot,” he taunted. “Not so brave when you can’t sucker punch me in the nuts, huh? You didn’t think I was going to forget that, did you?”

“Shut up, Stan. Just shut the fuck up!” I heard someone screaming. It took a second before I noticed it was me.

“Shut me up, cunt!” He came up to me, put a gnarled hand on my chest and shoved me back. It wasn’t hard enough to knock me down, but hard enough to let me know my leaving was going to have to go through him. “Shut me up.”

I looked around and noticed no one was willing to get involved. Stan was trouble. I was going in the morning, but they would still be here and so would Stan. I knew better than most that he wasn’t the kind of man you wanted angry at you.

“Shut me up,” he repeated.

“You’re not worth it, Stan.”

Apparently, that was precisely the wrong thing to say. He shoved me again, only this time hard enough to send me sprawling backwards.

“Show me you got some balls, faggot. Shoot with me and this will all be over for good.”

“You’re fucking crazy,” I said, scrambling to my feet. “You know that?”

“Crazy, huh? I’ll show you crazy.”

And almost before he got the last word out of his mouth, he turned and bulled his way through the crowd. There was a collective gasp, and by the time I had made my way through the wall of bodies, I saw what the gasp was all about. Stan had Renee, one thick forearm tight around her neck, his other hand twisting her arm behind her.

“Shoot with me and I’ll let her go.”

“You are crazy. Let her go, now!”

He didn’t even answer, just smiled that ragged, saw-toothed smile, and twisted her arm so hard she screamed.

“Let her-”

She screamed again, tears pouring down her cheeks, and she went limp.

“Next time, her shoulder comes out of the socket, faggot. What’s it gonna take? You wanna watch me fuck her? That it? Is that what it’s going to take? ’Cause I’m all in for that: fucking her and killing you. Talk about hitting the daily double. She’s so young, I bet her pussy’s as tight as Jim’s mom’s asshole was.” He moved his paw so that it reached Renee’s right breast and squeezed it hard enough to make her wince. “Nice firm tits. I bet she’s wet for me.”

I looked at Jim, wondering why he hadn’t reacted to any of this. He was frozen, an angry little boy, powerless and confused, a scowl on his face. He wasn’t going to be of any help at all. I wasn’t the only one looking at Jim. The rest of them were looking to him as well. Sheep, they took their cues from him. He was inert and so they were inert. There I was in a room full of people, all expert shots, and not one of them worth a good god damn. Not even the sheriff’s deputy made a move. I was on my own.

“No, Stan, that won’t do it,” I said.

“Then let’s try this.” He let go of Renee’s neck, reached a hand behind his back, and came up with a.40 Beretta. He made a show of thumbing off the safety. He released Renee’s arm and she melted to her knees. He racked the Beretta, then got down beside her. He grabbed a fist of her hair and yanked it hard. When she reflexively opened her mouth to scream, he forced the Beretta’s barrel between her lips and teeth. Her eyes were wide with terror and the crotch of her jeans turned dark with urine. “How about now, faggot?”

“That’s it, motherfucker! I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you. Let her go!”

“Not yet, cunt. Not until I see you step out there.” He nodded to the place in the center of the chapel where we shot. “Get out there and stand ready. Then I’ll let her go.”

“Give me the fucking Python,” I screamed at the deputy.

“Here,” he said, handing me the Colt. “It’s fully loaded.”

“Good.” I wasn’t going to let Stan go with just one shot. No, once I knocked him over with the first shot, I was going to punish him. I was going to walk up close to him and empty the other five bullets into his vest. He wasn’t going to have one or two broken ribs, but a chest full of them. Then, when the Python was empty, I’d kick his teeth down his throat. “Where’s my vest? Get me a fucking vest.”

“No vests!” Stan barked. “Let’s see if you got any real balls in your shorts for doing anything but sticking your cock in this bitch.” He yanked her hair again.

“But-”

“No buts. We both know the rules. One of us walks out of here. The other one gets buried out there in the woods somewheres. You say no and I’m gonna blow her tongue out the back of her neck. Then we’ll shoot anyway. Now step out there and wait for me.”

I didn’t have much choice.

I went to tell Jim to take care of Renee as soon as Stan let her go, but he seemed to have vanished. He was probably so embarrassed by his cowardice that he couldn’t face me. For him, I guessed, it was the Colonel all over again.

Then I stepped out towards the back of the chapel near where the beer cans had been lined up. I waited for Stan. It didn’t take long for him to stand opposite me, but the deputy stood between us.

“Look,” the deputy said, “make sure you want to go through with this before-”

“Get the fuck out of the way, asshole,” Stan barked.

But the deputy didn’t move, not immediately. “First, you both put your weapons down by your thighs. You’re going to do this, you’re going to do this fair. Now put your weapons at your thighs.”

We did as we were told. I focused all my attention on the area of Stan’s right shoulder. Sure, I wanted to kill the motherfucker and I wanted him to die slowly, but I didn’t want to go to prison or get treated to a lethal injection courtesy of the state. And while everyone here liked talking about the rules of the chapel and how they all knew the risks they were taking, I didn’t want to test the strength of their convictions.

“I’m going to step aside,” said the deputy. “When I say go, the rest is up to you. Agreed?”

Stan nodded his head yes as I did the same. The deputy sheriff walked backwards towards the others. He took careful, measured steps, never turning his head.

“Go!”

It all happened in a single excruciatingly slow breath. I went deaf as we raised our arms. Then the silence was broken by Renee screaming. My muzzle coughed out smoke. I was not conscious of what Stan’s Beretta did. My arm flew up so fiercely that I could feel the blowback in the hairs on my forearm. I suppose I might have squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for a bullet to cut through me. I breathed out. Something Stan Petrovic would never do again.

Even at thirty feet you could see he was dead. Everyone else was deadly still, the whispering of their rapid breaths like a hushed declaration of disbelief. But there is a vast ocean between stillness and death, and Stan-his shirt soaked with blood, his gun arm curled over the top of his head, his left leg twisted under him, his left arm and right leg splayed at ragdoll angles-was on death’s distant shore. Only when I felt the ache in my hand from squeezing the Python’s grip so tightly did I unfreeze and step forward.

Kneeling over him, I could see my shot had ripped through his chest where his heart once beat. I’d been focused on his right shoulder. I’d missed. Was it my rage or that I was scared? Was it that the ammo was different or that I had too much to drink or that Renee cried out just before I fired? I would never know. What hit me next was the awful cocktail of odors coming off his body: the metallic tang of spent gunpowder and blood, the sour must of sweat and scotch.

Then, as I breathed his death into my lungs, I saw it: that look of confusion and shock. That now too-familiar this-wasn’t-supposed-to-happen-to-me expression that had been Frank Vuchovich’s death mask. Though in life Stan Petrovic and Frank Vuchovich shared not a single similar feature, in death they were twins. I could make no more sense of it than either of them. They had to know there was a chance they were going to die, yet when death came they both seemed so utterly perplexed and disbelieving.

Someone, Renee, touched my shoulder and I crashed, inside and out. I swooned, nearly falling face-first onto Stan. I managed to veer to the side, my hands cushioning my fall. When I got back onto my knees, a wave of nausea slammed into me. I thought I might never stop throwing up. I was sick with terror, my panic spinning completely out of control. It was one thing to fantasize about killing a man. It was something else to do it. I was barely conscious of Renee holding on to me, her touch only faintly registering. I was soaked through, shaking with chills, still spiraling downward. I turned and looked up to see Jim standing over me, an open beer cooler in his hands. He’d dumped the ice and melt on me. He put the cooler down and lifted me up. He brushed back my wet hair and stared straight into my eyes.

“Forget this. We’ll handle it. No one will ever find him or know what happened to him. You were home with Renee tonight. All night. She’ll swear to it. Take these,” he said, closing my hand around his truck keys. “I’ve already got the keys to your car. Go home, Kip. Leave for New York in the morning and never think about this again. We know the rules here and we’ll stick to them. And I’ll never forget what you did for me. Go.”

“Okay,” I said robotically, reaching out for Renee.

Jim stepped between us again. “She stays and helps. It’s the rules.”

“But-”

“No, Kip, go ahead home,” she said. “It’s easier this way.”

“Are you okay? I mean, he-”

“I’ll be fine. Please, just go.”

I didn’t have anything left in me to argue with. I was spent. I walked through the slit between the mattresses. GOOD LUCK IN THE BIG APPLE was the last thing I saw as I left. I didn’t look back.