Page 16 - WTPVolI Vol.#4

Go Boom (continued from preceding page)
roni and cheese, your mother’s recipe. The guys play “See you stateside,” you say.
ping-pong on Reyes’ table. Steve drinks a beer in the corner. It’s freezing outside, but Reyes leaves the door open so everyone wears their jackets. You’re glad; you feel safe all bundled.
He grins. “See you.”
Nobody eats the macaroni and cheese, but when Steve challenges you to a game of ping-pong, you say, “It’s on.” Half an hour later, you’re sweating in your long- sleeved wool shirt, even with the sleeves rolled past your elbows. Steve curses when he misses the ball, losing the game. The men cheer. “Mother fucker,” says Steve, flinging his racket to the ground. But he’s grin- ning too, and when he returns from the kitchen, it’s to hand you a beer.
Your father is in bad shape. The stroke paralyzed the right side of his body. When he sees you leaning against the hospital door, he tries to smile but only half of his mouth lifts. Drool drips from the other corner. When you rest your hand on his, the skin
Back at the barracks, there’s a voicemail from your father. He sounds tired and old as he wishes you a hap- py Thanksgiving. You retrieve another beer from the fridge, even though you’ve had too many. Fuck it, you think, it’s Thanksgiving. You sit in the dark fiddling the metal bottle cap, drinking the cold beer. You’re thinking about Steve, about the way sweat streaked the sides of his face, the way his black hair curled around his small ears, the way he knew just how to hit that ping-pong ball. The beer is icy, but you feel warm.
You drive home to what is now your father’s apart- ment. You want to pack what remains of your child- hood before your next deployment. It only takes an hour to pack what little you want to keep: a few deli- cate golden necklaces your mother owned, a battered lamp, some warm clothes.
You admit it: you would like to sleep with Steve. You imagine meeting him at a bar, sipping a glass of bour- bon, sliding into his lap. But you won’t do any of that. Instead, you work harder. For every photograph Steve deciphers, you decipher three more. For every morn- ing Steve arrives early, you arrive an hour earlier. For every beer Steve drinks at the bar on Friday nights, you order the same without getting drunk until the guys know you as the girl who can drink any one of them under the table.
You want to go somewhere but you don’t own a car and your father’s truck is still at the hospital. You open his bedroom door, walk straight to his bedside table. Inside, beneath a stack of old crossword puzzles cut from the Sunday paper, is the Ruger 9 mm pistol. It’s heavy and solid in the palm of your hand. Under- neath the bed, you find its black plastic case and a box of extra bullets.
“You’re one of us,” they say, laughing. “You’re one of
The gun range is five blocks from your father’s apart- ment. It’s drizzling when you arrive, and you’re the only one there besides the middle-aged man behind the counter who sells you a second box of bullets and five paper sheets of red targets. It’s cold in the indoor range, and you’re glad you brought gloves, even if they are the frayed knit gloves you wore as a child.
the guys.”
~
You pick a lane, clip a target to the stand, send it sail- ing downrange on the motorized conveyer. The Ruger is cold and firm. You stand with your hips angled left, your right eye balancing the bullseye above the rear
A week before your tour ends, you get a phone call and front sights, like your father taught you. “Deep from a number in Dallas. It’s a nurse at Parkland breath in, half a breath out,” you hear him say. He Hospital. stands back. “Now, squeeze the trigger.” You squeeze,
“Your father had a stroke,” the nurse says. “You should come home.”
confident. Boom. The smell of gunpowder and the golden shell flies, clatters to the concrete. Five more shots and you empty the chamber. You leave a hole in the center of the target, where a red circle should be.
As you pack your desk into a cardboard box, Steve ap- pears and sticks out his hand.
“Good work, chump,” he says. You take his hand.
Hamilton’s work has appeared in s/word, Cordella Magazine, and The Dallas Morning News, among other publications. Currently, she is working toward her MFA in Fiction Writing at Seattle Pacific University, WA. This year, her fiction will be featured at the Dallas Museum of Art. She lives in Dallas, TX.
is dry, the blue veins unnaturally thick. He speaks slowly, opening and closing his mouth several times before forming the thick words with his soft tongue. You squeeze his hand, kiss his forehead. You tell him everything will be okay.
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