Page 56 - Demo

Clay Pigeons (continued from preceding page)
“You’re old enough to take care of yourself, boy. You want a Band-Aid? Get one out of the trailer and put it on.”
Out of breath, his heart pumping, the adrenaline rushing through him, Sonny stepped up into Lind- say’s trailer, found a Band-Aid in a red first-aid kit on the counter and put it on. A 10- gauge pump- action leaned against a cot across from the coun- ter. Sonny picked it up, figured it was loaded, and emerged from the trailer. Mr. Lindsay didn’t move when he felt the steel press the back of his head. Breathing heavily, Mr. Lindsay’s cheek began to bil- low out, again and again.
Sonny backed away. The scene rolled like a bewilder- ing film loop in his mind—not real, not animated;
a slide show of one-dimensional images, or was it imagination? He turned, feeling someone behind him, but he was alone. An uncontrollable emotion en- veloped Sonny’s panicky thoughts, and he gathered himself, turned his eyes away, to the trap house. A red-tail hawk soared in circles over the hills.
were empty. Sonny locked the trap house like he did every Saturday.
Carrying the shopping bag of magazines, he passed by the trailer where Mr. Lindsay stood watching him, calmly locking up. Mr. Lindsay turned and yelled, “What’d you do that for? You’re nuttier’n a fruitcake, boy! Why’d you shoot off all them pigeons? What’d you do that for?”
“I let ‘em go, Mr. Lindsay!” he yelled back.
“You’re nuttier’n a fruitcake, boy! Those are made of clay! You just broke ‘em! I called 911! They’re gonna get you, boy!”
“And I’m not coming back! And you’re crazy if you think I’m going to eat your brains!”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
Sonny headed out of the canyon on foot, with the cash box and the magazines, and he believed as strongly as his resolve to escape that his life would never be the same, even though he was now re- deemed by thousands of clay pigeons being set free.
~
At the mouth of San Francisquito canyon, civiliza- tion erupted with a McDonalds, a strip mall and a couple of gas stations. The bus stopped in front of the Chevron, and that’s where Sonny was sitting beside the bag of magazines, the cash box securely tucked under his jacket, when Rhonda plopped down in her red jumpsuit beside him with a sigh.
He didn’t recognize her at first, but when he did, his first reaction was to lean back, get some space be- tween them, and hug the cash box tighter. The dusty white Volvo was parked in the McDonald’s parking lot next door to the gas station.
“You need a ride home?” she said.
“I got a ride home.”
“You wouldn’t have to wait or pay bus fare.”
“No.”
“You want a burger or something?” she said. “We’re having something to eat.”
“No.”
“What’s your name?” she asked.
All the clay pigeons . . . safely landing . . . whole . . . .
“You can put that down,” Sonny heard Mr. Lindsay calmly say. “You can put that down right now.” Sonny pressed the butt firmly to his shoulder as Mr. Lindsay had taught him. “Expectin’ more than the next guy is plain ignorant, young man.”
“Say my name.”
Mr. Lindsay’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “It’s Sonny, right? It ain’t personal. I sometimes get all you boys’ names confused. It ain’t personal, young man.”
Sonny wanted to shoot Mr. Lindsay in the face. But he didn’t. He knew he had to leave with the money, but he had to do it leaving Mr. Lindsay whole, so
he wiped the shotgun clean of any fingerprints and leaned it against the trailer next to Mr. Lindsay, whose eyes looked back like the glazed eyes of a dead animal.
Sonny cradled Mr. Lindsay’s cash box under his arm.
“Take it,” Mr. Lindsay said. “But don’t come back.” And then Mr. Lindsay seemed to add, “Unless you want to blow my brains out and eat them for lunch.”
Sonny ran for the trap house. He calmly climbed down into it and switched the trap arm to manual, coiling the cord to the remote button around the base of it, and shot pigeons at the hills until the boxes
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