I said no taking her anywhere, Hank. I said it in the clearest fucking terms.
I understood you to be saying, stay put in this part of the state.
Out the window, the wind twisted the white sheets against the blue sky while MomMom stood examining her handiwork. Rake adjusted a burner and let the meat sit, singeing around the edges, giving off smoke.
Meg, is he telling the truth?
He’s telling the truth, she sang.
I didn’t ask you if he was telling the truth, he said. I asked you, is that the way it happened? He lifted the meat out of the oil and threw it sidearm.
Haze screamed and held his face.
Move, you die, simple as that, Hank said, aiming his gun. Die if you move. Make me do it. Make me blow your head off. He held the gun steady, waited a few beats, and then said, Now put the pan down and greet me in a friendly manner, for Christ’s sake. Then he aimed the gun just to the right of Rake’s head, waited another few beats, and unleashed a shot that shattered the window over the kitchen sink. The concussion seemed delayed, muted by the thick linoleum. The room seemed to flinch. Haze cowered and Meg, who was used to gunshots, gave a voluntary shout, for effect, and said, Don’t kill him, for God’s sake, don’t do it. Her voice was full-bodied. She was inhabiting her character.
With the pan steady, Rake didn’t even flinch. One more gunshot in a year of gunshots. Near misses came and went. He kept his legs apart and didn’t even blink. Long ago his shell shock had mutated into something else: he was well versed in the workings of this kind of fear. The room took on a knowing glow. The fridge kicked on with an energetic hum. Outside, far in the distance, a dog gave an expectant bark. (You had to have that bark, Hank thought. Always that bark.) At the same time, a trickle of blood appeared along Rake’s temple.
The next shot’s going to be between your eyes if you don’t put that pan down and shut the burner off.
You’ll laugh it off when we’re equally armed, Rake said. You let me have a gun so we’re on equal terms and then I’ll know I can trust you, he said.
You think I’d trust you with a gun right now?
I think you let me have a gun, you trust me, I trust you, and we’re on equal terms, Rake said.
You want a gun? Hank said.
That’s right. Let me reach behind and get mine, and I’ll hold it on you and you hold yours on me and we’ll be back where we were before all this started.
Man, Hank said. If I didn’t know you so long I’d think you were crazy. But knowing you as I do, I’ll let you get your gun, he said.
Rake reached around and pulled out his gun and pointed it and said, There. Now we’re both men. Now we’re each facing the same shit.
Both men held and held and went into locked eyes as MomMom appeared in the doorway and sighed loudly. It was the sigh of a mother whose kids were in trouble again. It was an old, weary sigh.
Let’s lower them at the same time, Rake said.
Fine by me, Hank said.
Together the men lowered the guns and then, stepping forward, laughed and gave each other a hug. Man, shit, man, they said, going into a backslap routine, two old buddies reuniting, until Rake cranked his knee up into Hank’s crotch and he doubled over in pain.
That’s for old times’ sake. You’d damn well better be telling me the truth, Rake said. On the floor Hank lay for a few minutes, keeping his eyes closed, while MomMom prayed over his body, saying: Dear Lord our Host, come down here now and take charge of my son’s body and resurrect him, dear Lord. Bring his strength back fully if it be your will. Show him your mercy, oh Lord.
Hank stayed still and enjoyed the sound because it was, as far as he could remember, the most attentive and loving his mother had been in years. Fate or luck had arranged gunplay as a testing point, a way to make sure he wouldn’t kill again, not ever again, even if it seemed to be the most logical thing to do. A few inches to the left and it would’ve been done.
Rake led Meg out of the house to the car and stood with her examining the booty in the trunk, reaching down to pick up a packet or two, holding them out and saying, You’re going to be the test subject on a couple of these. Primo Canadian shit. I had to go over the border for these. I thought I was going on a distribution run but ended up on a collection run. I saw and I collected. There are bodies up in Canada, believe me. A few more than there were before I got there.
He turned her around — she allowed him to move her and fell into the role of submission easily — and said, You’re not fooling me, are you? You’re not going to get the tree-hunting bug and run off with Hank?
No, she said, letting her eyes stray around to the dog, who was barking now at the edge of the yard, pulling his chain. His barks were hard and wooden and came in staccato formations that seemed coded. It was the bark of a dog violent in nature, hungry, covered with burrs and scabs. The bark of a dog on a chain in the woods far from help. He was rearing into an attack stance and barked a few more times until Rake swung around and with one fluid motion took quick aim and fired a single shot.
* * *
You’re gonna lose the sight in that eye, Rake said. They were playing blackjack at the kitchen table. Night. Cool air through the broken window over the sink, the sound of crickets, an occasional far-off animal sound.
I don’t think so, Haze said.
I’m pretty sure of it. You’re gonna have monocular vision.
Lighten up, Rake, Hank said.
Sooner he admits it, the better, Rake said, fanning his cards neatly and examining his hand.
My eye’s gonna be fine, Haze said.
I’m gonna take a piss right now, Rake said, And when I get back we’ll settle this argument.
Hank turned to the kid and said, You’d better admit that you’ll never see again from that eye.
Why should I do that?
Because if you continue the argument I know what’s going to happen. If you insist that you’re right and Rake insists that he’s right, he’s going to make sure he’s right by taking the nearest sharp implement and jabbing it through your head. Maybe he won’t do it now, but when you least expect it, he’ll make sure you don’t see from that eye.
And how do you know that? Haze said.
You’re a guy still living in a world devoid of Rake, Hank said. You’re a pimple-faced kid who hasn’t learned the lesson of Rake. If you don’t learn the lessons of Rake, you end up dead. Sometimes folks learn the rules by dying. Lesson number one: Never blink if you can help it. Lesson number two: Rake is always right. Never correct Rake or argue. Keep disagreement safely tucked away and don’t brood or even ponder the counterargument. Keep your face clean of emotion. Lesson number three: Join in with him in mayhem. Lesson number four: See the world from his eyes. Lesson number five: Submit to the idea that his history is your own when you’re around him. Lesson number six: No lesson can prepare you for one of Rake’s sudden, impulsive mood shifts. You can learn the other five lessons but it won’t do you any good, no matter how ready you think you are, when, out of the blue, for no viable reason, some past incident causes him to move in a direction that is not only unexpected but absurdly disconnected from his present reality, Hank said.
Because I’ve seen him stick guys in the eye a few times, he added. It gives him great satisfaction. He’ll give you a lobotomy before you know what hit you.
He wouldn’t do that to me.
You really believe that? Hank said, sipping his drink, trying to remain in the zone.
I don’t believe he would.
Then you’re a fool, Hank said. And anyway, if he doesn’t put a shiv through your eyeball, I’ll have to do it for him.
Do what for me? Rake said, coming back in, hitching up his pants.