“No matches for the old man. He’ll burn his hair off. Yeah, yeah. Where’s the pisser?”
When we go outside, my minivan is gone. Cappy removed one foot from its slipper. Wiggled his toes.
“You left it running.”
“Hadda whizz. Who thought anyone would nick it?”
Emotion I do not grasp. Irony, yes.
“Thievery, Jeffrey. It’s the lowest form of human behaviour.”
The car is a rental. Ford Taurus. Car equivalent of Teflon: eyes slide off. On a static scale it would weigh twenty-two ounces over stock: mass of the Phoenix Arms 9mm affixed to the undercarriage. Exposed hammer. Satin nickel finish. It is the firearm equivalent of a Ford Taurus. Everyone owns one.
I rigged the car at a do-it-yourself garage. The gun’s polished blue barrel friction-taped to the steering linkage. Stock U-clamped to the left rear wheel well. Trigger, recoil spring in the washer fluid reservoir. Hammerhead rounds in the passenger seat coils. Firing pin under my tongue.
Days ago I received my employer’s call.
“Come. Now.” Click.
I drove to the Niagara district airport. Boarded a Cessna Twin. Landed on a dirt strip near Coboconk. Drove the waiting car to my employer’s. He lay on the floor of his lake house. He’d been dog-mauled, apparently. A plate of inflated flesh over his left eye. Webs of skin thin as bat’s wings connecting his fingers.
“Slipper-footed space bugs,” he kept saying.
When he was able to walk I helped him to the car. We drove until daybreak. A lab complex. Fletcher Burger. Men in scrubs. Whine of a surgical saw. Burnt bone dust. I leave with a cooler marked ORGANIC MATERIAL.
At the Coboconk dock I found Fletcher Burger’s houseboat. I drove downriver to Happy Houseboat Rentals. I discovered Fletcher Burger had stolen the houseboat.
“That doggone prick,” the owner of Happy Houseboat Rentals said when I told him where he could find it. “I should wring that guy’s doggone neck.”
My minivan was in the lot. Covered in maple keys. Fletcher Burger must have stolen it, too. There was a bucket of chicken bones between the seats. The upholstery stunk of fried chicken.
Flash-forward to right now:
I clear the U.S. border. Niagara Falls, New York. I drive up Pine Street. Men outside bodegas with bottles between their feet. Stop at Piggly Wiggly for a bottle of Faygo Red Pop. Ask for the bathroom key. Take the toilet paper roll.
In a parking garage near the Niagara Falls airport authority I reassemble the gun. Blow off road grit with bursts of WD-40. Trigger hitch lubed with saliva. I empty the pop bottle. Stuff it with toilet paper. Fix the top over the barrel with duct tape.
There are rows of cheap units off 44th street. My employer’s Cadillac is curbed with two flattened tires. In the apartment hallway I remove my shoes. Bread bags go over my feet, taped to my ankles. Skin lotion on exposed skin. Shower cap. Surgical gloves.
13A is unlocked. Tiny B&W TV. Mr. Turtle pool full of soil. Books: Raising Earthworms for Profit. Harnessing the Mighty Nightcrawler. An old video game unit. I play Stuntman with the volume off until James Paris arrives. His pitbull wears a plastic headcone. Catgut racing its flank. He sees my gun pointed at his chest.
“Place the dog in the closet.”
“Easy,” he says. “What’s with the bread bags?… my wallet on the boat, right? You can take the car back.”
“You were told not to take it at all. My employer has a strong code of ethics.”
He accepts this without rancour.
“I don’t even have the cash to offer you double whatever you’re being paid. You know, like in the movies.”
He laughs. But his lips hardly move. He roots his pockets for a slip of paper. Name, phone number.
“Call her. She’ll take my dog. Tell her she has to feed Matilda Iam’s Scientific Diet, okay? None of that Purina bullshit. Liver pills everyday. Liver ailments are common with the breed. Mix baby food into her kibble for the complex proteins. Silly, I know.”
“Silly.”
“I was trying to raise worms.” He nods to the Mister Turtle pool. “Garden centres, bait shops. Like drugs: there’s gradients. You must establish a rep as a premium worm producer. Well, I guess they’ll die.”
“They will die.”
I raise the gun. James Paris’s forehead butts the bottle’s plastic nubbins. He rocks forward on his toes. The weight of him on my shoulder. His heels do not touch the floor.
When a bullet enters a human body a number of things happen simultaneously. For small calibre arms such as mine, the unjacketed round — free of casing, propellants dispersed — weighs 110 grams; 132-grains ballistic calibration. Entering James Paris’s forehead it will cause two types of damage: permanent cavity damage where the projectile tears directly into flesh; radial displacement of neighbouring tissue stretched in the projectile’s wake. The pop bottle is a single-use silencer. All his neighbours will hear is a momentary high-pitched tssst! like steam blowing the lid off a saucepan.
I pull the trigger.
Compressed gasses expand the bottle. Its base explodes into James Paris’s face. Suddenly, his face resembles a red starfish.
… this could have happened — if not for the kiddie pool. You see, you bury bodies in dirt outside. Here dirt was inside. You must never bury a body inside. Unsanitary.
I lower the gun. A little moan comes from somewhere. I open the closet. Matilda sits on her haunches. A doggy cough: houch-houch! I am aware that James Paris should be dead. I am aware that he is not dead. But I think he is. I have had a brainfart. This is a very lucky thing, I think, for James Paris.
I drive to the Niagara Falls aquarium. Under the security halogens I break the gun down. I heave the parts into the basin. The border guards give me no hassle over the canis domesticus.
Mama ’s hysterectomy became a public showcase. Her uterus was riddled with pre-cancerous fibroids. Adenomyosis: uterine lining thickening into the organ walls. Mama instructed her doctor to “rip out the plumbing.”
Following the laparotomy Mama became obsessed with her pulse. Resting, active rates. She instructed us to check ours hourly. Log it in a notebook. It made Cappy Lonnigan CRAZY.
“Who gives a good goddamn about your pulse. It’s beating. You’re alive.”
Mama’s phantom hot flashes were unbearable. She wanted to “take in the days.” Teddy, myself would push Mama around Sarah Court in a wheelchair. Mama had a bowl of M&Ms on her lap “for wellwishers.” Neighbours made enquiries with eyes in the sky.
“Missus Russell,” said Philip Nanavatti. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing but a little hysterectomy, dear.” Mama took this opportunity to approach Frank Saberhagen. The surgeon was drinking with Fletcher Burger. Pitting their children in some sort of contest in his garage.
“Your kid stole my Caddy what, six months ago? Thanks for pencilling me in.”
“Mister Saberhagen—”
“Doctor.”
“… I’ve undergone a hysterectomy.”
Frank Saberhagen examined the sole of his deck shoe.
“Yeah? Those can be a bitch.”
“I wished to discuss, civilly, Jeffrey’s actions and my dog’s treatment of yours some time ago. You can’t blame Excelsior. Your corgi was eating squirrel babies.”
Frank Saberhagen turned to me. “Jeffrey, right?”
I looked at Mama. She nodded so I nodded.
“Do certain colours scare you, Jeff?”
I peered at my shoes. The yellow band running over the toes I had coloured over with black marker. I was not SCARED of yellow. It did make me feel as I did riding the Tilt-A-Whirl at the Lion’s Club carnival.