I nodded. Then, remembering nobody could see this on the radio, I said, “Yes.”
I looked to Craig for approval. His features unreadable, he nodded once.
“Kevin used an AK-47, people—a weapon your liberal opposition thinks common folk shouldn’t have—to defend his home against two criminal punks who came over from Durham to make trouble here in Alamance County. Bad move, guys, bad, bad move. Kevin, if you could… tell us what happened.”
I swallowed. Billy looked at me expectantly. Craig looked at me warily. On the wall, the ON AIR sign glowed bright orange as the dead air crackled before my lips.
Ki breath, I remembered.
“Well,” I began in a voice a good register or two higher than normal. “It started in my basement. I fell asleep on the couch watching a Carolina basketball game.”
“Go Tarheels,” Billy interjected.
“Yes,” I said. “Go Heels.”
And I told my story. I told it without freezing up, without shaking, without crying—and without boasting. The whole time, Craig watched me like a parent watching his three-year-old pour milk over cereal, waiting for me to drop the jug and make a huge mess. But I didn’t make a huge mess; I got through it, and when I reached the point in the story where I shot the
(vermin)
(rats)
(snakes)
(roaches)
intruders, I paused.
Shooting human beings, Craig had told me earlier, is supposed to be difficult no matter who they are. I want you to pause a little bit like you’re having trouble with the memory. Sigh. Pretend it bothers you.
“And then I pulled the trigger,” I said.
“And then you pulled the trigger,” Billy echoed.
“Yes. And…”
Another pause. Craig raised his chin as he stared at me.
And then I stood over their bodies and I grinned at them and I pulled the trigger again to make sure they were dead, but I had fired every round in the magazine and so the hammer fell on an empty chamber, which sucked because I’d really just gotten started.
“…and that’s it,” I finished. “That’s where it ends. My wife called the police, they came out, and they took it from there.”
“Wasn’t much to take after you got done with them, though, was there?”
“No,” I said. “There wasn’t.”
“Kevin, I’d like to open the phones to our listeners, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure,” I said.
“All right, then. Our first caller is… Randy from Burlington. Randy, good evening.”
I actually did mind. I’d feared the call-ins the most; I could prepare myself for an interview with Billy Horton, but I had no idea what any of these callers would say. They could ask me anything. I’d have to think on my feet, never my strong suit. Preparation, strategy, planning, yes, yes and yes, but spontaneity? Decisive reaction? No. And no.
Ki breath. The Mind of No Expectation.
The only people who listen to Billy Horton’s show, Craig had assured me, are right-wingnuts who are probably going to drool when you talk about shooting these two guys. Nobody’s going to ask any hard questions. They’re just going to call in and tell you how awesome you are.
And Randy from Burlington did just that.
“I just want to say that… uhh… good shooting. That’s it, right there, that’s how you do it. Good friggin’ job. You’re our hero, man!”
The next caller wanted to praise me, too. As did the next. And the next. In fact, I didn’t get a single hard question the whole time, right up until Billy clicked the mouse on his computer and said, “Looks like we got time for one more caller. Thomas from Mebane, you’re on.”
A moment of silence. In the corner, Craig frowned. Billy reached for his mouse, but then Thomas from Mebane spoke.
“Good evening, Kevin.”
Devoid of emotion and accent, the voice possessed a flat quality so different from the other callers that every red light in my head suddenly blazed to life and I thought, here it is. Here is where somebody asks me something hard and I screw everything up. Here is where I come out looking stupid.
“Good evening, Thomas,” I replied. “Uh… how are you doing tonight?”
“Great. But I have an observation or two.”
Craig leaned forward in his chair. Billy looked from his computer screen to me to the computer again, then back to me. Dylan or William just blinked.
“You killed two burglars,” said Thomas from Mebane. “Bravo. You must be very proud.”
I cleared my throat to give my mind time to get unstuck. “I don’t know if proud is the right word.”
“Oh, yes it is. Everyone loves you, Kevin. Everyone admires you. So bravo.”
“Thanks,” I said. My throat tightened. Sweat sprang forth from my armpits and collar.
Thomas from Mebane, if that was even his name, hadn’t called to praise me, I realized. He’d called to destroy me on the air. Suddenly, I saw this very clearly.
“It’s incredible, really.”
“What’s incredible?”
“Everything about this little tale of yours.”
Tale. The way he said it, the amused inflection, spiked my heart rate and made my face flush. “What are you getting at, Thomas? Are you saying… this is just a story?”
I hadn’t prepared for this accusation. In my head I’d rehearsed somebody calling in and accusing me of being a bloodthirsty killer, saying I didn’t have to kill them, I could have just wounded them, I should go to jail for murder. I’d rehearsed that. Not somebody calling me a liar.
“I’m saying it’s incredible that you have one solitary weapon, which happens to be an AK-47. Most people who buy assault rifles have dozens of guns; you have one.”
“I inherited it,” I said. “My father died and left it to me. Otherwise, this would be a completely different story.”
He continued as if I hadn’t even spoken. “I also find it incredible that these intruders struck you in the head with a bat and it not only failed to kill you, not only failed to crack your skull but also failed to knock you out for an appreciable length of time.”
My face burned. Stage fright gone now, I felt only anger. I envisioned this man sitting in his house, his apartment, his trailer, whatever hole in the ground he occupied when he wasn’t out torturing small animals, and I saw the upturned corners of his lips. Smirking. Ensconced in comfortable anonymity, seeing if he could make me squirm.
The trigger finger on my right hand twitched. Fuck him.
Craig must have seen these thoughts on my face, because he locked eyes with me and shook his head.
“And then,” continued Thomas from Mebane, “these men dilly-dally on the first floor of your home while you recover from the bat strike, unlock your gun safe, load the rifle and sneak upstairs. Where you find them lined up in your hallway like ducks in a shooting gallery.”
I leaned forward into my microphone. “Are you calling me a liar?”
Craig’s head-shaking intensified.
“I don’t know, Kevin, what do you call a man who fabricates a story like that? Makes it up out of whole cloth?”
Craig leapt up. He had known me ever since both of us had come aboard as rookie associates at Carwood, Allison ten years ago, and he knew what I would say next.
But he’d positioned himself on the other side of the room. Too far away.
“You, Thomas,” I said, “are an asshole.”