Clay Pigeons

My dad took me out to the dump one afternoon

to shoot me, says I.

It was a crispy clear blue day, as I recall,

perfect for a killin’.

“This here’s a clay pigeon,” he said.

His huge, murderin’, grease-pitted hands turned it this way and that

so as I could get a look at it.

I nodded, wide-eyed and mute

as it surely was the bottom bit that fit

under the pot of the geranium plant in the kitchen window

(and I should know as I had my own watering can).

There was a whole bunch of ‘em

stacked neatly behind him on an old fence board.

I figured mom must already be dead.

She’d never let those out of the house.

*

And then

he untied the string

which wound around

the closing flap

of the canvas bag

and he eased the gun,

barrel first,

slowly up

and out

into the smelly air.

The wood

of the stock

gleamed slowly next

freshly oiled

and free of prints.

*

He was all casual-like

with the shotgun clamped under the crook of his gorilla arm.

He took my hand and strolled

and I followed his lumbering footsteps towards the edge of what used to be a cliff.

He dropped the bag beside me and started loading shells

like he’d done it a hundred times.

His cold eyes never left mine as he pumped each one

calculated

one by one into the chamber.

*

“This,” he nodded, eyebrows up and eyes too large, “is a 12-gauge, boy!”

I leaked out a “yessir” as he scooped up a woodmetal contraption-thing

I had mistaken as part of an old bedspring or maybe a Lazy-Boy.

He snapped a little clay disk into into it - “a hand trap thrower,” he taunted,

an extra gleam in his dark eyes.

“Grab it here. Tight.“

Well, what would you do?

I wrapped my little chubbies around the handle as best I could.

“Fling it. Thataway,“ he grunted. His tree trunk head jerking to the left.

And he raised the barrel ...

And in my mind ”hand trap hand trap hand trap….”

A careless mistake.

HE was overconfident.

I knew that if I threw it, it would somehow suck me along with it

catapulting me into the air

an easy target.

I flung it and let go as hard as I could

and it flew and spun out into the blue yonder.

That little clay pigeon was trapped in there though.

It never did come out.

He watched my throw

his eyes full of despair and disbelief

as it landed on the landslide of rot.

He shot the gun and curdled a scream of rage.

Me? I was already runnin’!

The boom had launched me towards the safety of the power truck.

And as my wee tiny feet doubly redoubled their desperate charge,

I couldn’t help but think

“He’s a really good aim.”

By the time he swung the Remington around

I was already hunkered down in the trench of the cab.

Armlocked knees pressed against my cheeks

my eyes were squeezed shut with the grateful stark image of

keys still dangling from the column ignition

shot after shot

slammed into the door and blasted the window

and he was furious at the irony of bulletproof glass and plate steel.

He huffed and threatened and banged.

I turtled and chinny-chin-chinned even lower

*

The little bump of our driveway jarred me awake and I pulled my head up and off my greasy rag pillow.

I looked up at my father.

He seemed almost normal now.

He must’ve run out of shells and run out of steam

his reptile brain retreating to allow the glimmer of a memory

the Hide-A-Key in the wheel well.

I grabbed the dash with both hands and peeked over to see

my mom craning her head around the stucco wall of the house,

her Olive Oyl wave gangling my safe, if unlikely, return

and I hopped down out of the cab as my dad put it in park.

I rounded the corner and sat on the hot cement steps with my Lazarus mother.

She passed me a handful of baggies and a pail.

And as I unloaded peas

from shell after shell

I hatched my plan

to finally deal

with that monster under my bed.