What a tangled web we weave… here’s a crazy little short story, sort of a zany domestic thriller…
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Sword Hands Vs. Shoulder Guns
~I~
Rufus pulled, and Janelle responded with a yank on the leash. The squirrel Rufus so desperately wanted to murder hopped along the top of the wooden fence. The dog yelped.
“Rufus, leave it,” Janelle said. He refused.
As she struggled to reel in the eighty-pound pit bull, Janelle cast looks around her neighborhood, hoping against hope that no one was peeking through their window at the woman unable to control her dog.
On the fence, the squirrel pivoted, then chirped at the dog. Taunting.
“Real nice,” Janelle said to the squirrel. “Rub it in his face, why doncha?”
The squirrel disappeared on the other side of the fence, and Rufus craned his giant head to face her. Eyes pleading.
“No, you can’t go after the squirrel,” she said.
He sat, pleading harder.
“Aww. That’s a good sit, but you still can’t go in that backyard to get the squirrel. It’s over, buddy. Time to move on and put it behind you.”
Rufus got back to his feet and started plodding along. Janelle followed him, taking a deep breath that caught halfway through. She was still pretty stoned, and the blooming flowers in the neighbor’s yards activated her allergies, which made her red eyes even redder.
She’d never been an out-in-nature kind of stoner, more like the crash-on-the-couch-with-Cheetos-and-watch-bad-television kind of stoner. Definitely not the walking-the-dog kind of stoner, but she’d overslept, and when Rufus needs his walk, the deed must be done.
While they’d smoked the morning bowl, Janelle had tried to convince her roommate to walk the dog, but Sara wasn’t having it. They went back and forth, arguing and giggling, while Rufus sat next to the front door, awaiting his fate.
Janelle took a turn at the end of the street, and Rufus immediately popped a squat in front of the house with the yipping lapdogs, to crap on the sidewalk in front of their house.
“That’s right, Rufus, you show ‘em,” she said as she dug into her back pocket for the wad of poop bags. Found just one.
As she picked at the bag to open it, she said, “okay, buddy, I only got one bag, so this is the only poop you can take on this walk, alright? When we get home, you can poop in the yard all you want.”
A teenager walking on the opposite street eyed her. She giggled. Doesn’t everyone talk to their dogs when they’re out walking? How boring would it be if you didn’t?
She scooped the poop and inverted the bag, then rolled the end and tied a knot in it. Maybe there would be more poop bags in the box next to the trash can on Maple. It was worth a detour to try.
She yanked on Rufus’ leash to change direction, and headed for Maple Street. Rufus tensed when they passed the house with the German Shepherd, but that dog wasn’t in his backyard today. Usually, she’d cross the street before coming within barking distance because Rufus did not like that German Shepherd. But, she was a little too baked to remember those kinds of details about life this morning.
As they scampered along the sidewalk, Rufus’ nubbin of a tail switching back and forth, she wondered if the temp agency was going to call her back about the job today. They’d said they’d have a decision made on Friday, and today was Friday.
Or was it Thursday? Hmm.
They turned on Maple, and she watched the neighborhood trashcan at the intersection grow larger as they approached it. Rufus kept trying to turn into the street. The smells are always better on the other side of the street.
They reached the trash can, and she felt around the side for the communal box where people donated plastic shopping bags and other things to use as poop bags. Janelle lifted the lid and peered inside. Empty.
“Okay, buddy,” she said, “no more pooping on this walk. Can you handle that?”
Rufus looked up at her but didn’t give her an answer one way or the other.
Since they were already at Maple, Janelle decided to cut up to Spruce, and then get back to the house via Elm. A nice little rectangle walk of about a half hour.
On the corner of Spruce, a massive tree with low-hanging branches poked out into the street. One of Rufus’ favorite sniffing spots. When he saw, he started tugging.
“Okay, okay, we’ll go check out your tree. I wouldn’t deprive you of the best part of your day.”
She let him drive her across the street. Rufus, head down, moved with a purpose. With determination. The dark space under the tree would be sniffed. It would be done.
At the tree, he raised a leg and peed on a rock, one of many collected underneath. When he finished, he paused, then turned back to the wet rock and sniffed it.
“That’s your own pee, Rufus.”
Then, his back arched. His hind quarters dropped.
“No, Rufus, no. What are you doing?”
His ribs tensed. He looked up at her, guilt on his face.
“Oh, no, Rufus, why are you doing this to me?”
As her dog shat on the sidewalk next to the big tree, Janelle heard giggling behind her. She spun around to find a small boy pointing at the poop falling out of her dog’s butt, and laughing.
~II~
The first thing Hunter did when he woke up was rub his knuckles into his eyes to make the stars come out. Then he got out of bed and dug in his toy chest to find Red Gamma Warrior.
He knew that the Red Gamma Warrior was the best even though Tommy Cardulo said the Green Gamma Warrior was the best because it had two shoulder-mounted guns. Red Gamma Warrior had sword-hands, which automatically beat shoulder-mounted guns and Tommy Cardulo was stupid for even saying that.
Hunter was going to take Red Gamma Warrior into the front yard to play because today they were going to build the ramp with that broken skateboard and Red Gamma Warrior was going to learn how to fly. Hunter didn’t have to go to summer camp until next week so today he was going to make Red Gamma Warrior achieve his full potential and fly by doing a jump over Dad’s car.
He’d been thinking about it and planning it since last night, but he had to wait until daytime because he wasn’t allowed outside at night after Dad set the alarm on the house. He’d opened the back door once and the alarm was super loud and Dad yelled a lot when it happened.
Hunter got the skateboard out of the garage and then raised the garage door and he felt kinda cold when he went out because he was wearing only his pajamas still. No time to get dressed. Red Gamma Warrior had a mission to accomplish.
He took three of the leftover bricks sitting next to the mailbox and stacked them in the grass next to the driveway. As he did, a pretty lady with long blond hair and a big dog came walking down the street. The lady was talking to the dog, and she was laughing. The dog didn’t have a tail but it had a little bump where a tail should be and Hunter wanted to go touch the bump and see if he could pull the dog’s tail out because maybe the dog was hiding the tail like how turtles buried their heads.
The lady and the dog stopped over by the MacPhersons’ house with the big tree and the dog started peeing. Hunter gripped Red Gamma Warrior in his hands so he wouldn’t drop him and Hunter crossed the sidewalk and went into the street. He made sure to look both ways before stepping into the street.
The lady hadn’t seen him yet and he thought about creeping up behind her to scare her but he didn’t want to be rude to a stranger. Mom would get mad.
Then the dog started pooping, and the lady was disappointed in the dog. But then the dog looked at her and it was funny, so Hunter laughed.
The lady spun to face Hunter, and she was tall and her mouth made an O like she was surprised.
“That dog is pooping,” Hunter said. The giggles came up from his toes and through his legs and rumbled his tummy so much that he had to tell himself to breathe.
“Hey kid,” the lady said, and her eyes kept jumping around and she twitched her head like she was looking for somebody. “What’s your name?”
“My name is Hunter. This is Red Gamma Warrior.” He held out the action figure.
“Nice. Are his hands made of swords?”
“Yeah they are and they could beat Green Gamma Warrior’s shoulder guns any time.”
The lady kept looking around while her dog padded over and started sniffing at the legs of Hunter’s pajama pants. Hunter tried to reach the dog’s nubbin of a tail, but the dog was too squiggly.
“Maybe you’re right,” the lady said, “but shoulder guns are pretty cool too. Not sure if I agree with your assessment.”
The lady picked up a small rock and scraped it on the ground, moving the dog poop under the tree.
Hunter gasped. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t have any poop bags.”
“My dad says there’s an or-nance in the county that you have to pick up the poop whenever a dog poops. We don’t have a dog but the MacPhersons’ have a dog and one time, it pooped on our yard and they didn’t clean it up and my dad said if it happened again he was going to take swift action against the MacPhersons.”
The lady bent to one knee so she was the same height as Hunter. Grownups did this a lot whenever they wanted to have serious conversations like sometimes when Hunter was in trouble and he thought maybe the lady was mad at him because of what he’d said about the or-nance.
“Look,” she said, “can you keep a secret?”
He nodded.
“I know I’m supposed to pick up after the dog, but I don’t have any bags with me. I can come back later and get it, but this needs to be a secret between us, for now. Can you keep our little secret?”
He nodded. “Can I show you a trick?”
“Sure.”
He put Red Gamma Warrior in his back pocket. “I know how to make the stars come out in the daytime.”
“You do?” she said.
He balled his fists and pushed them into his eyes, rubbing them back and forth. “If you rub your hands into your eyes like this for a little bit, it makes the stars come out when you open your eyes.” He kept rubbing them, harder than he ever had before. There were going to be millions of stars this time.
“Hey, Hunter, that’s great. Maybe we can play your stars game some other time, okay?”
He stopped rubbing and opened his eyes and it took him a few seconds to be able to see through the stars. “Okay.”
The lady patted him on the head and yanked on the dog’s leash and they left. Hunter went back to the yard and started to set up the ramp for Red Gamma Warrior to make his epic jump, but the skies got cloudy and it started to rain. He thought about the secret he and the lady had shared and it made him giggle.
Mom opened the front door. “Sweetie, come inside. It’s going to rain, and it’s time for breakfast.”
“What are we having?” he said.
“French toast.”
“Yes!” Hunter jumped up, shoved Red Gamma Warrior into his pocket, and ran inside the house for french toast day.
Mom was in the kitchen, standing in front of the stove. Dad was at the breakfast table, coffee in one hand and his phone in the other hand. He was wearing his blue tie today, the one Hunter had picked out for Father’s Day last year but his dad only wore every once in a while.
Hunter giggled. His dad lowered his phone. “What’s up, champ?” Dad said. “What’s so funny?”
“I’m not allowed to say,” he said, still giggling. “It’s a secret.”
~III~
Ronald scanned through his emails at the kitchen table while he let the aroma of the coffee drift up under his nose, relishing the anticipation of caffeine. Still a little too hot to drink.
Brenda wiped her hands on her apron and dropped some french toast on a plate. “Are you eating with us this morning, dear?”
“No thanks,” he said, “just the coffee for me. I’ll eat after my meeting.”
A crack of thunder rolled outside the house. Ronald and Brenda shared a look. “I’ll go get him,” she said.
While Brenda went outside to get Hunter, Ronald opened an email from Marketing, and his mouth dropped open halfway through. They weren’t going to have the Q4 campaign ready in time for the September product launch.
“Goddamn it,” he said under his breath. “Have those slackers ever met a single deadline?”
Hunter came inside with a big grin on his face. “What’s so funny?” Ronald said.
Hunter giggled harder. “I’m not allowed to say. It’s a secret.”
The look on the boy’s face was mischievous, the same one he’d worn when he’d tried to flush a box of Brenda’s tampons down the toilet six months ago and Ronald had to call the plumber. Emergency house call rates at a 300% markup.
Ronald set down his coffee. “Come here.”
Hunter walked to the table, and now his giggle was turning into a belly laugh. The boy’s eyes were red. Bloodshot and redder than anything Ronald had ever seen before.
“What did you do, Hunter?”
Hunter shook his head.
He felt his temperature rising. “Tell me.”
“There was a pretty lady and she had a dog and I talked to her outside and we have a secret and that’s all I’m allowed to say.”
Brenda set a plate of french toast down on Hunter’s placemat. “Hunter, eat your breakfast.”
Hunter went to sit, but Ronald put a hand on his shoulder. “Wait, Hunter. Who was this lady?”
“The pretty blond lady with the big dog. A big black pibble with the nubbin on its behind like a turtle head.”
“The black pit bull?” Brenda said, chewing on her fingernails.
Ronald knew exactly who Hunter was talking about. Had seen that woman walking that dog up and down the street. She lived over on Oak, and he’d seen her and her roommate smoking marijuana on their front porch before.
A terrible thought danced around in his head.
Ronald leaned in, looking his son in the eyes. “Why are your eyes red?”
Hunter shrugged.
“What is it?” Brenda said. “Ron, what are you asking him?”
Ronald ignored his wife. “Did that lady make you take something? Did she give you a brownie or a funny tasting cookie?”
Hunter giggled and turned his palms up to the ceiling. “The lady and I have a secret and I promised not to tell and you always say that you shouldn’t ever break a promise.”
Ronald eased his grip because he could feel his hand tensing, and didn’t want to hurt the boy. Hunter stared at him, eyes bloodshot and glassy.
That damn, dirty stoner had given marijuana to his son. What kind of monster would do that to a child?
He stood up and tossed back the coffee. It was too hot and burned his tongue and throat, but he didn’t care. He slammed the cup down on his placemat and Hunter cringed from the sound.
“What is happening here?” Brenda said. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m going over there. If I’m not back in twenty minutes, call the police. I’m not going to let them get away with this.”
“Wait, no,” Brenda said. “Please, don’t do anything rash. Maybe we just need to take a step back and think this through.”
Ronald took off his suit coat and laid it on the back of the chair. He swept through the kitchen and out into the living room, snatching his keys on the way out.
A light rain drizzled on him as he crossed the street and turned at the MacPhersons’ place. Droplets weighed down his hair and dribbled from his face down to his cleanly-pressed shirt. His tie swished back and forth as he picked up the pace, heading down Spruce to get to Oak.
“Monsters. What kind of sick game are they playing, giving drugs to my son? Who would do such a thing?”
He crossed at Maple, with Oak Street in his sights. The rain was coming harder now, and his shirt clung to his body like cellophane.
When he turned on Oak, he saw the blonde woman with the dog, running through the rain, puddles splashing water up to her knees with each lunge.
He broke out into a trot to catch up, but she went inside her house before he was within shouting distance.
“Ronald!”
He turned to find Brenda and Hunter huddled twenty feet behind him. “Go back home, Brenda. Let me handle this.”
“Wait, please, Ronnie, don’t do anything yet. You know how you get with these things. Maybe there’s another explanation.”
Ronald waved a hand to ward them off, then continued his march toward the hippie drug-pushing woman’s house. He stomped across her yard, spongy grass sinking under his footfalls, then up the three steps to her front door. He reached a hand out to ring the doorbell, then thought better of it.
Yanked back the screen door and banged on the wooden door, making the metal rocker in the center jiggle and clank. A few seconds passed with no response, so he banged again, louder.
The door opened, and there stood the blonde woman, with her bloodshot eyes. She was still holding a dog leash in her hand.
“Why are you banging on my door like that? Made me think you were the cops or something.”
“Who the hell do you think you are?” he said.
“Excuse me?” she said.
Ronald listened as Hunter and Brenda came into the yard behind them.
“Hi, lady,” Hunter said. Ronald eyed his son as the kid waved at the monster, and he caught a strange expression on his wife’s face. He turned back to the woman, who was returning Hunter’s wave.
“Don’t you look at them. You deal with me. How could you be so monstrous, so careless, so brazenly cruel?”
The blonde girl stumbled over her words. “Look, dude, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I know what you did, and you’re not going to get away with it,” he said. “My son’s face told me everything I need to know.”
And this got her attention. She looked at Hunter, a frown darkening her mouth. “Hey, buddy, that was supposed to be our little secret.”
Rage overtook him. “Don’t look at him! Don’t you speak to my son!”
“Ron, please, stop yelling,” Brenda said.
While the blonde woman went red and put a hand over her mouth, a second woman appeared in the doorway. The roommate.
“Oh, hey,” the roommate said, nodding at Brenda. “What’s up, Brenda?”
Ronald spun. “You know these people?”
Brenda flashed a timid wave. “Hi Janelle. Hi Sara.”
“I didn’t have any bags, you see,” the blonde said. “I usually bring two or three with me, because Rufus is such a prolific pooper, but I only had one today.”
Hunter giggled. Ronald stepped back, now completely confused. “What in God’s name are you talking about?”
“Hey, Brenda,” the roommate said, “you left your backpack over here the other day. Do you want me to get it for you while you’re here?”
Ronald looked at his wife and caught her in the act of giving a wide-eyed, discrete shake of the head at the roommate. Trying to tell her to keep it quiet, without him seeing.
Everything started to make sense. Dog poop. Backpack. Brenda knowing these potheads.
Brenda tried to laugh, but it came out as a gurgle. “It’s just a little grass, Ronnie. It’s not a big deal.”
“Do you party too, Ron?” the blonde girl said. “We’ve never been formally introduced. I’m Janelle.”
She held out a hand, and Ronald took a step back, away from these people and out into the yard. The rain was coming down harder now, in sheets that obscured his vision in all directions.
“If you want to come in,” Janelle said, “we have Freezy Pops we can give your son. We have purple and orange flavored. Whichever one he wants.”
Ronald spun and walked to Brenda, turning his back on the stoner house. “Let’s go.”
As he put a hand on his wife and son to guide them back to the sidewalk, Janelle called out from her doorway. “You’re right, Hunter. I gave it some thought, and sword hands are way better than shoulder guns.”
Hunter turned to respond, but Ronald twisted him back around, and gave him a little nudge to get him pointed in the right direction.
* * *
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1. Should Janelle have checked her house before leaving to make sure she had enough poop bags?
2. Will Hunter ever succeed in making Red Gamma Warrior achieve his full potential by doing an awesome jump over Ronald’s car?
3. What’s Brenda’s deal? Is she like some kind of secret stoner, and how did Ronald not know about it?