Addie McKenzie exhaled a shaky
breath and pumped a shell into the shotgun chamber. She was praying she’d make the shot, but in
case she didn’t, she’d persuaded herself that skeet was a hillbilly sport,
anyway. A granite crescent at her feet
had been notched with six shooting positions, and two
ugly trap towers lobbed rabbits at a silver sky.
She sighted down the gun barrel,
feeling a sting in her wrist as her heart rate climbed. In front of her, tattered trees flanked a
clearing that sloped downhill for a quarter mile, and an insect chorus swelled
from the brown swaths of mowed hay. It
was the raggedy butt-end of autumn. Far
below, where the woodland began, mist was pooling in hollows that would be
frosty by midnight.
“Pull!”
She braced
for recoil and squeezed the trigger.
“You suck!” shrieked Tulip Turnbull.
The clay bunny flew unharmed above
the dying alfalfa. Addie ignored the sickening roil in her gut. One more
shot. Keep it together.
“Pull!”
The skeet target
disintegrated. This time Tulip kept her
fat mouth shut. The instructor called Addie’s score and she turned over the
twelve-gauge and rotated out. No one
high-fived her. She caught a couple of
half-hearted “way-to-go-Addie’s,” and Kyle Fowler, the dumbest jock in Portland
High’s senior class, clapped briefly while staring at her sun-browned legs. Near the clubhouse she spotted a patrol car
squeezing into a parking space. She
pulled off gloves and safety glasses and sank onto grassy earth.
Kyle stepped up to shoot.
Addie sprawled. She squinted heavenward through a weave of
oak branches, heart racing. She counted
breaths, focusing on the distant, rhythmic clack and rumble of an Amtrak train,
syncopated by Kyle Fowler as he shot positions. Easy, she urged herself, no worries. Nothing mattered. Nothing….
Minutes passed. Anxiety waned, and mischief raised its feral
head.
She remembered the patrol car,
slipping into a parking slot. She pushed up onto an elbow and called softly to
Tulip Turnbull, who crouched near the trap house firing up a hand-rolled. Addie jabbed a finger toward the cop car and
mouthed “For you, Cupcake.” Tulip
scowled and exhaled smoke in her direction.
Tulip Turnbull had no sense of humor and Addie never tired of baiting
her.
Addie knew the patrol car hadn’t
come for Tulip. She flashed back to the
night before. Her sinuses burned from
acrid chemicals, and if evil-doings had an aftertaste, the flavor of bad
behavior coated her tongue.
Skeet practice wound down as a half
dozen kids chose to shoot a final round, and others headed out. When Addie reached the parking lot Kyle
Fowler passed, making a point of brushing against her, and suggested: “Me and
you should hang out.”
“Never gonna happen,” Addie retorted. Kyle smirked and continued toward his car,
and her mood ticked up a notch. The
fumes of fresh asphalt tarred the air, and nearby a weed whacker snarled with
raw hostility. She unlocked the Chevy
Camaro and slung her backpack inside. The used Camaro, boasting a V-8 engine,
white leather interior, and 26” wheels, had been acquired by cashing in a ten
thousand dollar savings bond from her grandfather, intended for college
tuition.
She stole a look between vehicles.
She’d encountered most of the cops in the Portland Police Department,
but this one had a fresh face. A short
black woman leaned against the hood of a cruiser. At her feet lay pine cones flattened by tires
and she swiped at them with the side of her shoe as if she was clearing a
doorstep. She looked up in time to catch
Addie’s eye, and beckoned her over.
“You McKenzie?”
Addie turned and pointed out Tulip,
climbing into Blind Billy’s truck.
“That’s her, Officer.”
A faint smile. “Sure it is,” agreed the cop, not
fooled. “They told me to look for a tall
blond who’d be a lot prettier if she wasn’t planning who to beat up next.”
“Everyone’s a critic.”
The officer smiled again, this time
displaying teeth. “You swing by Dicky’s
Lobster Pound last night?”
“No reason to. I quit over the weekend.” As Addie spoke Blind Billy trawled past in
his Ford F-150, his sister Tulip Turnbull riding shotgun. Billy wasn’t actually blind, just fumbling
and shortsighted. Somebody had bashed
him in the
skull when he was younger, possibly causing brain damage. Right now he was gawking out the window like a lame-ass. “Baddie Addie Waddie,” he brayed, almost steering off the pavement. Tulip Turnbull screeched from the passenger seat but Addie didn’t turn her head. Neither did Officer Martin.
skull when he was younger, possibly causing brain damage. Right now he was gawking out the window like a lame-ass. “Baddie Addie Waddie,” he brayed, almost steering off the pavement. Tulip Turnbull screeched from the passenger seat but Addie didn’t turn her head. Neither did Officer Martin.
“According to Richard Bailey, he
fired you. Just coincidentally someone
entered the business after hours and activated a fire alarm.” Office Martin studied Addie for reaction. “The
pound got sprayed with flame retardant foam.
Worst part, it contaminated the holding tanks. Piles of dead lobbies.”
“Sorry to hear it. Any witnesses?”
“No, Miss McKenzie, I was hoping
you’d shed a ray of light.”
“No ma’am, wish I could.”
Officer Martin sighed theatrically,
opened the door of the black and white, and maneuvered her sturdy bulk inside.
“I figured this for a long shot,”
she confessed through the half-open window.
“Only reason I bothered is the lovely foliage.” She waved toward the hillside above the
parking lot, where naked branches clawed the sky.
“Sorry I wasn’t more help.”
“Hold up a sec.” Through the car window she passed Addie a brochure. “I worked a job fair last week,” said the
cop. “Why not check this out?”
Addie accepted the brochure and
eyed the cover. “Law Enforcement
Careers. This a joke?”
Officer Martin regarded her soberly
until Addie got the idea it wasn’t a joke. “It may help you get your head
straight if you start planning your future.”
The patrol car backed onto the
access road, tires crunching new gravel, and abruptly sped away.
Addie McKenzie experienced a rare
moment. People rarely proposed that she
might have a future, and she was caught off guard. Even she
wasn’t sure what happened next, but she knew that fistfights and petty
vandalism didn’t cut it anymore, they barely scratched the itch.
She heard a distant howl of
triumph. Above the skeet range rosy
clouds bled down the silver autumn sky.
She remained rooted in place, listening to wind and gunshots, and the
jarring tempo of hard, desolate thoughts.
****
Author Bio: Dan Spanton lived in Colombia for five years, teaching English in
Bogota, Cali, and Medellin. He now resides in Maine where he's been a
clamdigger, sail maker, and restaurant cook.
