that enlivens the places we inhabit. That there are no watercolor paintings, softball schedules, shopping lists, bright silly magnets—nothing is ever stuck to the door of the fridge.
The whole show—the bouquets and black-out drapes, the living room chapels, the organs droning out dirges to drum-machine beats, the discount casket coupons thumbtacked by the phone, padlocked basement door—none of it is morbid, to me, anymore.
I love the hearse, the motorcade following behind it, and the little paper tickets you put in the windshield, and running red lights, headlights on in the daytime. The little plastic hooks by which the living hang potted flowers beside the graves, like lanterns. I love the giant register everyone must sign. I love the bad lemon tea on offer, the stale cookies in their plastic tray, how there’s never milk, only powdered sugar-free creamer. I love that it’s all a terrible party thrown midday, midweek, at a house with never enough parking, nothing at all to do, that no one can stand to be in for more than an hour. Except me.
*
The problem was little Ray had Dan’s .22 revolver pointed right up his own nose when Vince and I got back from our emergency beer run. He was in the TV room, watching Bert and Ernie, just as he’d been when we left ten minutes before. He beamed our way as we walked in and kicked off our shoes.
“Hi, Vin. Hey, Ant,” Ray said, waving hello with the pistol.
Vince froze. “Where the hell you get that? Put that down.”
Ray hugged the gun to his chest.
“That is not a toy, leave it be. I got a surprise for you.”
“A surprise?” He jumped for joy.
“Ray, stop. Listen now: please place that gun on the carpet— nicely. Right now.”
“Why?”
“Just do it, please.”
Ray took a tentative step toward us, then a step back, as he thought it over. “It’s mine. I found it.”
“Goddamn,” said Vince, and he looked at me. I set down the bag of beer.
“Ray,” I said, “what about a trade, yeah? You give me the gun, I’ll give you—these…” I dangled the car keys before him. Ray pointed the handgun at me.
“Cars are better, bud. How about it?” I said, giving them a jingle.
“I’ll even throw in this king-size Snickers,” Vin said. “That seal the deal?”
Ray’s attention reeled back to the TV, to Bert and Ernie counting sheep.
“Ray. The gun…” I said.
“Fine…”
And then the thing went off. Startled, Ray’s hands went to his ears as he started crying and ran off to his room. Vince got the .22.
I started calling him “Ray the Gun” after that. Then that turned into just “Raygun.” He was “Raymond” before all this, a dweeby little spazz born with coke-bottle glasses and an overbite.
Vince likes to dispute this fact. He claims we both came up with the nickname. If being in the same room as someone who thinks of something means you think up the thing too, then yes, Vince helped. But he knows the truth.
I wasn’t close to Ray like Vince was. But I did contribute.
Ray loved it. It made him feel tough and dangerous. And then you have all the variations: Death Ray, Gay Run, Stun Gunner, and so on.
I suppose I felt good about making him feel cool like that. A nickname lends personality to the bearer, indicates a reputation, prior achievements of note, that there are people on your side—a tribe, however dwindling. Says, I have done things, I have friends. But all the nicknames turned out pretty useless in the end.
*
As Vince drives, I say, “Ray the Gun. Remember that day?”
He glances my way. “Dan broke a broom handle on me that night, that’s what I remember.”
“Dan’s the one to blame—you keep a loaded handgun in a shoebox under the bed with kids in the house, you’re asking for it. He ought to know better. Under the bed’s the first place they look.”
“You should have let me handle it.”
“Like you’re some hostage negotiator. It was not the smartest tactic in the world—fine. Did anyone get shot?”
He frowns at the window, changes lanes again.
“What use is there arguing about it anyway? Look where we are now,” I say.
He lets out a long, slow breath. “I remember us posting up on the couch after all that, just in time to catch The Undertaker tombstone Mr. Perfect. Not missing a beat.”
“No use letting all that beer get warm…” I say.
“Marcy kicked both Ray’s and Dan’s asses that night, actually.”
“And you beat mine. Nearly broke my nose. Don’t think I forgot.”
Vince wags his head. “Raygun. Damn…”
Remembering the bullet hole, like a shark’s vacant eye staring at me, lodged in the wall just inches wide of my left ear. The one and only slug ever shot off in my presence, that for the longest time I was convinced had my name on it. But the world had different plans for me, didn’t it. I put on my everything’s-fine grin. The world is screaming past my shoulder in a humming blur of frozen sludge and rail.
*
And then there was later that summer, the summer I left, and the heat wave that claimed over 200 lives across the county. The power grid couldn’t handle the strain and failed on the second night; everyone was plunged in a smothering dark that left everything tacky, damp, and smudged. All of us slightly addlebrained and reluctant to get the mail.
Leaving the front and back doors open only invited breezes that came in and swept through the house like the trapped air of a hot parked car. Playing the piano left it slippery and glistening with so much sweat I worried it would somehow warp the action on the keys. I didn’t play for days.
Vince was turning a little bitter, a little weird about me leaving, but we still hung out pretty much every day, drinking Schlitz or clowning around or griping about not having money, or planning Vince’s wedding, or having nothing to do at all, really. That summer sucked, for everybody.
We were all fooling around out in back, playing with the hose, trying to get a water war started against some of the neighborhood gang. The afternoon humidity made everyone too slow to choose sides, set ground rules, so it never really materialized. We mostly ended up sprawled on the porch, telling each other what we wished we had to eat—even though the fridge was probably full of stuff, it never looked good to us and even if that were not the case, the heat left us with little motivation to do much but moan and groan.
I wished for a foot-long barbecue beef and cheese submarine sandwich, butter
