We all follow Uncle and he stoops to grab up the gun what he had been wiping on when we came up. He heads inside and we head inside too. “Just sit anywhere” he gestures around and Jacob and me is looking and there’s a square of brown linoleum with a table on it and some chairs so Me and Jacob sit there.
Cole walks to a lumpy chair with flowers on it and flops down and hangs a leg over one of the wooden arms. Uncle is busy in front of a fridge and we see the light on inside and they have power I guess and he takes out some cans and claps them down on the table in front us and says this is a celebration to our victory in battle. I open the can and take a sip and it tastes like old sour vegetables. Jacob is also taking a swig from his can and he has a face like he ate rotten cheese and Uncle is laughing and swigging his like it’s water and it’s upended and gone and he slams it down on the table and gives a big belch.
“Ahhhh, good suds! Fukkin’ best suds they make and I don’t drink anything else!” He’s looking at us expectantly and we both take another sip to be polite, but his face is turning dark. “That’s not how you drink my suds. These are precious and I give them to you in my own house and on my property, and you all drink the fukkin’ suds like they aught to be drank.” So we both take big swigs and the foam is coming out from the corners of my mouth and Jacob is gagging but still swigging, and we manage them and I clang mine down on the table like Uncle done and I give a belch and he’s smiling and nodding.
“Fukkin’ a right! fukkin’ swig the suds down!”
Cole asks from across the room if he can have one, but Uncle says they’re only for champions, and Cole’s no champion today. Uncle gazes out the back window and there’s the square top of something poking above the sill and he asks “you ever shoot a real gun?” Jacob and I never have and he says we’re about to give Sam and Joe a good scare and just come along.
He picks up the gun and walks to the back window and shoves it up and calls “how you doing out there? Having a good time?” We don’t hear nothing coming from out there so he shouts “having a good fukkin’ time!?” and I hear mumbling coming from outside and Uncle smiles and says that’s real good. He has a smile on his face like when the clouds part and the sun comes out and he’s beautiful in his conviction.
“You two come over here. Teach you to shoot a gun like a real man.” We come over and he says, “now watch real close, otherwise you’re liable to blow off some of your parts and maybe blow holes in things that you don’t intend to.” He pulls back a knob on the gun and a shell flies toward us and bounces off Jacob’s chest and clatters to the floor and rolls under the table.
“Whoops, one already in there, hand that over.” I reach under and pick it up and Uncle takes it. “Now look. I’ll explain it so even a retard can shoot it. You put this shell inside this long tube with the lead part facing out toward the end of the tube. This shell is what’s packed with things that explode the bullet out.” He places the shell in the tube. “Now that it’s in there, you push this forward” he pushes a knob on the side of the gun forward and it makes a clicking sound “and then you can pretty much blow away anything, or shoot a hole in something that fancies a hole in it by pushing this with your finger. This is the trigger.” and he gestures to a curved piece of metal on the bottom of the gun.
He turns quick “Watchout!” and in one fluid motion he shoulders the gun and fires it downward out the window and the sound is like lighting a firecracker inside your ear and there’s a smell like the 4th of July in the kitchen.
He’s saying something and smiling but my ears are ringing so I can't make it out. I’m shaking my head and covering my ears and Jacob is crouched down, covering his head so Uncle is shouting for us to hear “I say that sure gave them something to think about! Take a gander!” and I lean out the window and I see that square thing I seen before poking above the windowsill outside is a big dog cage with a blue tarp for a bottom, and Joe and Sam are locked in there, squeezed up in the corner and there’s a hole in the middle of the tarp with a spray of dirt around it where Uncle had shot.
“Keep them on their toes!” Then he shouts to them “you gonna lie again about battling and shaking hands and all that?” and they’s whimpering that they ain’t going to do that no more and Uncle says “Good! See you tomorrow! Pleasant dreams!” and he slams the window down and asks us which one wants to shoot the gun first.
We ain’t move, so he thrusts the gun into Jacob’s hands and Jacob almost drops it for it has a heft and Uncle says “wait one!” and trots back to the fridge to grab some more suds. “suds always make your shooting better!” and he cracks one and chugs it down like before, and gives another belch and hands Me and Jacob another one each and I’m feeling queasy and like my feet are about two inches above the floor. But also like things is a little funnier.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Jacob looks at his like it’s the last thing in the world he wants to be holding, but Uncle is looking at us expectantly and with his arms crossed, so we both upend the cans again and this time I get it all down in one go, but my stomach is full up and I feel it sloshing inside and now I’m feeling seasick. I sit down.
Jacob has set the gun on the counter to drink his suds and he’s holding the can with both hands and his throat is working up and down and he’s choking out some foam but his is down after a while too and Uncle is clapping and looking over at Cole who is still slumped on the chair. “Clap you fukkin’ lazy asshole! These boys are doing better than you can and they’ll probably whoop your pussy ass if you don’t clap!” and Cole claps too a little bit from the chair but that’s not enough for Uncle and he says, “stand right the fuck up. Now.” And Cole stands up and Uncle fast walks up to him and puts his face in Cole’s and says quietly “clap like you mean it.” And slugs Cole in the belly so now he’s bent over and gasping for breath.
“I still don’t hear clapping!” Cole heaves up and starts clapping real loud while the air is still punched out of him and Uncle claps along now too and is whistling loud and they’s both looking at us and clapping. Uncle walks to the window while still clapping and heaves it up again and calls out to Sam and Joe, “you fucks need to clap too. These boys are both turning into men today!” and we hear weak clapping coming from outside now and they’s all clapping and I get overwhelmed and Jacob is standing there pretending like this ain’t the strangest thing.
Uncle says “alright, shut the fuck up. You all are giving me a headache.” The clapping stops at once and Cole sits back down, holding his stomach. Uncle gestures to the gun, “okey dokey, you two know how to shoot now. I’ll throw this can in the air and you take a shot at it.” Jacob asks if maybe we should shoot the gun outside but Uncle waves his hand and says that real men shoot indoors since there’s more excitement involved. Jacob looks nervous and thinks Uncle is joking but Uncle says “one of you better pick up that gun because I’m throwing this can up, and if it hits the ground without being shot at, I’ll be pissed since I took the time to show you how to shoot. And now you’re making me jittery.”
Jacob reluctantly picks up the gun and fiddles with the knob on the side until the shell pops out and goes flying across the kitchen. There ain’t no shell to put in the tube and Uncle says “got the shells in there. In that cookie jar.” Jacob looks all around but ain’t see it and Uncle points, “the cow.” and Jacob sees a ceramic cow on the counter and he lifts the cow head and it makes a mooing sound. He reaches in and grabs a handful of shells and in that handful is also crumbles of Oreo and he sets the pile on the counter and puts the lid back on the cookie jar and the cow stops mooing.
Jacob is eyeing the cookie crumbs. Me and him ain’t eat nothing besides them mushrooms what made us all paint the outside with our barf last night and my mouth is watering by itself and Jacob’s stomach growls so you can hear it across the room and Uncle hears it too.
“When was the last time you ate anything?” We tell him last night, but we done barfed it all up and we was due for home to eat a dried and white critter we done found under the house and we was mighty hungry. “Well, I tell you what. We’ll play a game. You hit this can in the air, and I’ll fix you up with something you can get inside you so your fukkin’ stomaches stop making that fukkin’ sound. You each get three tries, but if you miss we’ll play a different game that I learned when I was a kept man for the Government.”
And he spat on his own floor like he was trying to get the taste out of his mouth.
“What other game?” I ask and Cole sits up slow and starts to walk out of the room “nawp nawp, you just sit there Cole.” Uncle giggles “You’re playing the game too if these boys can't shoot the can.” Cole sits down but his face is miserable and he starts rubbing one of his ankles like it pained him some. Uncle goes on “The game is called tiger hunt and there’s nothing quite like it to get your dick hard!” A new can of suds had mysteriously appeared in his hand again and he’s sipping on it now with his pinky out, like drinkin’ a fine cup of fancy tea.
He burps long and goes on. “We get this room dark as the inside of a preacher’s asshole. We’ll put up blankets over the windows and I’ll be the hunter and you’ll be the tigers. You sneak sneak around and around the room and if I hear a noise, I get to shoot at it! Funniest game I ever learned! Those government folks sure do have some great ideas! Don’t worry though” he smiles “you probably won’t get killed since the rule is I can only fire low, and there’s nothing much in legs and feet that can't heal well enough.”
I wished this about three times already since I been here, but I wish again that Jacob and Me never met those boys in the woods. “We ain’t so hungry” I say “we promised Momma we was going to be back and she’s probably mighty worried we ain’t been back yet” and Jacob chimes in “that sounds like a fun time but like he says, we ought to be going on now” and Jacob gives a big yawn “and we’s pretty much tired too since we been out all day and having a fine time with you all, but we can come back and I sure do like the sound of that game what you learned!”
Uncle says this is his house and guests need to act properly so we’re not leaving until it’s over since we already made a deal. I look at Jacob and he’s wild eyed and I ain’t sure this Uncle is having a joke or not but we was small and Uncle was an adult and we didn’t know no better. Had we been older we may have used Uncle’s gun to get out of there but we ain’t considered it at all.
“Ok then. Good. Which one is going first?”