Shot Gun by Shelly Kawaja
2020 Writing Contest Winner
FIRST PLACE
Frankie’s mother stands on the front bridge with her hands on her hips, broad as the barrens, face beet-red from hollering after them. Her house is next to the fish-packing plant and the air is rotten with the smell of it.
Cierra turns, walking away, but Frankie makes a final plea. “She’s got nowhere else to go.”
His mother snatches the words like bait. “Oh, I know where she’s going, straight to hell. And she’s taking you with her.” Her voice cracks and she clutches her chest, bunching the floral fabric of her nightgown between her heavy breasts. A sob erupts from somewhere deep in her gut and she turns, rushing back inside, storm door slapping behind her.
Frankie is wrong anyway: there are other places she can go. She can go back to Bonnie’s, or try Frankie’s buddy Dan. It’s just until Frankie gets a job and they can afford their own place. Anything will be better than living with Frankie’s parents. Breathing the same air as that woman would be worse than the smell of gutted fish.
Cierra takes Frankie’s hand and hauls. He’s slow to respond. Sulking. He does that sometimes, like a mama’s boy. He’d probably crawl up in under his mother’s nightgown if he could. Curl up in her cozy little womb. Wouldn’t his mother love that – Frankie safe and warm in her belly where Cierra can’t get at him. Well, Cierra wasn’t having it. Frankie was a man now. Her man.
“Come on,” Cierra tugs until Frankie walks faster. Until he pulls himself together. He squeezes her hand before letting go, wraps an arm around her shoulders and steers her away from a rock jutting out of the dirt road. There he is. There’s her man. Frankie. One of the good ones.
One of the good ones. Why did she think those words? Cierra shuts her eyes against the memory needling her brain. The memory of her mother, Sandra, standing on the front porch laughing. It’s the hormones. Must be. There’s no other reason why she would think about her mother. Or her father.
It was summer. An early morning like this one. Warm wind smelling of salt and drying seaweed. Four-year old Cierra had run out on the front porch of Gran’s house before anyone else was up, looking for the stray dog that had been hanging around. Puckering her lips, she made a, “Whoo! Whoo!” sound. She was scanning the tall grass in the front yard when she saw him. At first, she thought the shape was just an old stump. That’s what he looked like – all hunched over in dark green oilskins, half hidden by grass. There was an uneasy feeling in her gut though, that it wasn’t a stump at all, but a man.
Gran’s house was at the end of Old Cove Road, bordering a vacant field of tall yellow-green grass that crept down to the ocean. If the man wanted to sleep in the grass he could have went to the field. Yet here he was in their yard, inside their fence. Cierra walked down the steps and through the grass until she was right up close. Frizzy brown-gray hair hung down over the top of his head like dead tree moss. Creepy-gray-man. That’s who it was. He was always shuffling around the Harbour, muttering to himself. Wearing the same oilskins and black rubber boots every day, no matter the weather. Cierra held her breath and kicked him. Not hard, just the kind of kick you’d give an animal on the road to see if it was alive or dead.
He fell over with a groan, rolling onto his back, and a sour, cheese-like smell wafted up.
“Mom!” Cierra yelled, running back to the house.
It was Gran that came out, wearing her old plaid housecoat and carrying a broom. Cierra stood on the steps and watched as Gran marched through the grass and started stabbing at him with the plastic handle.
“Don’t you come sniffing around here like an old dog in heat!”
The man fended off the broom as he got to his feet, mumbling something Cierra couldn’t make out.
“Your girl!” Gran’s rough voice went as high as it could. “Get the dirty Jesus outa here! Go on!”
Sandra came out then, Cierra’s mother. She stood on the step and took in the scene. “Mom!” She snapped at Gran.
At the sound of her voice, the man looked up, reached out. Gran wacked him in the forearm, then across the shins. He staggered, trying to get away from her, but Gran gave him another whack in the back of the knees. He spun around, almost falling into the grass again.
Sandra barked out a laugh and Cierra, startled by the sound, looked up at her. She remembered that–being startled.
“You see that pile of dogshit?” Gran shouted, pointing at the retreating back of the man. “That’s your daddy right there. You got her to thank for that.”
No. That was Creepy-gray-man. Not somebody’s daddy. Certainly not hers.
Her mother wasn’t laughing anymore. She was shaking her head, real quick little shakes, blond hair flicking. Cierra waited for her to deny it, to tell the truth. To say no, Cierra’s father is dead. And before he was dead, he was amazing and wonderful.
Sandra shook her head until she was crying and shouting at the same time.
“He never used to be like that!” She stamped her foot on the wooden planks of the bridge, like a kid would do – a kid younger even than Cierra. Like a baby. “He was one of the good ones!” she shouted, “You knows it too!”
“One of the good ones,” Gran spat climbing the steps, tapping the broomstick on each one, tap, tap, tap. At the top of the stairs Gran snorted air through her nose, it hocked in the back of her throat and her voice was thick when she said, “They’re all like that.”
Her mother left a few days, or a week later, Cierra doesn’t remember exactly when. She just remembers her being gone, and being left behind. Gran said she would come back, “That hot-ass always comes back.” And Cierra waited every day of her life for her mother, but eventually, all she had left of her was that memory, and a feeling of emptiness.
Gran never mentioned her father again, but growing up in the Harbour, it was impossible to avoid him. He was always around, hanging out by the gas station, shuffling up and down Main Street, muttering to himself. Cierra pretended not to see him. In her head, she still called him Creepy-gray-man, but all the kids at school had another name for him: Shot Gun.
Shot Gun would buy anyone a dozen beer for a dollar and in high school, Cierra listened to the same argument every Friday at recess: who would collect the beer money and wait outside the gas station for Shot Gun. Cierra sucked back on her cigarette, zoning out as the conversation circled around one unwilling volunteer then the next; Bradley – Thomas – Mike – Kenny. They would all end up going together. All the guys and some of the girls too. Shot Gun terrified and fascinated every single one of them. Cierra avoided going as much as she could, but whenever Bonnie dragged her down there Cierra kept to the periphery, making sure several bodies were between herself and Shot Gun, as if getting too close would reveal that she was his.
After the beer-money math and logistics were figured out, the conversation on the smoke-hill turned to Shot Gun himself.
“How do you think he did it? I mean, at what angle…?” Bradly said, pointing a finger to his head. He moved it around, trying different angles.
“Must of been just a graze,” said Thomas.
“No man. The bullet entered his skull. They had to remove it. There’s a scar on the side of his head. Right here. But no exit wound.”
“Shit.” The other kids muttered, shaking their heads. Cierra rolled her eyes at Bonnie. How many times they could be impressed by the same story?
“Well, he fucked himself up didn’t he?” said Thomas.
The head shaking grew solemn as the kids pictured Shot Gun’s lone wandering around the Harbour. His mad ramblings.
Cierra took another puff – almost burning the filter – and waited for it.
“I don’t know,” said Bradley, inhaling deep. “Who fucks up a head shot?”
The other kids snickered and nodded, smoke streaming out of their noses. “Right?”
Bradley put a finger-gun to his head. “Pow!” he said. Hard to mess that one up.”
Cierra and Frankie walk along the highway. A car approaches and Cierra stands with her hand under her belly, holding up the weight of it. Frankie sticks out his thumb. The car barmps long and hard as it speeds past. Kids from school. Assholes.
Finally, a transport truck. The eighteen-wheeler hisses as it slows down, stopping several yards ahead of them.
“Got room for two?” Frankie asks when he opens the cab door.
“Room for three more like.” The driver pulls open the curtain behind him, revealing a sleeper cab. Frankie climbs aboard and crawls into the sleeper, leaving Cierra the passenger seat. Shouldn’t she be the one to get the sleeper? She’s exhausted after all that walking. Scowling, Cierra adjusts the seatbelt under her belly. Holds on to the strap as the rig pulls back out onto the highway.
“Where you headed?” asks the driver, a meaty hand resting on the gearshift.
“The Harbour,” Frankie says. “Next community up the Straits. You can drop us at the turn. We’ll walk from there.”
Cierra looks back at Frankie, eyes narrowing into slits. Why the hell would they walk from the turn-off? Forfucksakes. Cierra keeps her mouth shut, only because she doesn’t want to start a fight in front of the driver. He’s a solid looking man. Thick, but not fat. Heavy. The kind of man who has two feet planted firmly on the ground. Shoulder width apart. Not like Frankie, always with his head in the clouds.
“From up this way?” she asks him.
“Me?” The trucker sounds surprised that she is talking to him. “No, no.” He clears his throat, “I’m from central, Gander. But that’s my home away from home right there,” he jabs a thumb at the sleeper.
“Looks cozy.” She looks back again, at Frankie staring out the window. Checked out while another man chats her up. He’s probably thinking about his mom. Wishing he was home instead of being stuck in some transport truck. Wishing he was snuggled up in her lap like a baby. All wrapped up in that floral nightdress, pressed tight against her big warm titties. His dad tramping around the kitchen in his work boots, piling wood on the fire until the place is as warm as the inside of a uterus.
“How old are you anyway?” asks the driver.
“Fourteen.”
He smacks a hand on the wheel. “Jesus.” He’s quiet for a beat, then looks side-long at her. “Know what you’re having?”
“A boy,” she says. “It better be a boy. I’d never get along with a girl.”
The trucker raises his bushy brows and turns back to the road. He’s probably hairy all over. Like a bear. Like a great big cuddly teddy bear. Not like Frankie with his soft skin, almost hairless.
“What’s your name?”
“Me?” The driver asks again, still surprised such a pretty girl is talking to him. “Reg.”
Reg looks like the kind of man that can take care of pretty girls. He’d never be without a job. Or a place to live. Cierra would be just fine back there in that sleeper. Her and the baby. And they’d never have to be alone. Every day another road trip with her man and her little baby boy. Reg’s thick meaty hands would take care of her just fine. He’d make a good dad too. Strong. Solid. That was obvious.
Cierra was out getting a can of tobacco for Gran when she encountered her own father face-to-face. Ida usually worked the Corner Store on weekends, but that Saturday, there was a new girl – someone Cierra didn’t know. She wore a clean white turtleneck and her hair was different colours of blond like she had put lemon juice in it all summer long.
“How do I know that’s not for yourself?” asked New Girl.
“It’s for me gran. You can call her you wants.”
“Do I look like I got a phone handy?” She clacked her pink nails on the counter, eyes narrowing.
“Everyone knows Gran sends me for tobacco.”
“Not me. I don’t know.”
Cierra didn’t notice Shot Gun behind her until he picked up the can of tobacco and thumped it back down on the counter.
“I’ll get it.” He said, words slurring together.
New Girl frowned, pursing her lips to one side. He rapped his knuckles across the top of the tobacco can. She rolled her eyes, but picked up the can and rang it through.
Shot Gun held out his hand and Cierra put her twenty dollars into it. He passed it to the cashier who pressed her lips together harder, the edges turning white as her highlights. The cash register dinged open. She deposited the twenty, yanked out a five, flicked quarters and dimes and nickels into her palm and, without touching him, dropped the change into his hand. In a jerky stop-motion movement, Shot Gun dropped it into Cierra’s.
New Girl slammed the drawer shut and stood with her arms folded, glaring. Cierra and Shot Gun walked out of the store together.
Outside, Cierra looked at the bag in his hand.
“We did it,” he slurred, passing it over.
He was creepier up close. Gray and scrawny and limp. Like a dead eel. Or a tapeworm. It’s hard to believe that man had managed to … that her mother had let him … Cierra gagged. Coughed. Did he even know she was his?
She held out the change as payment, looking at his face. The deep craggy lines. How his mouth sagged on one side exposing a bit of his bottom teeth.
Ignoring the money, Shot Gun reached out and touched her arm. It was a subtle gesture, but it snapped her out of it. Cierra jerked away and ran, the bag of tobacco swinging wildly and bumping into her legs the whole way home.
When Gran found out Cierra was pregnant, she called her a no-good slut just like her mother. She said she had already raised a good-for-nothing daughter, a good-for-nothing granddaughter, and she’d go to hell before she raised the great-granddaughter too.
Cierra wasn’t planning on having a girl. When she told her so, Gran laughed and said, “Oh you’ll see. Mark my words.”
Cierra stuffed whatever clothes that still fit her into her school bag and left for Bonnie’s. Bonnie Bennett, her best and only friend. One friend had always been enough for her. You just needed that one other person to go to the dances with, or to the swimming rock where all the boys hung out. That’s where she had hooked-up with Jessie that first time. He had looked tall then, lean as a mink in his cut-off jean shorts and bared chest. He had looked like someone who could take care of her. Cierra looks back at him now in the sleeper cab. He’s still staring out the window, at the clouds moving in over the ocean. A whole world turning gray. Useless.
She should have made a better choice.
Bonnie lived with her dad and he was always out on the boats. Cierra was there for weeks before he even noticed. Months passed before he was home for a long enough stretch to start bitching about it. When he started cursing every single time she opened the fridge door, Cierra called Frankie. She told him she was being kicked out into the street and he had to come get her.
After all, this was his baby.
Reg gears down as he approaches the turn off. As the rig hisses and grunts its way onto the access road Cierra grins. She knew it. She knew he wasn’t the type to let her get out and walk. She gives him a sly smile.
“Where to?” he asks, oblivious.
Cierra huffs. “Beats me.”
“The gas station,” Frankie says from the back. Sniffs. “My buddy Dan lives near there.” Another sniff.
Cierra looks back and he meets her glare. His eyes look glassy. What the hell? Is he about to start bawling like a little runt?
Sure, all he did was get her knocked up. That doesn’t mean he’s good for anything. She needs someone older. Someone with their shit together. She looks pleadingly at Reg, eyes wide, lips parted. But there isn’t enough time. The gas station is there. The rig pulling slowly into the parking lot. Reg and his rig. Hiss, grunt, hiss, grunt. And there, standing in front of the wooden building with the hand-painted sign, Harvey’s Gas and Convenience, is Shot Gun. Oilskins slick in the August heat. Hair a fuzz around his head like a massive bird’s nest. Cierra’s stomach lurches at the sight, like she might be sick.
Frankie gives her a nudge, but when she doesn’t move, he climbs over her. Mutters thank you to Reg as he opens the door. At the bottom of the chrome steps, Frankie holds the door, waiting. Cierra sighs and unbuckles her seatbelt. As she eases herself out of the seat she notices Shot Gun watching. Staring at her. Her belly. Cierra grips the door handle and leans forward, takes a step down out of the truck, and another, until Creepy-gray-man disappears, eclipsed by Frankie’s limp, scrawny, frame. Frankie reaching up to take her hand.
Shelly Kawaja is a writer, cultural historian and community radio host living in Norris Point on the north-west coast of Newfoundland. She has a Master of Arts in History from Memorial University and recently completed a Graduate Certificate in Creative Writing at the Humber College School for Writers.