Twelve Gauge Tune-up

Devin James Leonard

D aryl Fox was cleaning his father’s guns at the kitchen table when Arnie Anderson wandered into the house to see if he wanted to play in the woods across the road. At thirteen, Daryl thought they were getting too old for such childish activity, but didn’t say so to Arnie. Just told him no on account of his being busy.

“Dad says if I get these rifles oiled up,” he said, “he’ll let me help sight the scopes for hunting season.”

“If I pitch in,” Arnie said, “can I shoot too?”

“Know how to oil a gun?”

“No – teach me.”

“Forget it,” Daryl said. “My dad catches you touching his guns, he’s liable to use one on you.”

Daryl’s old man had a long-standing aversion to the Andersons, Arnie’s father in particular. Thaddeus Fox was known to speak with a look and very few words, other times with his hands when looks and words weren’t conveying the message. Was likely why Daryl didn’t know why his dad hated Arnie’s father so much. He could only recall the first time he brought Arnie to the house; Thaddeus scowled at him and stuck his nose up as if Arnie had stepped in dog shit on his way in.

“Pugsley ain’t your daddy, is he?” Thaddeus had said.

“Yes, indeed,” Arnie had replied, and Thaddeus threw a finger at the door and told him to get the hell out. He let Arnie hang around, though, as long as his father never called the house or stopped by looking for him.

After that, all the times Arnie showed up, Thaddeus would scoff and say, “Fuckin’ Grand Central Station around here.”

Daryl wasn’t sure what a central station was, let alone what was so grand about their house for the comparison. His father said it was because of all the people dropping by unannounced all the livelong day. Nobody ever knocked, either. They just came in like they owned the place. Got to be the door opened so often that Daryl wouldn’t even bother to look up to see who was coming.

Sure enough, while Daryl was seated at the table, greasing his dad’s guns, and Arnie pretended to be helping, the backdoor creaked from somebody inviting themselves inside, and a squat pair of legs and a round belly walked into his peripheral, asking, “Rip here?”

“Don’t know no Rip,” Daryl said without looking.

“You Thaddeus’s boy?”

Daryl wiped his oily hands with a rag, sat back, and looked up at the man. He was a short fellow with a wispy, receding hairline and a face cracked with wrinkles. A goofy-looking redneck with eyes staring down Daryl as if Daryl were trespassing on his property. If it wasn’t for the man’s tiny stature, that expression might have been a tad threatening. As it was, all Daryl felt was annoyed at the interruption, and answered the man’s question with a nod.

“That makes Rip your uncle,” the man said. “Me and Elmore go way back. Your father, too.”

“All right,” Daryl said, waiting.

“Rip’s old lady said I might find him here.”

“My Aunt Irma.”

“That’s right. I stopped by the house – wanted to give him some money – but he wasn’t home.”

“That’s usually how it is. When one’s home, the other’s finding a reason to not be. You owe Elmore some money, huh?”

“You could say that.”

The man pulled out a wad of bills from his denim jacket, licked his finger, and started counting cash. Both his hands were trembling like an alcoholic with the shakes, and the tops of his palms were marked with a thick pink line of scar tissue an inch or two long.

“I trust you boys to deliver the money?” the man said, eyebrows raised.

“Do we get a delivery fee?” Arnie said, snickering.

“Shut up,” Daryl told him, straight-faced, and nodded to the stranger. “You can trust me. How much do you owe him?”

“More than I got on me,” the man said. He held out the bills pinched between two stiff and shaky fingers. “Five hundred for now. There’ll be plenty more where that came from soon enough.”

“Where’d it come from?” Arnie said, and Daryl shot him a look that told him to zip it. “I just mean, who should we say the money’s from?” he said defensively.

“Name’s Terry,” the man said.

“Daryl,” said Daryl, accepting the money.

“We used to call your dad Rooster.”

“Uh-huh.”

Terry shifted his gaze from Daryl to Arnie. Said to Arnie, “That must make you Michael.”

Michael was Daryl’s older brother. He didn’t live but twenty miles away, and yet Daryl hadn’t seen him in God knows how long. He was one of the few members of the Fox clan who never took advantage of the open-door policy in their home.

“That’s Arnie,” Daryl said. “Not Michael.” He stuffed the wad of bills in his pocket, raised his voice a pitch, and said, “Well, I’ll make sure my uncle gets his money.”

Terry glanced at the ceiling. “He around? Michael?”

“If he is, he’s doing a hell of a job hiding.”

“Where’s he at?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

Daryl couldn’t help but stare at Terry’s hands, how they shook as if of their own accord, and the nasty, thick scars. Terry noticed Daryl looking and raised his hands to his shoulders, flashing the inside of his palms. The scars were on both sides of his hands. Looked like he’d been crucified.

“Your dad did this to me a long time ago,” Terry said. “Got some nerve damage, but it ain’t bad.”

“Hope you deserved it,” Daryl said.

“I did.” He glanced at Daryl’s pants pocket. “Still making up for it, in a way.”

T hat night, when Thaddeus came home and Uncle Elmore didn’t, Daryl gave him the money and told him about Terry’s visit.

“Five hundred bucks,” his dad said once he counted the money. Daryl couldn’t tell if he was shocked, disappointed, or what. He set the money on the table in front of him and smoked his cigarette in deep contemplation.

“He asked about Michael,” Daryl said.

“So?”

“How’s he know Michael?”

“He don’t. Was probably just being polite.”

“He showed me his scars,” Daryl said, which made his dad snort and crack a smile.

“Haven’t thought about that sumbitch in a long time. But I can still hear him screaming and crying when I stuck that knife through his hands and pinned him to the floorboards.”

“He said he deserved it.”

Thaddeus shrugged. “Would a done it even if he hadn’t.”

“What’d he do?”

“Beats me. That had to be twenty-five years ago now. Don’t think I’ve seen him since then, neither. He’s been in jail more than out in all that time.”

“What’s he owe Uncle Elmore for?”

Thaddeus scooped up the cash and stuck it in his front breast pocket. “He don’t. He owes me.”

“You’re keeping the money?”

“Rip don’t need to hear about this, or about Terry coming by. You keep your mouth shut about it.”

Daryl held out his hand. “What’s it worth to ya?”

“You looking to get scarred up, like Terry?”

“Pay up, old man.”

“Fine.” Thaddeus plucked a twenty out, waving the bill. “Got change?”

“For?”

“Give me a ten and a five.”

“Five bucks?” Daryl screeched. “You’re gonna bribe me with five bucks?”

“Either that,” Thaddeus said, “or I’m a bribe you with my belt, boy.”

“I’m getting too old and too big for you to kick my ass.”

“In that case, you can move out anytime.”

“I ain’t that old,” Daryl said. “Jesus, you’re one cheap son of a bitch.”

“You want the five dollars or not?”

“I’m thirteen years old,” Daryl huffed. “I don’t have any money.”

“Guess you still don’t, then,” Thaddeus said, and stuck the twenty back with the rest of the cash.

“Why didn’t he just leave the money with Aunt Irma?” Daryl asked.

“If you knew your aunt from way back, you wouldn’t trust her with five dimes, let alone five c-notes.”

“Well, now I know not to trust you either.”

“You must be dumb if you only figured that out now,” Thaddeus said. “And another thing. Don’t ever let that weasel inside ever again. If you didn’t just give me this money, I’d have a mind to search the house to see what that slippery weasel stole.”

“Like I ever let anyone in,” Daryl said, rolling his eyes.

Thaddeus puffed his cigarette and exhaled, shaking his head. “Fuckin’ Grand Central Station.”

W hen Uncle Elmore came through the next day, and Daryl and Arnie were at the guns again, Daryl didn’t say a word, but he’d forgotten to tell Arnie not to say anything. First thing out of Arnie’s mouth, when Elmore came in shaking off last night’s drunk, was, “Yo, Rip, did you get that money the guy dropped off for you?”

Uncle Elmore stared at Arnie as if he’d just heard a monkey talk, then said to Thaddeus, who had just waddled into the kitchen, “What money is this boy talking about, Rooster?”

“Beats me,” Thaddeus said. “Kid’s dumber than a sack of screws.”

“The five hundred dollars,” Arnie said, frowning. “From your friend Terry.”

Uncle Elmore’s eyes lit up; Daryl’s father’s slammed shut.

“Daryl,” Thaddeus sighed, “get your friend out of here before I lose my temper and he loses his tongue.”

“I thought we were gonna sight these guns,” Arnie said, oblivious to the conflict he had brought about. “I didn’t clean this gun for nothing.”

“Boy, what you’re cleaning there is a shotgun,” Thaddeus said. “If you can’t figure a gun without a scope don’t need sighting, then you’re too stupid to fire one. Now get out of my house before I drive you home and give your old man a tune-up right in front of you and your whole family.”

Arnie jumped up so fast that his chair skidded backward, and he vacated with the stiffness of someone clenching their asshole while racing to the bathroom.

Thaddeus and Elmore squared up, face to face, and Thaddeus said, “Not in front of Daryl.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time I saw you two throw down,” Daryl said, unperturbed.

“Not that. I meant whatever your uncle’s about to say. And I know what he’s gonna say, and you don’t need to hear it.”

“I won’t say nothing, brother,” Uncle Elmore said, “if you hand over that money belongs to me.”

“You know damn well why this money ought to go to me,” Thaddeus sneered. “How long’s he been paying you?”

“That ain’t your concern, Rooster.” Uncle Elmore flapped his hand. “Give it here.”

Thaddeus shook his head, disappointed-like. “All these years, Rip?”

“Naw. Terry ain’t but give me money three or four times over the years. Not nearly enough for child support.”

“Child support!” Daryl squealed.

Thaddeus clenched his jaw and muttered, “I said not in front of Daryl.”

“He don’t know what we’re saying,” Uncle Elmore said.

“Uncle Elmore,” Daryl said, “is one of your kids actually that Terry guy’s kin?”

Elmore had two boys who were much younger than Daryl. How much younger was a mystery, as mysterious as why a man would dole out cash to another man for what Uncle Elmore said was child support.

Daryl’s question went unanswered. He said, “Which one is that man’s kid? Bert or Ernie?”

“Neither,” Uncle Elmore said.

“Hold up.” Daryl raised his hands. “Dad, why do you think that money belongs to you?”

His father and uncle remained quiet, looking at each other with a jig-is-up expression.

Daryl gasped and said, “Please don’t tell me that short sumbitch is my old man. Christ, am I done growing? Is this as tall as I’m gonna get?”

“Naw,” Thaddeus said. “He ain’t your daddy. He’s Michael’s.”

“D oes your mom know about this?”

“I think my mother would notice if she did or didn’t birth a goddamn baby, Arnie.”

Daryl and Arnie were in the backyard, shooting at empty beer bottles with a .22 long rifle. That caliber of bullets being hard to come by nowadays, and with Daryl’s parents and Uncle Elmore’s case-a-day diet, the boys had scrounged up more empties than ammunition. They were discussing what had gone down yesterday after Arnie fled the house, Daryl’s brother Michael not being his brother by blood.

“So, this Terry guy comes by to give your uncle money,” Arnie said, “because he thinks your uncle has been raising Michael?”

Daryl propped the rifle across the arms of a lawn chair, squinted through the scope, and squeezed the trigger. A bottle on the top garden rail shattered and sprinkled to the ground. “Guess Terry went to jail when my Aunt Irma was pregnant,” he said. “Her and my uncle were on and off, and I guess this Terry was in the picture somewhere in the off. My aunt and uncle got together, and Elmore decided to raise Michael as his.”

“How’s that work,” Arnie said, “if he’s your brother?”

“Well, not long after Terry was in prison and Michael was born, Uncle Elmore got sent up next. Guess my aunt tossed Michael on my mom and dad’s lap to raise him. Terry didn’t know that part.”

“So, your aunt is actually Michael’s mom?”

“That’s right.”

“Why didn’t she just keep him?”

Daryl shrugged. “Didn’t want him from the jump, no matter who the daddy was.”

“Then that would make Michael – what? – your cousin?”

“Don’t make him nothin’,” Daryl said. “If he ain’t my uncle’s, he ain’t blood-related.”

Arnie shook his head and whistled, perplexed in his attempt to unravel the tangle of vines in Daryl’s family tree. “Man, if that ain’t some Jerry Springer shit,” he said.

“And Michael don’t know nothin’ about it, neither,” Daryl said. “Seems Terry wasn’t down with the deal of Elmore claiming Michael as his son, but what could he do about it? He was in jail. Now that he’s out, that’s why he was asking about Mike when he came by yesterday.”

Arnie was eyeballing the rifle, not listening. “Uh-huh.”

“Uncle Elmore threatened him when he first got out of jail. Said Mike wasn’t his, and if he ever tried to connect with him, he’d give him a twelve gauge tune-up, whatever that means.”

“You gonna let me shoot for once?”

“No more bullets.”

“Shit.”

“This gave me an idea of how to come into some dough,” Daryl said, setting the rifle down.

“I’m listening.”

“We track down Michael, find out where he’s staying at, then we go to Terry, and get him to pay us for the intel.”

“Think he’d pay us?”

“You hear what he said when he gave me the money before? ‘Plenty more where that came from soon enough.’ First, we get paid for the location, and then – I know another way to get more money out of him.”

“You wanna… what’s the word? Ex-stork-some?”

“Stick to two-syllable words, Arnie. Just say blackmail.”

“Okay, so we find Michael, then we go to wherever Terry lives. How are we gonna do all that?”

“Piece of cake. Trust me.”

“No, Daryl. I mean, we’re thirteen years old. How in the hell are we gonna get to where we’re going?”

D aryl’s buddy Hollister had a brother who was old enough to drink and drive, but once Daryl told him why he needed a ride, he demanded a cut of the extortion money. Russ – that’s Hollister’s brother – was to be like a getaway driver, only he was to be their get-to driver. Then Daryl had to agree to give Hollister a piece of the take, too, since he was the one who had organized his brother’s participation.

Finding Michael was the easy part. Turned out he wasn’t in hiding; just didn’t care to come around. Daryl’s mom had his address, and all he had to do was ask for it. Locating Terry was another story, but that’s where Russ came in. He had a friend who worked in County Corrections, got him to look up Terry’s arrest record, and found his address off his parole documents. Discovered Terry was a fifteen-minute drive away, living in Lot #17 at the trailer park the next town over. Bing-bang-boom, the plan was unfolding, and they were set to go on the fourth day after Terry’s first appearance.

Midmorning, Daryl and Arnie waited on the porch for their ride to pull up. Only Hollister and Russ never showed, and when Daryl rang their house, no one answered.

After waiting inside by the phone awhile, in case they called back, Arnie said, “Should we just go without them?”

“You age three years and pass your driver’s test and get a job and purchase a car without my knowing?” Daryl said.

“Screw it. We’ll thumb our way. Ain’t far.”

Daryl squinted toward the window, rays of dusty sunlight beaming into the kitchen. Wiped the sweat off his brow with his shirt, and said, “Too hot to walk. We can wait till tonight. Have one of our folks drop us off in town. Tell ’em we’re going to see a movie.”

That’s what they did. Daryl asked his father first, but he said he’d rather hump the undercarriage of a running lawnmower than put an Anderson in his truck. Daryl’s mother said she’d do it, but couldn’t pick them back up later on account she had bingo and intended to get sloshed. That was okay, they’d figure a way back later.

Daryl and Arnie got dropped off at six-thirty and hiked their way out to the trailer park in fifteen minutes. Took another twenty minutes of knocking to find the right place, since none of the trailers had numbers on them. Terry answered the door in his underwear, a can of beer in hand, holding the screen door with the other, and stared at Daryl and Arnie with a raised eyebrow of serious agitation.

“Jesus, there’s more of you,” he said.

Arnie looked at Daryl; didn’t know what he meant. Daryl looked at Terry; asked him what he meant.

“You kids looking to make the same deal as your friends?”

Friends. Russ and Hollister.

“They were here?” Daryl asked.

Terry let his arm off the door and it swung back, shutting in their face with a loud clap. Beyond the screen, he called for them to come inside, and so they entered.

Daryl and Arnie stood close to the door while Terry lumbered away from them, heading for the kitchen. He bent inside the fridge, snagging a cold can, three of them, and came back and pointed to the couch with the hand holding one can. “Grab a seat,” he said, and extended the other hand that was holding two cans.

Daryl and Arnie gave each other a look as if they were being handed something better than money. For kids, beers were harder to come by than bullets, so they accepted the cans and plopped their behinds on the couch, momentarily forgetting just what the hell they were doing there.

Next to the couch was a leather recliner that looked as if it had been left outside and chewed apart by dogs while Terry was away in jail. He sat down, said, “I’m a give you boys the same deal I gave the others, which is no deal. Only I’m gonna be more kind in my presentation, considering who your old man is, Daryl. Those other kids I didn’t know, so I was less polite with them.”

“I’m guessing they didn’t get a beer,” Daryl said.

“They didn’t make it past the first step. Now, just who were they and where’d they come up with their plan? I’m guessing you, Daryl, but why’d they come here on their own?”

Daryl fessed up to his money-making plan, then said, “Seems they didn’t like splitting things four ways and decided to go about it on their own.”

“Tell you something,” Terry said. “They almost got me to make a deal. Offered them a hundred bucks for Michael’s whereabouts, till the older one says he wants a thousand bucks. Told him to go stick his dick in an anthill, he wants to screw something so bad. I almost considered two hundred, but then I figured it weren’t worth the trouble with your uncle. If he found out I went and met him, he’d sick your daddy on me.”

Terry was telling his story to the wall, didn’t see Daryl scowl; there went his follow-up plan for blackmail down the tube. “Then the big kid lets slip out that your father’s the one been raising Michael as his own,” Terry went on. “That scared me enough to put a stop to the whole thing. So I sent them on their way and said to myself, what the hell, the kid’s gone without knowing me this long, I don’t need to go and stir up a hornet’s nest of problems.”

“So, where do we go from here?” Daryl said.

“Soon as you boys finish your beers, you go out that door and don’t ever come knocking on it again.”

“You gonna keep paying my uncle?”

“Well, seeing as how Rip didn’t take care of my boy all these years like I thought, I don’t see why I ought to.”

“But my dad did.”

“And no offense to you, son, but to hell with your dad. Rip and me got along when we were younger. Rooster? Your father? Well”—he flashed his scarred palms—“you tell him we’re all settled up.”

“Why did he do that to your hands?”

“You wanna know, ask him.”

“I did. He said he doesn’t remember.”

Terry’s face turned sour. “I changed my mind. Finish your beers outside.”

C lose to two hours of daylight left, the boys walked most of the way home with their thumbs sticking up. Walked the shoulder of the road a good forty-five minutes before someone picked them up, and by that time they were two minutes from Arnie’s and another three from Daryl’s.

Daryl’s legs were sore and jelly-like when he climbed up the back porch and went into the house, for once finding nobody inside. Then he heard the gunfire beyond the backyard, along with the raucous, drunken laughter of his father Rooster, and his uncle Rip. They had likely gone out to sight their rifles – without Daryl no less – and had gotten drunk and kept on shooting at nothing in particular until their own sights had gone crossed.

Daryl was too tired to care about missing out on the shooting. His clothes were grimy and sweaty and stuck to his body like he’d swam in tar, and he smelled like he rolled in a pigpen. He took a bath with lukewarm water, and by the time he finished and dried off and dressed, the Fox brothers had made their way inside, drinking in the kitchen. Uncle Elmore was sitting at the table, cackling, and Thaddeus was leaning against the brick fireplace with a shotgun resting on his shoulder, eyes shut while laughing. He was swaying back and forth as if the brick wall was trying to push him away, but as soon as he saw Daryl, he straightened.

“Guess who called to say hi?”

“Who?” Daryl said.

“Your brother.”

“Oh.”

“Seems somebody had it in their mind,” Thaddeus said, “to ask him if he knew anyone named Terry.”

“Oh?”

“He said he didn’t. Then the caller told him he ought to ask his dad about it. So he called and asked.”

Daryl said nothing – unless you count gulping so hard that you sound like a frog croaking.

“Know anything about that?” Thaddeus asked.

He sure did, and he told him so. Told him everything, his and Arnie’s plan, Hollister and his brother screwing them over. Though Daryl could not fathom what the outcome Hollister and Russ had had in mind when phoning Michael, he presumed it was to get Michael to do exactly what he did: call the house. Hollister and Russ couldn’t put the squeeze on Terry, so they tried to scheme another way. That way being… putting the squeeze on Thaddeus Fox.

When Daryl finished spilling his guts to his dad, he expected a whooping, maybe a few belts across the ass with the shotgun he was clutching. Throw a beer bottle at his head or something – you know, the usual. Instead, Thaddeus shut his eyes and smirked, went back to swaying for a moment, and said, “Fire up the truck, Daryl. We got a house call of our own to make.”

D aryl told his father where Hollister and Russ lived, and five minutes into the drive, he realized they weren’t headed to where he’d thought. Ten minutes after that, when his dad stopped at Terry’s trailer, he said, “What are we doing here?”

Thaddeus opened his door, got out, and nabbed the twelve gauge off the rack behind the seats. “Teachin’,” he said.

Daryl followed his dad to the door, thankful the shotgun hadn’t been loaded but also aware that his father was. Thaddeus knocked on the screen door, and when a shadow stepped in front of the light from inside, he speared the butt of the shotgun through it. It tore through the screen like a knife plunging into flesh, the solid stock connecting with the silhouetted face, and Terry reared back with a muffled yelp.

Thaddeus opened the busted door, held it for Daryl, and they moved inside.

Terry had fallen backward, flat on his ass, and was clutching his nose with both hands. Blood spilled between his fingers and dripped over his scars. When he looked up and saw Thaddeus, he dropped his arms, spread them wide, and said, “Come on now, Rooster. I didn’t know you was raising Michael, else I would a gave you the money.”

Thaddeus was relaxed with his approach, his speech calm. “You think this is about money, Terry?” he said. “Naw, we’re square on that, remember? Ain’t that what you told Daryl – for what I did to your hands?”

Terry considered Daryl, who stood by the broken door with his hands in his pockets. Daryl shrugged at him.

“You was told not to ask about Michael, was you not?” Thaddeus said. “Well, you asked, and now my youngest knows. Now we gotta get square again.”

Terry sat up on his knees, stuttering and pleading, “Rooster, please, you don’t gotta hurt me.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Why?”

“How else am I supposed to teach you?” Thaddeus said. He raised a leg and nudged a boot into the little man’s chest. Wasn’t a hard kick, but enough to tip him back so he lay flat on the carpeted floor.

As Thaddeus took a wide stance and stood over him, Terry shielded his face with his trembling nerve-damaged hands.

“Terry, I ain’t gonna hurt your face. God already done enough damage to that. But I am gonna need you to put your hands on the floor. Same way as the last time.”

T erry’s screams of agony were still echoing in Daryl’s ears when they were back in the truck. He couldn’t believe such girlish cries could emanate from a full-grown man. Couldn’t blame him one bit, though, for if Daryl had been on the receiving end of his father’s wrath – which he had been from time to time – he’d have yowled just the same.

Wasn’t only the sounds that had come from his mouth that Daryl kept playing over in his mind; it was the noise his hands made when his father jabbed the shotgun stock down on them like he was driving a posthole digger into the ground. The smacks and plops… the shattering and popping of the man’s fingers and knuckles…

Daryl’s father hadn’t said a word since they left Terry’s till Daryl asked him why he broke Terry’s hands when he wasn’t the one who screwed him over.

Thaddeus sparked a cigarette, kept his eyes on the road, and said, “First, ’cause he ran his mouth, asked questions about Michael, when he knew not to. Second, to show you what to do when someone goes behind your back like your so-called friends did to you. And third, that was me showing you what I’ll do to you if you ever mention anything to your brother. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now tell me again where these friends of yours live.”

“You mean—”

“That’s right, Daryl. I showed you what to do. Now you gotta set ’em straight. How many were there?”

“Two.”

“That Anderson kid in on it?”

“He was, but he was with me.”

“Gonna have to teach him, too.”

“He won’t say nothing to Michael. He’s on my side.”

“If he’s anything like his father, he’s apt to switch sides. We’ll pick him up first. At least make him watch – like I made you watch.”

After Daryl told him where to go, his father said, “Two boys, uh? Think you can take ’em?”

“I don’t know. One’s my age, but his brother’s big. He’s a grownup.”

“You’ll need a hand, then.”

“Hell, Dad, I might need two,” Daryl said, and shared a rare laugh with his father.

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