SHAKEN NOT STIRRED
Copyright (c) Rick Yost

"I should have killed him that night in Geneva when I had the chance. I gave him the professional courtesy I felt he was due, and allowed him to walk away. My mission was complete and I had no orders to deal with him. Now it seems I may have only delayed the inevitable."
Ten-year-old Davy Gumble suddenly stopped talking to himself, abruptly ending his fantasy. He scanned the street ahead for Ninja warriors hiding in the shadows, waiting for him to let down his guard. Then he dropped his schoolbooks to the sidewalk and knelt to tie his sneaker.
Suddenly, there was a growl in his ear, and hot breath in his face. He gasped with fright and fell back on his heel. It was just Shithead, Jenny Compton’s mutt on a leash. The dog’s real name was Shideah. Jenny’s mom said it meant spiritual light or something in some foreign language. Everybody, including Jenny, just called the dog Shithead.
“Hi Davy.” Jenny said musically, shuffling her little feet, absent-mindedly holding the end of one of her two hip-length, braided ponytails in her mouth. Lost in her infatuation with Davy, she giggled and grinned with what teeth she had acquired so far.
“Oh, hi Jenny.” He finished tying his lace. “Hey Shithead.” He patted the dog’s head.
“C’mon Shithead.” With a tug on the leash, she and the dog ran up the sidewalk and across Jenny’s lawn to her house.
“Man! Girls are so goofy.” Davy thought.
He picked up his books and continued down the quiet, tree-lined street. He was coming home from another harrowing day at Nesbitt Elementary. There his time was spent under the disguise of 'just another fifth grader'. Of course he was really an agent for Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
He had learned about the world of espionage and acquired many of his deadly skills from his mentor: The Great 007. He’d seen all of the James Bond movies. Of course the only real 007 was Sean Connery, all those other guys were just actors.
Any day now he would receive the secret directive from his superiors instructing him to either apprehend or kill the fiendish and diabolical Dr. Morpheus. This was the Head of the Assassination Division of the KGB. Fearing for his life after his true identity was leaked, he assumed the identity of Davy’s Math teacher- Mr. Thibbs.
Davy's pace slowed as he neared his little yellow house. His playful mood changed. He sometimes wished school would last a little longer.
Suddenly, out of the corner of his ever-alert eye he saw two of Dr. Morpheus’ goons about to attack him from behind a tree. He turned just as one of them lunged for him with a switchblade. He grabbed the henchman by the scruff of the neck and threw him over Mrs. Grisham’s fence. The other assassin tried to take him in a hand-to-hand battle. Bad move. Davy chopped the goon across the throat (he struck the tree with edge of his hand) ”Hah!” Then he drop-kicked the man in the chest sending him flat on his back in the street. (He kicked the tree trunk) ”Huuagh!”
"That should show those bums they can’t just sneak up on the greatest spy the world has ever known." He smiled at his success.
Still in front of Mrs. Grisham’s, two houses away from home, he could hear Doug yelling at his mother. He couldn’t make out what Doug was mad about this time but he recognized the tone of his voice. An angry and mean voice was all he ever heard from Doug lately.
He wondered what tonight would be like. Would it be like last night when Doug yelled at Davy and threatened to hit his Mom? Why did Doug have to be so mean all the time? What was the deal?
There were many things in Davy’s life he didn’t understand. Why did Doug have to live with them at all? Why did he have to get drunk? Why did Davy’s mother allow Doug to hurt her? Why didn’t she kick him out? They were doing fine before He came along.
He’d heard them fighting before. It scared him to hear his Momma yell. He didn’t like it when she cursed. And he really didn’t like to hear her cry. He’d heard her cry a lot lately.
Doug tried many times to make Davy cry, but he wouldn’t do it. Doug had said some frightening, hateful things to Davy before when his Momma couldn’t hear. Then he threatened to hit him if he told. So he didn’t tell; but he wouldn’t cry either. James Bond wouldn’t cry. James would simply hunt down the ‘Evil Doug’ and eliminate the threat.
Just the thought of the Evil Doug sent cold chills up his spine. Doug would loom over the little boy like a monster. His breath was foul from beer and cigarettes. He would make sudden moves just to make Davy flinch. Then he would speak down to him with an evil voice that struck fear into his heart.
Davy had known for some time what must be done. One day he would be called on to use his training as an international spy and assassin to kill the Evil Doug. He will have no choice in the matter. He will simply be following orders relayed to him by secret code through the video game he carried in his pocket.
And when directed to rid the world of this terrible menace, he will cease to be Davy Gumble. He will become “008”, the instrument of death for justice and freedom. He would then be the infamous super-secret agent that puts fear in the hearts of all terrorists and bad-guys around the globe.
After the Evil Doug is dead, his Mom will cry but she will understand that Davy had no choice. And then once again, all will be right with the world. Once again it will be just Davy and his Mom.
He reached the house and stood at the gate, shaking. He would much rather pass right by the house and just keep on going. It was no longer a nice place to be, not when Doug was home.
He was tempted to get his Mom to drive him downtown to that big Bank building, the one with all the mirrors on the front. There he would tap into the millions of dollars he had saved in his Swiss bank account from his life-long career as a spy. He could then go to the airport where his personal Lear Jet was always fueled and ready to go. He could fly to Austria, buy a modest little Alpine villa, send for his mother and they could live together in peace and be free from the torment of the Evil Doug.
Davy crept up the walk and glanced at Doug’s evil black truck in the driveway. Oh, how he would love to get the Evil Doug on the Autobahn- he in his black truck and Davy in his Aston-Martin. He would get behind him and push the secret button that loaded the rockets on the front fenders. With careful aim, he would pull the trigger on the stick shift and blow the Evil Doug into a million bits scattered all over the European countryside. Maybe one day.
With the disciplined stealth of the Samurai, he moved silently across the long wooden porch to the screen door. The front door was open and Davy paused a moment, put his nose against the screen to assess the situation inside. All was quiet and he knew this was his chance. While the armed guards were going through their shift change he could to sneak into his room un-noticed.
Knowing hesitation could be deadly, he moved decisively like a well-tuned machine. Practice made him well aware of the squeaky spots in the living room floor to avoid. He swiftly traversed the corner of the dining room and put his back against the wall near his Mom’s antique china cabinet. He slowly peeked into the hall- no one there. This close to fulfilling his mission, was not the time to relax, he must be diligent. He successfully made his way into his room and with great care, silently closed the door behind him. He breathed a sigh of relief and whispered, “Mission accomplished”.

After his father’s fatal car accident, it was hard for Davy’s Mom- Cynthia Ann, to continue. She and his Dad had been so happily in love with each other. She slipped into deep depression for several months after his death. Then Davy became very ill. She snapped out of it and rallied for her boy as only a mother can.
Now after six years, she had accomplished a great deal. It took her four years of working a full-time job and a part-time job, six days a week, to pay her way through College. She earned a degree in Software Engineering and was now supporting them both comfortably working for a local software company.
It was a funky little house, but the bank didn’t ask much, and it was important to her that she own instead of rent. She’d learned the value of real estate from her parents, who’d never owned property. They had constantly moved from one apartment to another, driven by her father’s battle with responsibility and alcoholism. She was trying to give her boy a more stable and secure childhood than she had experienced.
It was obvious that her relationship with Doug was over. They no longer slept together and hardly spoke. She was so angry with herself for letting him move in. She had been against it from the start but he was so pitiful, and seemed so sweet. She was lonely and the prospects available to her in Wonderville were slim.
Cynthia was a tall, pretty, blonde-haired, hazel-eyed, healthy young woman. She certainly wasn’t trying to replace her dead husband. She was merely looking for someone to take away the loneliness and possibly be a good male, role model for her boy.
“Male, role model-now there’s an oxymoron!” Cynthia has seen her share of losers.
She wonders why a man will seem so sweet, sensible, and sincere while he’s worming his way into your life and then turn controlling and violent once he’s entrenched. She had enjoyed having a man around the first month or so. That’s when things were good- Doug was gentle and kind. He even seemed to be bonding with Davy, which really made her appreciate the situation.
However, it’s been four months since he first moved in, and things changed rapidly in that time. Doug began to drink more and more. His expressions of appreciation and affection turned to criticisms and insults. In the last month his personality had turned very dark and violent. He seemed mad at the world and took his frustrations out on her and her boy.
One part of her knew she wasn’t at fault for the relationship going awry. Another part agonized over her repeated failure to properly judge character. She knew she must find a safe way to rid herself and Davy of Doug. The stress from the situation was wearing her out. She worried what it’s doing to her baby boy too.
She sat at her kitchen table, sipping iced tea and reading the newspaper online with a laptop computer. Wearing a comfortable housedress, she wiped the perspiration from her brow with a paper towel and vowed, “Our next house will have central air conditioning.”
She was tired from her day at work and was hoping for an un-eventful evening and an early bedtime.
Dinner cooked on the stove and in the oven. She had twenty minutes of serenity before the food was ready and she would call Doug and Davy to dinner. The dinner table had become a dreadful place lately- she and Davy had endured several nights of abuse there.
Doug Dupree was a forty-year-old framing carpenter. He’d never achieved the level of success or respect from others he’d felt he deserved and had been seeking all his life. He failed to see this as the result of his moody, acerbic personality, bad habits, or poor work ethic. He blamed his failures on the world and took his frustrations out on everyone around him.
Doug had just arrived home from work. He was preparing to take a shower and was in his room- the spare bedroom, where he stood naked before the dresser mirror. He stared into his own eyes and conjured up a fantasy conversation with his boss. Today had been yet another typically humiliating day for Doug. Today Doug almost lost his job.
It started at lunch. Doug had gone driving around with two laborers under his supervision, Chuck and Daryl. During their thirty-minute drive, they shared a twelve-pack of beer.
Doug had planned on a simple afternoon of assembling common stud walls; a relatively easy chore for the trio to accomplish without requiring too much sober thought. All that changed when Doug’s boss showed up unexpectedly.
The customer they were building the house for had finally decided on the updated dimensions of the attached garage. Doug’s boss felt they should lay it out immediately. This turned Doug’s beer-buzzed afternoon from a no-brainer, to a mentally challenging nightmare.
With beer on his breath, Doug was now forced into close contact with the boss. Although experienced in handling blueprints, on this day, Doug seemed like someone unable to re-fold a road map. While they both held the opposite ends of a tape measure, they marked on the concrete slab where the garage walls should be built. To accomplish this, Doug had to make several simple mathematical computations in his head. His beer-soaked mind couldn’t meet the demand and he made several mistakes.
The boss said he was glad he’d been there to catch Doug’s potential errors. He didn’t say that he thought Doug had been drinking, but he could tell they’d all had a “long lunch”. The boss told the other two to go home and start again early the next morning. Only after they were gone did he lay into Doug with a severe reprimand, tagged with a promise of termination if he was caught drinking on the job again.
Doug now stood in front of the mirror, shaking a threatening finger at his reflection, “You ever speak to me like that again and I’ll kick your ass all over this job site you son-of-a-bitch!”
That’s how Doug spoke to his boss in the mirror. The fantasy continued with Doug’s boss being so frightened by Doug’s threat that he pissed his pants in front of a full crew and stormed off to his truck to leave in humiliation. An uproar of laughter was heard from the others as they all gathered around Doug, patting him on the back, showing their respect. Doug was the hero of the jobsite.
Of course in reality, the event went much differently. Doug kept his cool and his job. It had been a very long time since Doug’s last good day, and today was particularly bad.
He showered before dinner.
Dinner was ready. The table was set with plates, silverware, glasses of iced tea and a hot, healthy and delicious meal. Cynthia called the men to the table. Davy came in from the back yard where he’d been playing with his best buddy, their golden retriever- “Dog”.
He washed his hands in the kitchen sink at his Mom’s request and then took his seat at the table. As Davy and his Mom sat waiting, they looked at each other, silently hoping the evening would go smoothly.
Cynthia smiled at him; he didn’t smile back.
“Can’t you smile for your mother?” She asked in her velvety-smooth, Mom-voice that he loved so much.
He acknowledged her with a raised eyebrow but didn’t smile.
“Nobody likes to talk to a pickle!” she said with a chuckle.
“I’m not a pickle!” he replied unable to keep his whole face from lighting up with a broad smile.
“Well why do you have that sour face?”
This was a familiar conversation for them, he moved on.
“Momma, can we move to France?”
“France, why do you want to move to France?”
He reached while he spoke and picked up his butter knife.
“Mrs. Whelan was telling us in class about this train they have in France that goes three- hundred miles an hour.” He held the knife up like a model train and sent it on imaginary tracks through the air around him.
“Zoosh!”
“Well, I’ll check into the France thing, okay?” She replied with a smile.
“Okay.”
Davy scanned the table full of food, anxious to enjoy some of his Mom’s meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and fresh green beans. But he waited. They both waited for Doug. Neither of them knew of Doug’s self-inflicted bad day.
They heard Doug’s bedroom door open and heavy steps coming their way.
They sat frozen as if tied to their chairs like human sacrifices waiting for the beast to appear and devour them. Doug entered the dining room from the hallway heading for the table with his usual “Mad at the world” look on his face.
As he stepped past the bookcase, he stumbled over one of Dog’s big, rubber bones lying on the floor. Davy and his Mom looked on in amazement as Doug stumbled the two remaining steps to his chair and put his hands out in front to catch himself. As his right hand landed on the table with a heavy thud, his thumb caught the edge of the big bowl of mashed potatoes and flung them high into the air. In a matter of seconds, Doug’s head and shoulders were covered with Cynthia’s thick and delicious potatoes.
“Son of a bitch!” Doug exclaimed as he regained his balance. He closed his eyes as surprise and humiliation turned to anger.
Doug would never know how much Davy thought the mashed potatoes hanging off his nose made him look like the Elephant Man. He’d also never know how close Davy came to bursting into uncontrollable laughter- because Davy knew better.
Davy and his Mom, their eyes as wide as their empty plates, both heroically stifled the urge to giggle, although they knew that their evening was about to turn very ugly.
Doug slowly turned and looked down at the floor behind him to see the dog toy that was responsible for this new humiliation, topping off his already humiliating day.
“That fucking dog!” he said in a low and ominous voice.
“I’m sick to death of that fucking dog!” In the middle of his sentence he wiped his face and slung globs of potatoes off his fingers. They plopped onto the table making Cynthia and Davy jump. It was so hard not to laugh.
With a determined look on his face, Doug turned and purposefully walked back down the hall to his room. Davy and his Mom cringed at the familiar sound in his voice. They looked at each other with tears welling up in their eyes. They knew something very bad was about to happen but fear still had them tied to their chairs.
Doug exploded from the hallway, still dripping potatoes and loading his revolver as he stomped to the back door.
“Oh Jesus!!” Cynthia said, seeing the gun in his hands and with one swift move rounded the table and grabbed her boy, shielding him with her body.
“How dare you bring a gun into my house!”
Davy, who had only caught a glimpse of the gun before being engulfed in his mother’s protective grasp, quickly went through the very few reasons Doug would take his gun to the back yard. He yelled from under his mother’s strong and tightly rapped arms, “Run Dog, run!!”
He tried to free himself from his mother’s arms to run and rescue his buddy, but a mother’s arms can be very strong. He started to cry thinking of his lovable friend. Other than his Momma, Dog was his one true friend- the one that knew all of Davy’s secret thoughts. Dog and Davy both shared the same fear-hate relationship with Doug.
Davy and his Mom shivered with terror as they heard Doug holler, “Come here Dog.”
Dog would never go to Doug when he called. Davy and his Mom listened nervously as Doug yelled louder and louder, “Come here Dog!” They could picture the scene they were too frightened to go to the back door and watch. The big, old, gentle, yellow hound was skirting the back fence of the big back yard. Trapped and nervously pacing back and forth, Dog knew something was not right. He knew to stay away from Doug.
They heard a loud shot. Then Doug cursed at the dog that had obviously been too quick for his aim.
“Come here dog!” they heard again, then there was another shot, then another. It seemed this endless torture would last forever. Cynthia was on her knees hugging her little boy. They were both crying as she put her palms over his ears. Davy heard Doug cursing Dog. Davy always said Dog was fast for an old hound. Then after a long silence they heard one more shot and it was over.
Doug came in from the back yard, out of breath and shaking. He let the screen door slam behind him and stopped at the dining table where Cynthia and Davy still clung to each other. He stood triumphant over them. Their terror filled eyes popped open and they jumped as Doug slammed his gun down on the table. He proclaimed in a powerful voice,
“I’m going down to the bar. Even one of their greasy cheeseburgers would be better than this slop you’re tryin’ to feed me! Cynthia glared up at him with anger mixed with fear for her boy and replied,
“Okay, that’s fine, you go ahead.” Cynthia tried to sound calm and not anger Doug any further. She forced a smile, wanting only for this madman to go away and leave them alone.
Doug started to turn, then stopped and leaned low over the table looking past Cynthia directly at Davy. He said,
“You need to find all the dog toys in this house and go out in the back yard and bury them along with that useless fucking dog of yours. You hear me?” getting no reply, he screamed only inches from Davy’s face “I said do you hear me?”
“Yes he hears you, we’ll bury the dog, now just go, go, leave him alone!” She gave Doug a look filled with her own violent intent. Doug backed off, stormed out the front door and drove away in his truck.
The rest of the night was surreal, yet peaceful. Cynthia told herself she and Davy needed to take advantage of Doug’s absence to either call the Police or just grab a few things and leave. But Davy was shaking so much she felt that for just a while they should try to relax. Clutching each other in an attempt to feel safe they cried over the loss of such a sweet part of their family. After a short time, both exhausted by the stress, they fell asleep in each other’s arms on the couch.
Pre-dawn light was slowly illuminating the sky at five in the morning when Doug came home. Davy and Cynthia’s sleep was suddenly shattered by the slam of the front door.
“Oh God!” Cynthia blurts out as she awoke, cursing herself and amazed that they had slept away the opportunity to leave. Now it was too late.
“Why haven’t you buried that dog you lazy little bastard?” Doug demanded, standing over them on the couch. In a rage he’d never felt before, Davy broke free of his mother’s arms and jumped up to stand on the couch, face to face with Doug. Hatred showed in his young, red and swollen eyes as he shouted, “He’s my dead dog, I’ll bury him when I get damn good and ready!” Davy surprised himself that he would swear in front of his Mom, but it felt good to speak back to Doug in the same tone he was used to receiving. The good feeling didn’t last long. Doug reared back with his broad, fleshy hand and slapped Davy sending him flying off the couch to the floor.
Cynthia shot up from the couch and with all her strength swung and hit Doug on the side of his head with her fist. The blow landed square in the ear sending him stumbling to his knees holding the side of his head and wincing with pain. She then ran to her little boy’s side and knelt next to him on the floor. Holding his hand over his now reddened cheek Davy could not keep from crying.
With Cynthia’s back turned, Doug grabbed the hair of the back of her head and pulled her down to the floor. As blood trickled from his ear Doug yelled, “You fucking bitch!!” With one hand he held her head to the floor and with his other fist he began to beat her in the face.
Seeing his Mom being attacked, Davy jumped on top of the huge man and started hitting him on his back and shoulders with no effect. Over and over the enraged man hit the woman. Meanwhile Davy was beating and kicking and doing all in his power to get the madman off of his mother.
Doug stopped long enough to fling Davy off of his back and to the floor. It was then that Davy saw the pistol stuck in Doug’s belt behind his back. Davy reached and grabbed hold of the gun. Doug immediately felt this and turned around just as Davy jerked on the pistol. The gun fired shooting Doug straight through his right buttock. Even with the deafening blast and Doug’s roaring scream, Davy managed to yank the gun free and pointed it directly at Doug’s face.
Doug grabbed his bleeding ass while rolling on the floor beside the motionless form of Davy’s Mom. Doug’s face went through several different spasms of pain, displays of confusion and then anger.
Davy looked down at his Mom’s bloodied and bruised face. “Momma” he said in a shaky, little-boy voice, still pointing the gun at Doug with both hands.
“Gimme the gun boy!” Doug commanded in his usual authoritative voice, still on the floor holding his bleeding butt.
With tears in his young eyes, Davy whimpered, “You killed my Momma!” He sniveled and stood up pointing the gun at Doug’s astonished face.
“You killed my dog and now you’ve killed my Momma!”
Doug started to panic and nervously said; “Now you look here boy, you gimme that fucking gun right now. You’re not gonna shoot nobody!”
Davy knew enough about guns to pull the hammer back with both thumbs and aim right between Doug’s eyes.
Doug realized that this could really happen. He smiled nervously and said, “No, no I didn’t kill her.” Doug tried to assure Davy, “Look, look boy, I didn’t kill her. She just made me mad’s all! She’s not dead, see?” It was only then he looked back at Cynthia to see she was unconscious.
He crawled and leaned over her body once more. With both hands he grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to shake her awake. “Wake up, c’mon Baby, wake up and show him you’re not dead, pleeease!” It was no use; she was out cold.
Still aiming the gun at Doug’s head Davy shouted, “Leave her alone!”
Now Doug was the one crying. He slowly turned back to Davy and the view down the barrel of his own gun.
“Stand up!”
“Now you listen to me Davy…”
Convinced his mother had been killed, Davy had never in his short life been so sad or so angry. “I said stand up! Now!”
The big man tried to reason with the boy, “Now Davy, I know you’re mad at me and I don’t blame ya’. I know I shouldn’t’a hit your Mom, I know, but you got to put the gun down son, you gotta put it down now, okay?”
Doug stood up slowly waving his hands in the air, motioning to Davy to lower the pistol.
Davy started to cry and tremble and looked down once more at his mother’s body on the floor. Doug thought this was a sign of the boy weakening and made an attempt to reach for the gun. Davy snapped back to the situation at hand and pulled the trigger. The big gun fired throwing Davy backwards against the dining room wall. Doug gripped his thigh with both hands, blood spurting from both entry and exit wound. His face contorted with pain as he stumbled backwards across the kitchen and against the screen door. The screen flung open under his weight and he fell flat on his back to the ground outside.
Davy took a moment to wipe the tears from his eyes and steel his resolve. He was quickly overcoming his fear of the gun and felt empowered by it against the murderer of the only two people in his little world that he loved and loved him. He pulled the hammer back, wrapped his small hands firmly around the pistol grip and put both index fingers on the trigger. Then he walked to the back door where Doug lay writhing in pain just outside.
“Get up!” Davy ordered.
Without waiting for a response, he pulled the trigger. The bullet hit the ground next to Doug’s arm sending dirt and grass flying, and Doug into a sniveling, squirming, frightened mess.
“No, no, boy, don’t, don’t shoot me. Please, don’t shoot me!”
Doug pleaded for his life while he awkwardly pulled himself up from the ground. By the time he got to his feet, Davy had the pistol cocked and ready to fire again.
“Fuck!” Doug exclaimed as he turned and headed off hobbling across the back yard.
As far as Davy knew, his mother was dead. This along with Dog’s horrible death put an increasingly calm and determined look on his face. He was becoming less and less frightened by Doug as he began to imagine he was “.008”. It was here. It had come. Just as he knew it would. He was being given the directive, just as if he had received it from his superiors. It was time for him to rid the civilized world of this menace. In the name of all that was good in the world, it was now time for him to kill the “Evil Doug”.
Still hobbling towards the back gate to his escape, Doug heard from behind him Davy calmly say, “Come here dog!”
Doug stopped in his tracks and an ice-cold shiver of fear ran up his spine. Doug closed his eyes and said aloud,
“Shit, this can’t be happening!” He knew he was about to die.
From across the yard, Davy closed one eye and took careful aim on Doug’s legs and fired. The bullet drilled straight through Doug’s good leg sending him crashing to the ground. Doug gave out a blood-curdling scream,
“Help! Help me somebody! He’s gonna kill me, please, somebody help me!”
Many neighbors heard Doug’s cries for help. They stood watching from behind their window blinds and curtains. They nervously watched Doug kill Dog last night but were too afraid to do anything. The gunshots again this morning prompted a few among them to contact the police. They were on their way.
“Come here dog!” Davy said again. Doug opened his eyes from his battle with the pain to see Davy coming at him once again. Doug was now completely hysterical as he crawled and dragged his useless, bleeding legs behind him.
Crying and sniveling, Doug saw Dog’s lifeless body lying a few feet from him where it had met the same fate the night before.
Davy stepped up to stand a few feet behind Doug. He slowly raised the gun and prepared to shoot again. Suddenly his attention was taken away by a voice from his left.
“Hey, whatcha’ doin’ there ‘little dude’?” the voice was from a man standing in the next-door neighbor’s yard. With his arms crossed, he casually leaned on the chain link fence that separated the backyards. Dressed in a baseball cap, t-shirt, blue jeans and sneakers, he was a stranger to Davy.
As Davy slowly turned to look at him, the stranger gave a friendly wave. As if awakened from a surreal dream, Davy was shaken back to reality by the unexpected appearance of the stranger.
Doug pleaded, “Hey, hey, mister, you gotta help me man. This kids tryin’ to kill me.”
Ignoring Doug, Davy turned and answered the stranger’s question, “I’m gonna kill him!”
The man at the fence smiled at the boy’s apparent sense of duty in the matter. “Okay!” the man said with an interested excitement.
Davy turned back to Doug who had a look of horror and disbelief on his face. Davy took aim at him then slowly lowered the gun in confused thought. He turned back to the stranger at the fence and asked,
“Aren’t you gonna try to stop me?”
Still leaned against the fence like a man watching a ball game, the stranger casually shifted his weight from one leg to the other, “Well, no, the thought hadn’t crossed my mind. I’m sure you know what you’re doin’.” he finished with a broad white-toothed smile.
Davy took aim again at Doug, who couldn’t believe what he’d just heard and screamed at the stranger, ”What the fuck is your problem man, I’m bleeding to death here. This kid’s gonna kill me and you’re just gonna stand there and watch?” Doug ended with an angered yet fearful look in his eyes.
The stranger ignored Doug completely. He kept his focus on Davy.
“He killed my Mom” Davy said to the man, in a low and sad voice.
This took the smile from the stranger’s face.
“Oh no, I am so sorry.”
“That’s why I have to kill him.”
“Hell, I’d kill him too!”
Davy looked at Doug, then at the stranger again and asked,
“Should I?”
“Should you what?”
“Should I really kill him, right here, like this?”
“Well, I wouldn’t blame you if you did, but it won’t bring your Mom back. And if the police take you away for killing him, then you and I will never get to know each other. We might even become friends. That would be a drag, if they took you away I mean, you know?”
The man looked across the yard to see Dog’s body. “Was that your dog?”
“Yes Sir.” His voice trembled as he continued, ”He killed my dog and my Momma!” Voicing this brought back his anger and he swiftly raised the gun and fired again hitting Doug’s already wounded right leg. Blubbering and mumbling incoherently, Doug can barely hold his head up and is getting weaker by the minute from blood loss.
“Now let me get this straight,” the stranger said as if trying to figure out a problem. “You’re tellin’ me your Daddy shot both your Mom and your dog?” he ended with a frown on his face.
“No, he shot my dog last night. He killed my Momma just now. She’s in the house lying on the floor.” Davy turned back to stare at Doug lying helpless on the ground and added with emphasis, “But he’s not my Daddy!”
“Damn! I agree with you, you need to kill that son-of-a-bitch!”
Davy’s head whipped back toward the man at the fence with a look of disbelief.
“NO!” screamed Doug who was only minutes from passing out.
Davy and the stranger stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment. Then Davy looked back at Doug and said in the soft voice of a tired little boy, “I don’t know if I can!”
“Sure you can, just aim right in the middle of his body and pull the trigger.” The stranger said as if mentoring the boy on how to turn a wrench or mow the yard.
Davy felt it was strange for this adult to be telling a kid how to kill somebody. However, looking back on the evening of violence he had experienced, it wasn’t so far from the new norm.
“Go ahead, nobody’s going to stop you,” the stranger assured him, “Just aim and shoot!”
Davy decided to try. Once again he raised the pistol, which was getting heavier each time. As he stood there with a steady aim at Doug’s chest, tears filled his tired eyes.
He thought of his hero, James Bond. James wouldn’t have any trouble killing the “Evil Doug”. But Davy knew he wasn’t James Bond. He’s not really a spy or hired assassin. He knew he was just a little boy in an adult world who is now alone. Davy began to tremble. The tremble turned into a shake and he started to cry un-controllably. Still holding the gun with both hands, Davy turned with all his weary might and threw the gun back toward the house and away from Doug.
The stranger smiled and quietly said to himself, “Good boy.”
Just as the gun hit the ground with a thud, the police with their weapons drawn and ready, slowly crept down the drive and up to the fence. Wide-eyed and cautious, the officers tried to assess the situation. There was a dead dog, a wounded man, and a very tired little boy curled up in a ball on the ground, crying. Whatever had been happening seemed to be over now.
In the confusion that followed, the stranger slipped away.
The next few of hours at Davy’s house were like a circus had hit town. The morning sun climbed high as neighbors crowded around the front of the house and the back yard fence. They’d all heard the gunfire and were curious to find out what all the commotion was about. There were rumors of a multiple homicide. Some said it was a murder-suicide.
The guy next door, an enterprising individual, took advantage of the situation and fired up his grill. He cooked up a batch of hotdogs and burgers to sell to the folks out for their morning of entertainment. Some of his first customers were the news crew from the local TV station. They showed up and interviewed anyone who’d talk to them.
Davy’s Mom, to his joyous surprise, was not dead. She was rushed to the hospital where she was treated for a concussion, a cracked cheekbone and multiple cuts and bruises. They assured him his Mom would be okay and they would be together again soon.