On Duck Wings

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On Duck Wings

Cannot understand why Mom would think this is a good idea.

“Excited, Sport?” her boyfriend, soon-to-be-husband, soon-to-be-my-stepdad Bryan says with an unwelcome slap of his giant hand on my bony thigh, right where the shorts end and the leg begins.

“Sure,” I lie, pulling my khaki shorts down my leg, hiding the marks that look like the outline of getting whipped by a glove full of hot dogs.

I hate hot dogs. I hate this stupid old pick-up truck without air conditioning. I hate the ugly, dull vista of backwoods Kentucky that Bryan believes will lead us to have some kind of lame bonding experience.

But most of all, I hate Bryan.

I hate him like the moon hates an eclipse, blocking out all the light that the moon thought belonged to it. I hate him like dogs hate cats or cats hate birds: instinctual hatred as natural as breathing, with no beginning and no end.

Though, of course, for us humans there is always a beginning.

Five years ago, at my mom’s company’s annual picnic, back when he was her boss and I was a scrawny kid in an oversized baseball cap. My dad was there, too, and we met Bryan at the same time, shook his hand one after another.

I thought Bryan was creepy. He had a gross way of leering at the women and girls at the event, like he was trying to decide which cut of meat he was taking home from the butcher that night. Not once did I imagine that in a few short years this sweaty douchebag in a white polo and salt and pepper toupee who graduated high school when my mother was just being born would sweep said mother off her feet and tear our family apart.

“Smell that fresh country air,” he says with a smile. The windows are down as we cruise down a highway in the middle of nowhere outside Lexington, but for all I could see it might as well be a jungle in the middle of Brazil or Africa. If I wandered out of the car and tried to make my way back home on foot, I would surely die of consumption or some other old-timey disease that people got on the Oregon Trail. This place feels like the edge of the world, and I cannot tell if I feel that way because of the scenery or because of Bryan.

The guns in the rack behind our seats jangle regularly on this bumpy ass road. I look back at them cautiously, expecting them to go off. Bryan gives me a sideways, mocking grin. “They’re unloaded. You ain’t been around guns much, have ya?” he asks, that fake southern twang that he developed as soon as we landed in Kentucky grating on me. You’re from California! I want to scream every time he drops his consonants or inserts extra vowels where they don’t belong.

But I say nothing. I do not want to talk to him at all. Arguing with him seems a nightmare not worth stepping into.

In my mind I repeat my mantra:

It’s just a few days. It’ll be over before you know it.

He takes a sip from his thermos. I can smell the whiskey. He offers it to me, another phony bonding exercise. “Want a sip? Could calm your nerves down a bit, keep you steady for when the shootin’ starts.”

I shake my head. “I’m a little too young.” I have never drank alcohol and have zero interest in my first time being with this loser.

“Nonsense! I took my first drink when I was older than you. My pappy gave me a shot of fine Kentucky bourbon when I was just fourteen years old.”

“I’m sixteen.”

He clears his throat, embarrassed, puts the thermos back in the cup holder. “Of course, of course. I knew that.”

I doubt it.

He has not said more than twenty words to me since my mother announced she was leaving my father and moving in with Bryan and taking me with her to his mansion on the edge of a cliff, away from my dad and my friends and the only home I’ve ever known. Since then, it has been three months of grunts, awkward glances, and insincere hand waving from him on my way out the door in the mornings to a school full of rich kids who know from a single glance that I do not belong in their territory.

Bryan and I are strangers living under the same roof. Mom sees it and wants to fix it. She wants me to like him, or at least hate him a little less.

“Why don’t you two check out at game?”

“I don’t like sports.”

“A movie?”

“I don’t think Bryan likes the kind of movies I like.”

“You don’t know if you don’t ask him.”

“What’s the last movie you saw with him?”

She had no reply. They didn’t watch movies. They played tennis, they giggled and snuck around the house in their underwear, they guzzled bottles of wine at dinner. They looked into each other’s eyes and ignored the world around them, especially the part that included me.

“What about a hiking trip?”

“I hate nature.”

A hiking trip it was, though how it evolved into a “hunting” trip I had no idea.

“It’ll be good for you to see where he’s from, really get to know him. He’s a wonderful man.” I remember her telling me, pausing there, seeing in my face that I wanted this conversation to end. “Not that your father isn’t a wonderful man, but there can be more than one wonderful man. You’re wonderful too.”

“He doesn’t seem wonderful, just rich.”

She tussled my hair and hugged me like I was still the kid she knew from happier days.

She killed that kid and she knew it.

Despite her awareness of my misery, she was unwilling to give up her beautiful new house and brand-new relationship with an old man that made her feel young. Her future with him meant more to her than her present with me.

“Everything will work out. Just give it a shot. He’s a great man, you’ll see.”

“Dad is a great man.”

She clenched her fists in a way that told me she was holding back from slapping me. Would not be the first time she hit me in my life, but would be the first time in this new house. She held back, well-aware that such an action was all I needed to get the hell out of there and run back into my father’s arms in our old house with my old life and my old school and old friends. The place she knew I wanted to be but would not let me go to. Her plastered smile twitched, nearly faded, before righting itself. “There are many great men in this world,” she said before ordering me to start packing.

Back on the open road, my stomach turns as Bryan struggles to make small talk.

“So, you’re what, a junior in high school?”

“I will be.”

“You got a girlfriend?”

None of your business. “Nope.” I did not, though I almost had one before I moved. Cindy Anderson. We kissed once, at a party. Were supposed to go on a date right before I moved, but she got food poisoning and had to cancel. We said goodbye forever via text.

He nods as if gaining some deep understanding: purses his lips, looking out into the boring world of endless trees and gravel. “I see. Boyfriend?”

“No,” I grumble. Again, none of your business, even if I did.

He can sense my annoyance. “Hey, hey, it’s alright. Just because I’m a country boy and a Christian don’t mean I got anything against gay people.”

“I’m not gay,” I say through gritted teeth, feeling foolish for getting furious about this, of all things.

“That’s fine, though I don’t think they’d appreciate the tone of voice you’re taking in saying that word. Ain’t nothing wrong with being gay.”

“I know there isn’t! God!” I stomp my foot and cross my arms over my chest, well-aware that I looked like a petulant child doing so. My face burns hot. I don’t care what this homewrecker thinks of me, but I am ashamed to be throwing a fit. I don’t want this jerk to think he can get under my skin or make me feel any kind of way.

“Now, son-,”

“I’m not your son.”

“It’s just a matter of speech. I know you’re not my son. I’m just . . .” He sighs, exasperated. Good. Maybe now he understands how I feel. “Look, this isn’t easy for me, either. I know it might be hard to believe, but I love your mother very much-,”

The image down the road looks like a mirage at first, a melting blur of color in the distance. I squint at a vision warped by the heat coming off the black asphalt of the badly maintained highway.

“-and she loves you more than life itself, more than me, even-,”

I lean forward in my chair. Seatbelt presses against my chest.

“-and it would just mean so, so much for her if you and I-,”

They move in single file, a parade of white edged with yellow.

“-could just get along and, if not become friends, at least be civil-,”

“Stop,” I interrupt him.

“-and treat each other with resp-,”

“Stop!”

“See! That’s what I’m talking about.” I turn to him and he’s looking at me, red-faced. “You have no respect, just interrupting me when I’m trying to tell you something important-,”

The animals are clear now. Ducks. We are going to run over a row of ducks crossing the highway. “Stop!” I scream, pointing. I reach for the wheel.

He slaps my hand away and looks forward. “What the hell are you thinking grabbing a man’s steerin’- Hold on!”

Brakes squeal. We fly forward. These seatbelts are going to leave marks on our chest. I get out. We’re inches from the ducks, still marching single file across the road. They did not flinch, did not shift, did not even seem to notice that a two-ton truck driven by a one-ton asshole damn near annihilated them.

He steps out and walks up to the parade next to me. “Will you look at that?” he says while looking toward the woods they emerge from. From left to right they waddle in single file, the ducks stepping out of a cluster of trees across the two-lane highway to disappear into another thick cluster of trees. “How many do you reckon there are?”

“I don’t know.”

“This is perfect.” He walks back to the truck and grabs one of the rifles. He looks around. “Probably got a bit before another car comes along. Come on.” He runs to bed of the pick-up and sets the rifle on the roof of the vehicle’s cab. “Come on!” he shouts when I don’t move.

I trudge up there. “What?”

He pushes a rifle into my hands. “This is perfect for your first time.”

“First time what?” I am not getting it, but I’m uncomfortable, and his gleeful smile does nothing to ease my stress.

He gets behind me, his massive body surrounding my narrow frame. He places my limp arms in position, jams the butt of the rifle into my shoulder, pushes my face down toward the scope by pressing his face against mine. He is all rough force. I want to elbow him in the ribs. I fantasize about lifting my foot between his legs and jamming my heel into his balls.

I stand there, limp, lifeless, feeling out of control and unsure what to do. The gun feels unnatural in my arms, heavier than it should be even with its weight is resting on the top of the vehicle’s cab.

“Look through the scope. Do you see the ducks?”

I see four of them, lined up like the Beatles on Abbey Road, continuing their quiet, steady journey. White ducks with yellow beaks and yellow feet, varying in size from mother to child to mother, big to small to big, one after another passing through the lens.

“Do you see them?”

I nod, sweat dripping down my cheeks, moisture fogging my glasses.

“I can’t hear you.”

“Yes, I see them.” Fucker.

“Good. Now place your finger gently on the trigger, but don’t squeeze. Just pass it over the trigger, preparing, that’s it, that’s it.” From the corner of my eye, I see a proud look on his face, a happy, enthusiastic grin, the kind of grin I have only previously caught late at night when he walks out of his bedroom naked except for an open robe, belly protruding over his limp-.

God, he’s gross.

God, I hate him.

“Okay, now, make sure you’re aiming for the body. They’re moving so you want to aim just in front of the duck, just off the edge of the belly, so it walks right into your bullet. Understand?”

I nod.

“I can’t hear you.”

I consider turning the gun on him. First time, indeed. “Yes, I understand,” I mumble.

“Now wrap your finger around the trigger, get that knuckle right there, and don’t pull the trigger, squeeze it. Squeezing gives you control. You understand?”

“Yes.”

Do you understand I hate this?

Do you understand I hate you?

Do you understand I hate my mother because of you?

“Perfect. Whenever you’re ready, give it a go.” He rubs his hands in excited anticipation.

I look through the lens, aiming. I consider the day the ducks have had, casually strolling from one side of the woods to the other, maybe from one body of water to another, or one cluster of ducks to another, and wonder if any of them has any idea that it they are right now in this very moment taking their last little duck breath?

I wonder if any of the ducklings feel about any of the ducks the way I feel about Bryan. Would I be doing one of these little ducklings a favor taking out one of their disfavored parents? Could they even feel such animosity toward one of their own? Or was such negative emotion reserved for higher life forms, the supposedly more evolved species?

Or would I be ripping a child from their mother’s arms, just as Bryan did with my mom. If I killed this duck, if I did as he wanted, would that mean I was just like him? Would I step onto the path of becoming like him? Going from future stepson to present son?

Is that what this is really about, Bryan?

I shed blood, we become blood?

I pull the trigger and suddenly we’re the same kind of bloodthirsty, selfish, ugly, greedy piece of shit?

Take one life, get a new one? Is that how this works?

“Take a deep breath. Squeeze when you exhale.”

I take a deep breath. I close my eyes. I squeeze the trigger when I exhale, picturing his face out there on the line, in every duck’s chest.

For a second everything turns white. I am deaf, save for a terrible ringing. When the world clears up, when time and space and my senses return to normal, Bryan is laughing. “You are one piss poor shot, little man.”

I shot wide, up, past the ducks, sending a bullet straight into the asphalt. The ducks appear shocked by the blast and lift up, soaring to the sky in one great big endless ribbon. I look from left to right and there they were, an infinite stripe of yellow and white as far as the eye can see.

“Will you look at that?” Bryan whispers, in awe at something for what sounds like the first time in his life.

“Yep,” I say, dropping the gun, hoping never to touch it as it clangs on the truck bed floor. The endless row of ducks soars to our left. I wish I could join them. So beautiful, so free, so together. An infinite parade flying to freedom.