When I was in eighth grade, a boy on our road shot his sister in the face with his father's pistol and killed her. We lived in the country, where no city lights penetrated after dark, where no traffic noise protected our sleep from the thrash of feral animals in the thicket that surrounded our little house and threatened to overrun our garden and lawn. They said the shooting was an accident—a sibling conflict that got out of hand, a weapon unexpectedly loaded. No one knew what to do.
My father kept a double barreled shotgun, inherited from his father, by the back door and a box of shells in a kitchen drawer. A hunting rifle, never used by my father, leaned against the wall of the hallway closet. Sometimes, in the pink light of a long summer's evening or the bitter cold of a January dawn, a gunshot's roar split the silence—a farmer protecting his chickens, a homeowner scattering pilfering raccoons.
The boy who killed his sister was younger than me, attended elementary school and rode a different bus. Once, I'd gone sledding with him, a bucktooth with thick, black-rimmed glasses that kept sliding down his nose, rivulets of green snot frozen on his upper lip. His sister, a high school student at the time of her death, I'd seen fetching sheets her mother had hung outside to dry or leaning against the car of some boy come to visit, skinny, white legs gleaming in the summer sun. After the shooting, they sent the boy away. He returned taller and heavier, a sulkier version of his earlier self.
He made few friends—other loners and strangelings. Classmates whispered “Shooter” when he passed in the hall. He and his parents remained in the house, but the place deteriorated into a ramshackle. Weeds choked tomato plants and flowers, and paint peeled. When a tornado felled a willow branch, collapsing the garage roof, repairs were never made.
After graduating high school, I left home, only rarely returning to visit. Eventually, the house where the killing had occurred was bulldozed, a bigger, fancier house with a neat, square yard erected in its place. My father said the boy's parents suffered dementia and lived out their days in nursing homes. He said the boy found work in the area and could be seen around town, at grocery stores and taverns.
At my father's funeral, several childhood friends I hadn't seen in years stopped by to pay their respects, among them the boy who'd killed his sister. Like all of us, he'd aged, but I recognized him. Balding, never married, his chest and belly collapsed in an avalanche down his front. He still wore thick glasses and couldn't look me in the eye. We shook hands, but an introduction to my wife faltered, Shooter being the only name I recalled.
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Appeared at Pithead Chapel earlier this year.
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Every little town fas someone like this.
Fave, Gary. A fine story, well told. I think this imagery is great: "...his chest and belly collapsed in an avalanche down his front."
This is great.
So much subtext packed into 500 words, and the ending is spot on.
Great work!
Good one. Tight and strong. I like that it ends at the father's funeral. *
Excellent characterization. Fav *
So incredibly relevant. Fave.
Sad and all too real.
This is a great piece, Gary. Enjoyed it at PC. Well done. *
The restraint works very well in this. Beautifully crafted.
Thanks all for the read. A fictionalized version of one of three "tragedies" that occurred on the country road on which I grew up.
Great piece. Fabulous ending.
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Wow - certainly a piece for our times.
Thanks Bill and Neil. Glad you enjoyed.
Such a well written story, Gary.
This place, "When a tornado felled a willow branch, collapsing the garage roof, repairs were never made", is perfect. The use of the passive voice as a symbol of the family's deterioration after the tragedy. No energy, no hope. Well done, Gary. Well done.*
Excellent ending. Wondrous brooding atmosphere throughout, despite the restraint in the writing. *
Thanks, Brenda, Joani, and Beate. I appreciate the read and comments.
Whew! Intense and compelling, beautifully written, poignant, and compassionate with such restraint and brevity. Well done! *
You told this story so well, I feel bad for the shooter, his sister, the careless parents, the house, your street, even the garage.
Fabulous, if extreme, example of how one event can define the rest of a person's life entirely. That is the real tragedy because the boy could have outgrown the buck teeth and cheap glasses and found his true calling at some point. But he became the walking dead remnant of the shooting... you touched me with this flash story, a tribute to your skill.
This is just great writing, clean and clipped with time, condensed into six telling paragraphs. I loved this.
Very American (I am still constantly amazed that as a society you don't ostracise people who keep guns in family).
The pictures painted here are excellent, however. It is thought-provoking and memorable.
Thanks George and Steve for the comments.
Oh man, what power and empathy here. Great work, Gary.
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Good writing, Gary.
Thanks, Frankie. Appreciate it. Hey, man, we all just write what's given to us.
Very poignant. A good parable of an often lived situation.
my kind of piece. well done!
The pacing is just right. An honest portrayal with an incredible last paragraph.
I agree with Gary and Gessy, this is a fine example of how restraint and pacing work in a piece of flash. The opening paragraph is a beauty, everything set up in four sentences. "No one knew what to do." Indeed.
Very well done, and powerful.
Such a sad story delivered in a straight-on voice that
feels "right." *fav
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Artfully condensed and powerful.
Sad images only remembering the name Shooter the impact left of Shooter's intention felt deeply yet not expressed. Well done.
Again I return to this story and again am floored by its power.
Good good story. Well writ and so sad. The makings of a novel I'd say. Have you ever read Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson, one of the best Norwegian writers around? Up your alley.
Helluva wallop. Since I'm late here I'll bow to the comments above--all of them. *
Holy shit! This one's great. *.
(BTW: Change it to "sixth grade," and "other brother," and *this actually happened* to someone I knew, for a few initial weeks, in sixth grade. He killed his own brother. I was in seventh grade with his sister, and, somehow, since it was too weird to talk about, we never did. I didn't see him for the rest of the year.)
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