Trigger Finger (10 page)

“I do.
 
I actually don’t think I’d have made it that
night without him.”

Dr. Koenig nodded
again, like all of this confirmed another theory he’d hatched beneath that
shiny dome of a scalp.
 
He tapped his pen
on his pad and the notes I couldn’t see.
 
I let him think through whatever he had to think through.

Then he said, “I
think we need to talk about Bobby.”

12.

I can understand
why Dr. Koenig wanted to know more about my brother.
 
What better way to map someone’s internal
programming than to examine the people he admired?
 
A man’s heroes offer you a glimpse of that
which sets him apart from the frogs and mosquitoes in his backyard.
 
They show you not only who he is, but who he
wants to be.
 
Who, given the right
circumstances, he may just become.

Bobby hit every
life obstacle before I did, so our childhood was a story of him confronting
demons, breaking their limbs and tossing them aside while I followed behind and
gave their prone bodies a kick or two before moving on.
 
He installed my values.
 
With my father gone all the time and my
mother drunk all the time, where else would I get them but television and Bobby?
 
Being older, he also stood taller and ran
faster.
 
He snagged a beautiful
girlfriend who turned into a beautiful wife, he joined the Marine Corps and he
took up arms for his country even though wealthy parents would have paid his
way into any lucrative, cushy career he chose.
 
How could I not look up to this guy?

But external
indicia of superhumanity win only so much admiration.
 
And growing up in a big house on a golf
course limit a boy’s opportunities to show inner strength and
determination.
 
Other than my mom lying
around drunk, Bobby didn’t have a whole lot of adversity to confront.
 
So while I always looked up to him, I didn’t
really begin to appreciate him as a hard son of a bitch until we both reached
adulthood.
 
And although I understood that
he possessed a certain bad-assedness just by virtue of joining the Marines, I
didn’t realize how deep that ran before he got mugged.

We’d grabbed a
booth in the corner at Raw Bar in Wrightsville Beach in the last days of July,
2002 after I had just finished taking the bar exam in Raleigh.
 
Bobby’s treat: beer, which I needed then,
badly.
 
There came a pause after the
second or third pitcher when the conversation lulled, and we both fell silent
amidst the cacophony of clinking glasses, laughing drunks and blasting rock
n’roll.
 
His eyes drifted over the
stumbling college kids and sandblown beach bums, and then he said, “Did I
mention I got mugged last night?”

My eyes
widened.
 
“Uh, no.”

A proud smile.
“You want to hear about it?”

Proud?
 
Proud of getting mugged?
 
Why would anyone smile proudly after
announcing they got mugged last night?
 
“You’re damn right I want to hear about it!”

On the table, a
half-empty pitcher of Budweiser stood beside a fully empty sibling.
 
I leaned forward to hear better over the Linkin Park
piece playing on the jukebox.
 
Bobby’s
face glowed red from his time in the sun.

“So I’m tired,” he
said, still grinning, “been running around in the woods all day, sweating my
balls off.
 
Not getting enough to drink,
water discipline.
 
Finish up the march, and
I’m like, take me to the river.
 
I’m
gonna stick my head in and suck it dry.”

He paused to stare
at the bouncer who had just walked by, slowing as he eyeballed us with
absolutely no attempt to conceal it.
 
Bobby wore a golf shirt neatly tucked into his khakis, but his haircut
screamed “jarhead.”
 
I, fresh off the barber’s
chair only yesterday, realized that I’d cut my own hair so short that I
probably looked like a Marine, too.
 
One
bouncer had probably said to another, there’s two Marines in here.
 
Keep an eye on them, lest they raise Hell.

The bouncer
thought I was a Marine just like Bobby.
 
This idea, as much as the titanic amount of beer I had consumed in a
relatively short period of time, brought an excited flush to my face.
 
I stared back at the bouncer and thought,
what are you looking at, asshole?

The bouncer moved
on.

“What’s his
problem?” I muttered.

“I know,
right?”
 
Bobby snorted.
 
“Punkass.
 
Anyway, where was I?”

“You were going to
stick your head in the river and suck it dry.”

“Right.
 
Okay, so I pound all this water, then I get
me a Gatorade for the ride home to Wilmington.
 
I don’t even hit the back gate before my
dick’s, like, Bobby, I gotta piss.
 
I
say, hold it.
 
Dick says, okay, Bobby,
I’ll hold it, but you have to move that ass.
 
So I get through the back gate, and I’m on Highway 172, and my dick pipes
up again.
 
Bobby, he says, find a gas
station or something.
 
And I’m like,
goddamn, we’re on 172, there’s nothing out here.
 
Dick says, look, man, you skipped your salt
tablet, I’ve got no sodium backing me up, you need to find a gas station or
someplace where I can let go of all this water.
 
I say, chill.
 
I figure I can make
it to Holly Ridge.
 
My eyeballs will be floating by that point, but I’ll make it.

“So anyway, by the
time I hit Highway 17, not only are my eyeballs floating, but it’s leaking out
my ears.
 
I’m sweating piss.
 
My dick says, change of plans, here, Devil
Dog, pull over.
 
I’m like, you can’t be
serious, someone could see me, and my dick replies, find cover.
 
You got thirty seconds, then you’re wetting
your pants.
 
Seriously, man, I have never
had to take a leak so bad in my life.
 
And there’s nowhere for me to go.
 
I’m in BFE.”

Bobby chuckled,
shaking his head.

“But I have to do
something, you know?
 
So there’s this
abandoned gas station there on the right not long after you turn onto 17
South.
 
It’s pretty dark by now, not as
dark as I’d have liked, but this place is abandoned and has no lights.
 
Windows and doors all boarded up, gas pumps
gone, weeds as tall as you are shooting up through cracks in the concrete.
 
There’s an old algae-covered boat on a
trailer that’s been parked there ever since I got stationed at Lejeune, next to
a broken-down old Buick packed to the gills with some redneck hoarder’s
shit.
 
Other than that, nothing, nobody.
 
So I pull the Mustang right up alongside and
hop out.
 
I waddle around behind the
building.
 
I whip out my dick.
 
I start to piss all over this wall.”

The lead singer
from Linkin Park had tried so hard and come so far,
but in the end, it didn’t even matter.
 
I
could have cared less; I listened with rapt attention.

“And I mean
piss
.
 
It’s the deluge, man, it’s like, yo, Noah, hurry up and get the zebras
on the Ark,
you know what I’m saying?
 
I piss, I piss
and I piss some more.
 
And as I’m
pissing, I hear this engine approaching.”

He poured himself
another beer.
 
His powerful forearm
flexed as he filled his glass.
 
His hands
shook not at all.

“I hear brakes, I
hear the rpms drop, and I’m like shit, somebody’s stopping.
 
Sheriffs?
 
Highway Patrol?
 
Some shitbag that
wants to jack my rims and my radio?
 
I
finish up as fast as I can, shake it off, zip it up.
 
Trot around the building.
 
I see the car, and I’m like, awww,
fuck
.

“It ain’t the
sheriffs.
 
It ain’t Highway Patrol.
 
It’s one of those mid-eighties Cadillacs with
the tinted windows and those stupid wheels with the thin tires and humungous
shiny rims.
 
Gangsta-mobile, you know
what I’m saying?”

I nodded.

“Guys that drive
cars like that?
 
They don’t stop to help
motorists.
 
They don’t stop to help
anybody.
 
So I double-time back to the
Mustang just as the Caddy comes to a stop behind me.
 
Passenger door opens, this guy gets out and
says hey, stickman, where you going?
 
I
ignore him and jump in the car.
 
I crank
the motor.
 
But my starter’s beginning to
wear out, right, so it doesn’t catch until Homeboy shows up at my open window
and sticks a gun in my face.
 
He says,
‘Break yourself, motherfucker!’

“I’m like, ‘Easy,
buddy.’
 
He waggles the gun and hollers,
‘I ain’t your buddy, cracker, break yourself!
 
Cash, checks, credit cards!’
 
Then
he adds, ‘And cigarettes!’”

“And you can tell,
now, that this guy is on something.
 
He
doesn’t know what he’s doing.
 
He’s got
that gun right there against my head, maybe two inches from my temple, he has actually
stuck his hand and gun
inside
my
car.
 
One twitch of that finger, and I’m
dead.
 
No more Bobby Swanson.

“Homeboy screams,
‘Wallet, motherfucker!’

“I’ve got my hands
in the air, you know, palms open, one on either side of my head.
 
I’m like, ‘Easy, man, I’ll get you my wallet,
okay?
 
It’s under my seat.
 
I’m gonna drop my right hand and reach under
there to get it.
 
You cool?’

“Homeboy’s
shaking.
 
He’s like, ‘Get that fuckin’
wallet, bitch!’

“So real slowly, I
reach down under the seat.
 
I don’t have
any wallet under my seat, now.
 
That shit
was in my right hip pocket.
 
What I’ve
got under my seat is my Glock.
 
I grab
it, then I shoot my left hand out and pin Homeboy’s gun hand to the steering
wheel.
 
Then I pop out the Glock, and
BAM! BAM! BAM!”

He turned to one
side to show me how he did it.
 
Holding
an imaginary gun in his right hand, he twitched his trigger finger three times.

“Homeboy lets go
of his gun and falls backwards onto the highway.
 
I crank the Mustang and peel a wheel.
 
Whip around in a circle.
 
Meanwhile, Homeboy’s shitbag friends saw the
flashes and they’re getting out of the Cadillac.
 
So I unload as I drive by.
 
BAM BAM BAM!
 
BAM BAM BAM!
 
BAM BAM BAM!”

His trigger finger
contracted repeatedly, the hand moving from side to side to show the shot
pattern.

“These shitbags
are diving for cover, hitting the deck, diving back into the Caddy; there’s one
there in the back seat, waving his arms around like he’s in church and just got
the Holy Spirit.
 
I knew I couldn’t get
away with actually bagging any of these guys, but I wanted to keep their heads
down, you know what I’m saying?
 
I shot
the rest of the magazine over their heads.
 
Then I hauled ass up 17 to Jacksonville
and called 911 from the nearest pay phone.”

“What happened
with the guy?
 
The one you shot?”

“No idea.
 
Cops found the blood on the road, but no
car.
 
But listen, there’s a point to
this.”

He leaned forward.

“I could have
given the guy my wallet, okay?
 
Maybe he
wouldn’t have shot me.
 
Maybe everything
would have been okay.
 
But maybe not,
because this world is full of shitbags.
 
A man that’s asshole enough to rob another man on the side of the road
would do about anything.”

His eyes burned
with intensity.

“It’s a fucked-up
world out there,” he said.
 
“Nice guys
don’t finish last; they don’t finish at all.
 
You remember that shit.”

I frowned.
 
“Why are you saying that?”

“Fuck
why
,” he said.
 
“Just remember it.
 
Don’t ever forget how many fucked-up people
exist in this world.
 
They outnumber us.
 
We have to stay frosty.
 
You know what I’m saying?”

My head bobbed
like one of those stupid plastic dolls you see on people’s desks
sometimes.
 
Bobbleheads; empty lumps of
plastic.

“It’s important
for you to hear this,” he said.
 
He took
a long drink of beer and set the glass down on the table with a solid
thwack.
 
Not hard enough to slosh the
remaining beer out of the glass, but close.
 
“And it’s important for you to understand that.
 
How fucked up this world and everybody in it
actually is.
 
Because I know how you
think.”

That
conversation played again in my head now, ten years later.
 
The lights in Abby’s bedroom and the master
glowed on my approach up the winding driveway from 62 South, the tires of the
BMW crunching over the dry shreds of autumn color that had fallen and obscured
the driveway.
 
Home late yet again—but I
hadn’t missed my girls.
 
I could still
say goodnight.