Billy’s face went dead.
He took the gun and looked at it. He looked paralyzed.
I thought he might put the gun away.
But then, from the back of the crowd, she spoke. That low voice, nearly a whisper, but like a scream.
"Can’t really shoot gun?" she said. "Little monkey inside, puffs himself up big?"
Billy snorted. He stared at her, over everyone’s head. I couldn’t see her, but I imagine she stared back, those implacable amber eyes drilling into his.
He pointed at a guy sprawled drunk on the grass, wearing a party cap, like a tiny green witch’s hat. An elastic band under his chin held the hat in place.
"Give me that," Billy said.
When he got the cap, he pushed it toward me.
"Put that on," he said.
"Why, Billy?" I said.
"Go stand across the lawn so I can shoot it off your dweeby little head," he said.
Cara yelled: "Billy, are you nuts?"
"Afraid you’ll lose your little boyfriend?" Billy said.
Cara said: "Billy, for God’s sake."
He smirked.
"Okay," he said. "New idea."
He bent down with the cap. He fitted it onto Herbert’s head.
Herbert licked the air.
"Okay," Billy told me. "Take the damned dog out there somewhere and sit him down."
I felt as if the air had suddenly blown away. And now we all stood on the moon, in a vacuum, with the light too harsh.
All sort of things went through my mind. My father, at the schoolyard, pointing at me: "Get right with Creation!" Billy would stand up in homeroom and point at me and shout: "Kevin’s not right with Creation today!" I stood there, looking at Billy holding his gun, and I thought about my telephone ringing that morning, and her voice: "Kevin, did you ever think my damned gutters need cleaning?" Then, a few minutes later, ringing again. "Kevin, for God’s sake, could you at least get me a couple packs of smokes on the way here? Is that too much to ask?"
I stood there, all sorts of things rushing through my mind.
"Do it, you little dweeb," Billy said.
On the moon, if you breathed in vacuum, I wondered, did you gasp? Or sort of blow up? Or just slowly die, clutching at your throat?
"No," I said.
Billy looked at me.
I remembered once seeing my neighbor and his sons herd a bull into a pen, where the slaughterhouse man waited, with his gun. Something about the bull’s eyes.
Everybody stood looking at Billy and me. Herbert sat beside me, wearing that witch’s cap Billy put on him.
"You want to keep working here?" Billy said. "You better do it."
I shook my head.
"It’s just a damned dog," Billy said.
Now I had nothing in my head at all. Only vacuum.
"Hey, what about your retirement package?" Billy said.
Cara said: "For God’s sake, Billy—just once, think about someone else!"
I reached down and pulled the cap off of Herbert. I held it, not thinking. Just that feeling of vacuum, and harsh light.
"This is your last chance," Billy said.
And then somebody in the crowd spoke up.
"Jeez—if Kevin goes, this company goes, right on the skids."
Billy looked at him, his mouth a little open.
"Yeah," somebody else said. "Remember the last time Billy tried to run the place?"
Muttering went through the crowd.
Billy looked as if he’d be shot. He said something to me, but so low I heard only part of what he said.
"…airport in Rio, on the runway, flying all around the plane…"
He stood. Then he spoke again, in that mumble.
"…it was that black hawk, and she looked in the window at me…."
But he trailed off. And it seemed to me his eyes turned to slate.
He stood there, with his mouth hanging open a little, with those dead eyes. Then he turned and trudged toward the road, carrying his rifle in his left hand, people stepping out of his way. As he walked, he drank the rest of the bourbon in his bottle and threw the bottle onto the lawn. He disappeared behind the cedars that hide my yard from the road.
I saw Cara crying. I thought I should go after Billy. But I thought Cara needed support. So I stood next to her. I wanted to touch her arm. But I didn’t.
I think we both waited to hear a shot from along the road. I don’t know why one of us didn’t run after him.
We waited, and no shot came.
Cara suddenly ran toward the road.
And after that, from behind the cedars, I heard her scream.
"Kevin!"
None of the doctors ever figured it out. Except that he finished off that bottle of bourbon in one long drink on the way out of my yard, on top of what he’d already drunk.
So maybe alcohol poisoning. Or maybe an embolism burst in his head. But the x-rays never showed anything.
He sits in his den, with all the animals he shot. He has nothing in his eyes. He just sits.
I go over almost every evening now, to keep Cara informed about the business. But afterwards we sit and talk about all sorts of things.
She got me to keep this journal.
We usually have supper together now. Herbert comes, too.
Every so often I have a strange thought. Maybe Cara and I are sitting in her living room, going over the accounts from the office or something like that. We sit at the little table she set up there as a desk, for when I come. We sit facing each other, and our knees almost touch underneath. And what I think about is Billy, sitting alone in his den, with those slate eyes.
We let Billy down. That is my feeling. And then my face pulses. It hurts, but only for a moment. Then it goes away.
I’ve stayed in my cubicle. Billy’s office gets used only when I meet with new clients, and want a sort of fancy place for that.
Here’s the last crazy thing: at the picnic, after we found Billy lying beside the road, I ran back to the house, to dial 911. When I came out again, Feather stood on the porch. It was as if she waited for me. She stood there, staring at me with those amber eyes.
All sorts of thoughts ran through my mind, mostly about Billy.
And then she did a strange thing. She reached out her hand. Lightly, her fingers touched my cheek.
This is the craziest part, which I wouldn't want anyone to read.
When she took her fingers away, my cheek burned and hurt where she touched it. But then all that pain dimmed. And it went away. Except every once in a while I feel it.
But there on the porch, it went away. All the picnic people were going home now. And she stood staring at me.
Abruptly, she turned. She walked off the porch and across the grass and into the woods. Just before she disappeared behind the trees, she blurred. That's how it looked to me. And after that—I actually did see it—a hawk flew up.
It was black. It had a golden head and tail.
It flew up, screaming. I thought it looked down at me. But then it wheeled toward the south. It flew higher and higher, going fast, just a speck. And it was gone.