Bent over the roaring cradle, I felt like a crocodile as, in the dark puddle of my shadow, the beloved bundle yodeled terror. I leaned closer, mugging, and failed to wheedle a smile or even a lull from the rage-ruddled face. He bellowed until his mother cuddled him into her neck (blond sweep of hair, cologne), and he lolled in indolent oohs, and coddling there-theres. The ululations dwindled into gurgles and drool. His diaper yellowed. She offered him to me. Barelegged, he hung between us, his feet pedaling fetid air until she lodged him in my hands. He smelled of Italian irises and lime — her cologne — as did I. Astraddle my hip, enclosed in her perfume, he blabbed happily while I dandled him — there, there — loved in the constricting middle.
I saw my shadow walking South on Market Street at dawn. He had a long gun in his hand, a Winchester 1901. He held it in the air and waved. I wondered if I’d died. He walked down to the children’s park and sat down on the slide. I hadn’t seen him for two weeks. He’d slipped his medication and stolen from beneath my bed my Winchester 1901. The cops told him to drop the gun. He squinted at the sun as he swung up and aimed at them that Winchester 1901. Grace Pittman opened her front door and bent to fetch the news when she heard two pistol shots resound as she said in interviews. “I looked and saw the shadow drop like a punctured bag of air,” Grace Pittman told reporters, who didn’t really care. My shadow wasn’t dangerous. The point, I guess, is moot. He must have hated me so much he forced the cops to shoot. I scrubbed his blood off slide and swings, and shadowless in sun, I walked to city hall and claimed my Winchester 1901.
© 2013 Andrew Hudgins. Reprinting, copying, or reproducing in any fashion without the author’s express consent is strictly prohibited.