Target Practice

Today

the targets run in small and smaller. They're locked out, told to snatch some air, move those legs and arms, wage your playground wars; just don't jump that ditch, don't cavort with that crazy kid Kyle from that house in the trees.

Two targets hang pteropine from the pull-up bars. One points at a sliver of Kyle in the broad shadow of a Hackberry. The other target says Ignore him, and he'll go away loud so Kyle can hear. The shadow absorbs him; he draws a hand and shoots. Twice. Says pwewwww pwewwww. Imaginary smoke curls from his pointer. He never misses. His backyard's crap for throwing a football with a dad – too many trees, not enough dads – but it jams for jungle wars.

Brandon

is Kyle's big half-brother. He's growing facial hair because his mother hates it. He's fifteen today. His dad left a present leaning on the mailbox. A restraining order says he can't come closer. The gun looks deadly, but it's not the kind you lock up. It's the kind that shoots BBs and pellets that look like roly-polies. It's the kind a fifteen-year-old pumps till his shoulder goes numb, the kind that shoots a dime-sized hole in the drywall of his room. The kind that comes with a note that says Don't Tell Your Mama.

Tomorrow

is Brandon's first day at Hardee's. He'll lock his door and hang a sign – Kyle Stay Out or I'll keel you – to guard his Iron Maiden records, a magazine called Jugs, a nickel bag of pot in his closet, and now the gun. But Kyle can pick any lock in the house: his mom's condom drawer, the ammo can with her alimony and child support papers from dads, the cabinet with the gin. The lock on Brandon's door is junk, which Kyle will crack with a pair of tweezers tomorrow.

Pumped 10 times, the gun and Kyle will go to their Hackberry jungle; a one-piece plastic soldier-gun, they'll stretch out together. The grassless ground will cool Kyle's hairless middle as his cheek warms to the gun's hard stock. He'll close one eye and track a target in pink tights from swing to seesaw to pull-up bar. He'll aim at the feet: to wound and take prisoner. He'll shoot and miss and lie flat against the gun. He'll wonder what his own father looks like, if he'll show up one day to linger fifty yards away. He'll cock the gun again, shoot and miss. He'll do this five times with the five roly-polies Brandon will never miss because Brandon is always high.

The targets won't look around to see where the pwewwww came from. They won't notice the pellet-sized hole in the wooden post inches from their dangling pink Keds. They'll scream and laugh; they'll do flips from things. They'll ignore Kyle's war in the trees until Kyle's big half-brother gets a shotgun next year.

Target Practice was originally published in Chicago Literati and subsequently in The Best Small Fictions 2019.