Dead Eye

My grandfather Mike taught me how to shoot when I was eight. After plinking cans with a BB gun for a few weeks that summer, he pulled out an old .22/shotgun combination gun. The .22 barrel rested on top of the shotgun barrel and the hammer clicked up or down depending on what sort of shell you wanted to fire. I loved the sharp crack the .22 made and was a pretty good shot. One morning Mike handed the gun over and told me again to make sure to hold the butt-end firmly to my shoulder, breathe slowly, and squeeze rather than pull at the trigger. "Like you're making a fist." "I know, I know." Man, it felt like that gun came out the back of my arm. Mike had clicked the hammer down to strike the shotgun side. The only other time I saw him laugh that hard was when he put a lit firecracker under a coffee can to fire it in the air. The fuse was faulty, it exploded before Mike could back away and the can hit him in the mouth. His brother and he laughed and laughed, blood filling my grandfather's mouth.

A few years later Mike began taking me hunting. After that first switch-up whenever I shot a gun, even if I knew the kickback was coming, my pulse would race, I'd have to force my breathing to slow, and my mind emptied. I don't remember shooting the deer. He was an eight-pointer and Mike said his dressed weight was two hundred forty pounds. What I remember is the deer hanging in one of the outbuildings after we got him back. Empty, spread open, and darkly meaty against the fluorescent lighting. My grandmother was standing in the sawdust she'd spread on the cement floor underneath the deer, blood covering her hands and arms up to her elbows.