Five out of Eight

Five out of Eight

Inescapable heat. The air conditioning box in the kitchen ejects a thin
stream of cool air barely big enough to inhale. It is a yellow day
again, the hot air from the west lifting the dust, filtering the
sunlight to a nicotine stained glare, sparkling fragments of airborne
sand that glitter, almost beautiful, until you're forced to dig them
out from under your eyelids. It is the same dust that colours our
walls, a graduated stain rising from the floor where we kick it around,
the reverse of damp. Apathetic thrumming ceiling fans keep it low. The
plywood floors are smoothed with every step, sanding, wearing. In a few
places it is worn through to the next layer of wood, the grain flowing
in the opposite direction, confusing the house's orientation. It is too
bright to look out of the window. Mum sleeps through the day with a
mask over her eyes, spread on her bed like a corpse. She didn't used to
sleep this much. She'd be sitting at this table with me, crushing
spilled sugar grains against the metal rim, spilling cigarette ash onto
the floor where it mixed with sand and dust and vanished forever. She
sleeps a lot since he came back. I can hear him on the porch, still
trying to fix the swing. We're a family again, he said, and a family
needs a swing. All the nails are rusty, staining his lips when he holds
them in his teeth. I laughed the first time I saw that, but he slammed
the hammer into the table. Spilled sugar grains collect in the cracked
Formica. If I push enough grains in and rub really hard, the sugar will
melt and heal it. He patched the splintered wood underneath with the
back off my chair. I lean forwards.

He swears outside and there's a crash of wood and chains. The screen
door whips open and he strides in, kicking fresh dust across the floor
in a flurry. I wish it was snow. There's a graze on his arm dotted with
tiny splinters, small beads of blood welling up through sweat and dust.
Across his back it has collected to form an orangey paste, like bad
fake tan or the foundation that mum wore for the first year out here,
floating on the layer of sweat and grease on her face.
"Gimme that towel," he says
He wraps it round his arm, sits down and leans back in his chair,
checking to see if I am watching. I look away, pushing more sugar into
the table.
"Any beer in the fridge?"
I shake my head and indicate the empty cans next to the sink.
"Guess we'd better use them up then," he says, slapping the stained
towel down.
The draught blows the sugar out of the crack. He scoops up the cans,
dropping one to the floor with an ugly clatter.
"Shut up, I'm sleeping," mum calls from her bed.
Dad and I look at each other quickly. It still surprises me that our
eyes are the same.
"We're gonna shoot, you'll have to sleep later," he replies.
She starts muttering, but he ignores her and closed the bedroom door.
We both know she'll just shout and not bother getting up.
"Get yer gun," he scowls, his arms full of cans.

That was his family establishment gift. After twelve years he appeared
with a bunch of flowers and a cedar wood box. Flowers for Mum, the box
for me. A gun, identical to the one he always carries in his back
pocket. And that made us family.
I love it. I love it more than my eyes.
I keep it in the box, tucked into its snug foam the accurate shapes cut
in with a hot wire, the spare clip slotted in next to it, empty. Cool
metal under my fingers, but it warms so quickly in my hands, especially
when we are out in the sun. After a few minutes in my grasp I barely
feel it, it is part of me. I carry it out loosely, swinging it at my
side. It weighs the same as both of my hands; I weighed them on the
plastic scales from under the sink

I had thought the air conditioner useless until I pushed open the
screen door. Sun, dust, heat struck me. It seemed as though all of the
air had been sucked out of the world. I screw up my eyes and inhale the
dust. The glare decreases as I feel my pupils shrinking, attempting to
retreat anemone like into my head. Wait, adjust. Dad's over by the
fence with the cans, splitting their aluminium skin as he impales them
on the posts. He is small against the glare of the sky, the bag of
ammunition small and crumpled at his feet. He slings it across his
shoulder as he turns. A handbag of bullets. It comes as a surprise when
he pushes the warm bullets into my hand. He seems to flit from one
place to another in the undulation of a heatwave.

With a snap of my little finger the clip is out. They fit perfectly, a
dull, tight click to each one. I don't fumble them anymore. It's almost
a coin trick, moving a single bullet out from the pile, moving it down
my fingers to where resistance cups the brass. Push, and it's in. I can
feel him watching me. People say that being watched creates heat, but
his gaze is cool, the stream of the air conditioner. I'm sure he looks
at Mum this way, the touch of his eyes moving down her body in
appreciation. It travels down my arm as I raise the gun. He takes
aim.
"Straight down the barrel," he mutters.
"I know," I say through clenched teeth. My forehead aches.
I watch him shrug from the corner of my eye, turning his palms up, the
metal loose across his thumb. The action is that of Westerns, the shrug
of feigned innocence just before the black hatted villain shoots the
hero's faithful sidekick. I'm glad Mum is inside.
I shoot from one end, he shoots from the other, in perfect time. 1, 2,
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Our final shot is at the same can. One of us hits it,
sending it twisting off the post.

My eyes re-focus and I look along the row. All his cans are shot, five
of mine.
"Getting there," he says, shoving his gun into the back of his jeans.
There are scorch marks on his pocket from the hot muzzle. I hope he
burns his arse.
"Load up."
He pushes a handful of bullets towards me and sets off into the light
to reset the cans.
I fumble them in both hands, staring after him, amazed. Safety first.
He never gives me the bullets until he is back next to me, always
leaves me standing there like an addict. Hands wake up before mind,
pushing the ammunition into the gun. I'm done before he reaches the
fence, his back is still to me.
I could kill him.
I think in pictures but the words come first, then the image, pulling
the trigger, the recoil, the impact, watching him fall. The
calculations. Five out of eight, maybe six. Six out of eight I could do
it, one shot to the heart or head and it would be finished. Five out of
eight is only just over half. He loaded on the way down, if I missed,
I'd be dead. Dead. I could kill him. One pull of the trigger, the
kickback up my arm, straight but not locked. He hasn't turned around.
The cans are up.
One shot.
Five out of eight.
I lower my arm.

He salutes from the fence, walks back slowly, growing larger as he
approaches, perspective crystallised by the heat. Gun in one hand, a
can in the other.
"Check it out," he grins.
Four holes. Two entry, two ripped exits.
"Synchronised shooting, that's ma girl." He claps me on the shoulder
and takes aim.
Six out of eight.