He hadn’t liked the way it felt with the shotgun on him. And he had been shaken by the way Larry talked as they drove away from Russell’s house that first night. Point a fucking gun at me, he said. Go ahead and point a fucking gun at me and see what happens. When are they gonna learn? When? You tell me. When are they gonna learn you do not fuck with me? Go ahead and point it. Put it right on my head. Right here. Right here on this spot between my eyes. I swear to God somebody’s gonna learn. Point a fucking gun at me. He was all over the road as he went on. Spit coming out of his mouth. Finger pointing at the windshield then at Walt then back at the windshield. Think that shit scares me? That shit don’t scare me. Point a fucking gun at me. Go ahead and keep on fucking with me and see what happens. Goddamn everybody thinks they got something. Don’t they? Think they got something they just got to do. Got to do or it’s gonna goddamn kill them. Got to go fucking drive around fucked up and top a hill and kill somebody. Got to go do it. Ain’t worried about what might happen ’til it happens. Got to. Got to fuck around. Don’t matter it makes me look like a dumbass. Got to. World might stop spinning if I don’t go fuck around. Got to have it oh please God yes right there got to have it. Don’t think about shit else but keep on fucking with me. Everybody. Please keep on. You’ll find out. Hell yeah you’ll find out. I bet he thinks it’s funny right now but hell no it ain’t gonna be funny next time. Next time I take that gun out of his goddamn hands and shove it down his goddamn throat. Son of a bitch points a fucking gun at me like he rode into town on a white fucking horse. He owes me and you and Jason and he knows it. Goddamn it keep on.
Walt had always been on board with his brother. The bullying. The drinking. He liked the fights. Liked them as a kid. As a teenager. As a younger man. As a man. Particularly liked them when they had the odds like they did most of the time. He had been on board when Larry started talking up Russell’s homecoming. About how he’d killed Jason and didn’t deserve to be walking around and we’ll get even for our little brother who can’t get even for himself. Had looked forward to it. Had liked getting his hands on Russell at the bus station. Liked thinking about the next time they would get to drinking and go after him.
But he didn’t like that shotgun being pointed at him. Didn’t like the stakes that high. Didn’t like being scared. Like he’d found himself when he walked into the room and Russell was standing there with the gun. He’d played tough but something inside him had skipped. Never had a gun pointed at him before. All the bar fights and all the parking lot fights and there had never been a gun. And he had seen the look in the man’s eye who held it on them and Walt believed he was capable of shooting. He would knock somebody’s head against the wall and he missed Jason like any man would miss his brother but he wasn’t going to get shot. And he had to figure out how to tell Larry that.
He asked Earl for another one and he lit a cigarette. He had listened to his brother’s message four times. I need you down here, Walt. Down at the Kentwood jail. Come on and get me. Don’t fuck around. Get on down here. Where the hell you at anyway? Walt knew that if Larry was calling from the Kentwood jail he probably deserved to be there but that didn’t stifle the guilt he felt in ignoring his brother.
Earl brought the beer and set it down and then the door opened. Walt looked and there was Heather. Earl said hey to her and she smiled back and then she asked Walt if he had any rules about what she was allowed to drink while sitting there next to him.
“I don’t give a shit,” he said.
She asked Earl for a glass of wine and while he poured it she reached over and took a cigarette from Walt’s pack that was sitting on the bar.
“Where’s your brother?” she asked.
He took a long drag from his cigarette and blew the smoke out his nose. “Where’s your husband?”
“Same place your brother is.”
He nodded. Wondered if she knew what he knew.
Walt kept his eyes ahead on the shelves of liquor bottles. Heather sat sideways and looked around at the empty tables. He drank and then said you are a wonder.
“A wonder? Like how?”
“I’d just as soon not say,” he said. He thought about the conversations he and Larry had about her when Larry was getting ready to marry her. About how leopards don’t change their spots and all that shit and hell I know she’s fine but something fine walks in the door every night and you don’t have to marry it and worry about it like you’re gonna worry about her.
“Tell me,” she said and she bumped his leg with her leg. “How am I a wonder?”
“Not like Wonder Woman. A wonder like goddamn she makes you wonder.”
Heather laughed. She couldn’t help but laugh.
“See what I mean?” he said.
“No. Hell no, I don’t see what you mean. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Does to me. Does to Larry.”
“Larry doesn’t think about me.”
“You don’t know what he thinks about,” he said.
“You don’t either.”
“I know better than you.”
“You want to call me a wonder and then sit here and tell me you know what Larry thinks about. Nobody knows what Larry thinks about. He don’t even know.”
“All I know is you’re a wonder.”
She laughed some more. Tossed her head back and tossed her hair around. Smiled at herself in the mirror behind the bar. “You don’t even know what that word means,” she said.
“I’ll tell you what it means,” he said. He met her smile with a serious stare and his brow had the same bend of Larry’s brow when he meant business. He shifted on his seat. Took a drink from his beer. Looked back to her and said it means that I wonder why the hell you just can’t give him a break. I wonder why you gotta do the things you do. Why you gotta shove it in his face. Why you gotta make him a big joke. I wonder why. That’s what it means. I wonder why you can’t give him a break every now and then. And I’m getting the hell out of here and you can pay Earl. You got Larry’s money in your pocket. You got everything. And I’m a son of a bitch for sitting here talking to you when I should be somewhere else.