Cherries and Blueberries (standard:other, 3800 words)
Author: Kenneth Brosky	Added: Sep 03 2006	Views/Reads: 3122/2207	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
The first chapter of "Leaving Dodge County," my collection of short stories, all centered around one character trying to leave his hometown forever.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

had just hailed Satan in front of a priest. “Are you seriously saying 
people shouldn't have the right to protect themselves?” 

“You don't need a gun to protect yourself,” I say. “That's why we pay to
put police on the street.” 

“Listen.” The Wolfman sets down his beer on the dash, balancing it
between a little rubber air freshener and a miniature Taco Bell dog. 
When he starts talking again, his free hand flies around all over the 
place, like he's swatting away gnats. “If I'm walking down the street 
and someone pulls a gun on me, I'm going to pull a fucking gun on him 
and I'm going to do everything I can to defend myself.” 

“He'd shoot you before you could draw a gun.” 

“Listen.” Wolfman grabs his beer and takes a quick sip. He puts it back
down so he has a free hand again. “I have a right to protect myself. 
You know in places where you're allowed to carry a concealed weapon, 
crime's always lower? You know why? Because no would-be criminal in his 
right mind would fuck with someone who might be packing heat.” 

I set my empty bottle in the pile at my feet. “I'd have to check those
facts to be sure, but it sounds like bullshit.” 

“It's not.” 

We're quiet for awhile. On the radio, the evangelist's voice has begun
to fade in and out as the road gradually descends into an open, 
unfarmed valley. In fall, for just one week, I bet the trees off in the 
distance look like they're on fire. Even in the darkness, under the 
infrequent spotlights on the bare frontage road, I can spot three 
different arbor species, all with their own unique leafing cycle and 
their own unique colors and shades. To have a sketchpad during that 
week, it would take a watercolor pallet the size of a dinner table to 
do the colors justice. 

The evangelist's voice cuts out for a moment, replaced by a husky rapper
whose lyrics suggest he's desperate for a joint. The evangelist's voice 
returns as we dip into a small valley, overpowering the rap station for 
a brief moment, long enough to explain the dangers of teaching children 
safe sex rather than abstinence, because anything less than abstinence 
before marriage will force us all to burn in hell for eternity. His 
voice fades again, replaced by the same rapper who explains between the 
twang of a heavy bass line how important it is for him to eat a pussy 
every night. 

“Could you end someone's life, though?” I finally ask. 

“If it came down to me or him?” Wolfman nods. “You're goddamn right I'll
do everything in my power to protect my life. If I had to end someone 
else's life to do that, then so be it.” 

“But what if he wasn't such a bad guy?” I ask. “What if he pulled a
knife on you and it was the first time he'd ever done it, and the only 
reason he was doing it was because he was a little short on his rent? 
Or maybe he's addicted to something, and it's got a hold of him and he 
can't control his actions anymore?” 

“How the hell should I know his life's story? Is it my responsibility to
ask about his situation before I shoot him?” 

I ponder the questions, letting the top of the beer bottle rest against
my lower lip. I leave it there while I talk. “What if the guy wasn't 
really going to do anything to you in the first place?” 

Wolfman shrugs. “How should I know that?” 

“You don't,” I say. “That's the point. You have no idea. For all you
know, you could be ending the life of some guy who was just trying to 
get a little extra money for his family. When all you had to do, 
really, was pull out a little thing of pepper spray and get him in the 
eyes and he would have run off crying like a little sissy.” 

“The pepper spray could miss. Look.” He finishes the rest of his beer
and reaches around his seat for a new one from the cooler. “It's my 
constitutional right to be able to carry a weapon, and you know why? 
Because our founding fathers knew it was every man for himself. The law 
can't be everywhere all the time.” 

“It was different back then!” I take a sip to wet my throat and cool the
fire in my chest. “Completely different.” 

“How so.” 

“Well,” I say, “for one thing, there were fucking savage Indians all
over the fucking place. And here I'm using the racial epithet for 
dramatic purposes.” 

Wolfman laughs. “And you think things are any different now? Just
because we've got fancy technology and safer houses? You honestly live 
in that thick of a bubble? I'm not talking Indians, per se, but 
savages. There are still savages out there. They come in every color, 
every creed, and every size.” 

I'm silent a moment, thinking. I take another sip of my beer. We pass
the last exit for Grand Junction and the preacher's voice begins to 
fade away into the soft static and rap music returns. “What if it was 
all a mistake?” I finally ask. “What if they misspelled ‘bare' and put 
the ‘e' in the wrong place and their original intent was to make sure 
all Americans would always have the right to wear sleeveless shirts?” 

Wolfman laughs and takes another long swig of his beer. “Then what's all
that bullshit about the militia?” 

I snap my fingers. “Yes. That's right. The militia. The point of that
amendment was to give Americans the right to form their own militias in 
case they needed to defend their country or their land. And for that, 
the founding fathers had to let them carry weapons. But we don't need a 
militia anymore because we have an army. And police. And Homeland 
Security.” 

“Homeland Security,” Wolfman says with a grunt. “All those fuckers do is
sit around and decide what color M&M we're supposed to eat for the day. 
Fucking ... Ozzy Osbourne could do that for us.” “Well, the police 
then. And the Army.” 

Wolfman takes another sip of his beer, and I take pleasure in the fact
that he doesn't have an immediate answer. “You're a real dipshit,” he 
finally says. “I can't believe, out of all the hitchhikers, I managed 
to pick up the only one guaranteed to piss me off.” 

I focus on the road ahead of us, imagining myself behind the steering
wheel. The yellow lines dividing the two lanes blur together before 
curving into the ditch dividing the highway from the adjacent corn 
crop. “I just, I don't know. I couldn't kill someone.” 

“Even if they were going to kill you?” 

I shake my head without hesitation. “I still don't think I could do it.
I couldn't end another life. I couldn't live with myself after that.” 

Wolfman takes another long sip of his beer. He sets it on the dash so he
has a free hand to scratch at his thin beard. “Maybe that's not such a 
bad thing. But you're gonna die young, kid. What do you do?” 

“Nothing right now,” I say. “I'm just hitchhiking to the city.” 

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I mean what is it you want to do?” 

My tongue is too loose for me to come up with some plausible lie. “I
want to draw.” 

“Draw what?” he asks. 

“Anything,” I say. “Everything. I draw, and sometimes I paint.” “And so
when you get to the city and you find a place and you start painting 
your masterpiece, and you're walking down the street one day to get 
some more paint and some guy comes up and it's you or him, you'd rather 
die than save yourself?” 

I think about it. “Yeah.” 

“Even if you're painting a masterpiece that might make you famous one
day?” 

I tip back my beer, hiding my mouth behind the lip. “I severely doubt
anything I create is ever going to become a masterpiece.” 

Wolfman shakes his head again. “Unbelievable. You're a one in a million,
I think.” 

I nod and look down at my feet. There are at least seven empty bottles
around my shoes. I don't remember how many were already there when he 
picked me up, but just seeing them all there seems to wake up my 
bladder. “I have to piss.” 

Wolfman nods, but doesn't make any move to pull over. “Do me a favor and
hand me that flamingo behind my seat.” 

I reach around his seat, tossing aside an old sweatshirt and retrieving
the pink lawn ornament tucked under the cooler. The beak's been sawed 
off. So has the tail. 

Wolfman takes it from me before I can finish my investigation. “Now grab
me a fresh beer.” 

I grab another beer from the cooler. 

“Open it for me.” 

Over the radio, the rap station has won its battle with the evangelist. 

“Pour it in the flamingo's ass.” 

I pour the beer slowly into the opening under the tail feathers. Wolfman
holds onto the neck, keeping the lawn ornament upside-down so no beer 
trickles out of the sawed-off beak. When I'm finished, Wolfman wraps 
his mouth around the bird's head and tips it back. I keep one hand on 
the steering wheel while he sucks down the beer in one long gulp. 

“What the hell do you call that?” I ask. 

Wolfman finishes, wipes his mouth with his hand and tosses the lawn
ornament onto the back seat before returning his free hand to the 
steering wheel. “It's a flabongo.” 

“What?” 

“A flabongo. A flamingo beer bong. Get it?” 

I nod. 

“Works just as good with coffee,” he says, exhaling a quiet burp. He
blows it toward the windshield, and I'm thankful for missing the smell. 
“So long as it's not too hot.” 

“It's an amazing invention.” I feel a tight pain in my bladder. “But I
really do need to piss, man. I'll go on the side of the road, if you're 
worried about time.” 

Wolfman waves away my worry, bumping his fingers against the dash a
little too hard so two of the flaps of the heating vent dislodge. 
“Don't worry. Two more exits, and then we'll make a pit stop. If we 
pull over here and a cop sees, we'd both be in deep shit.” 

“Okay.” 

I wait in silence, trying to keep my eyes focused on the blurry yellow
lines running in front of our car. We're between two lanes for awhile, 
then we're in the right lane and then the left, then the right again by 
the time we reach the third exit. Wolfman takes it too fast and has to 
slam hard on the brakes at the end of the off-ramp to keep from 
crossing into the intersecting road. The seatbelt squeezes my stomach 
and I have to fight back every urge to just let the piss go and take my 
chances with the Wolfman's sense of humor about those types of things. 
He turns right on the county road and we drive for another minute or 
two before I see an old toll booth off to the left of the road. It's 
standing there next to the old highway road that first opened in the 
forties, abandoned now in the middle of nowhere and left to the 
creativity of the weeds that have thoroughly surrounded, climbed and 
decorated the outer walls. 

Wolfman pulls up in front of the small shack, breaking hard again so the
wheels grind against the brittle asphalt. I get out of the car as fast 
as I can, feeling the squeeze inside my stomach make its way down to my 
groin. I can hear him laughing at the way I run but I don't care 
because I see the opening to the toll booth and already my hands have 
begun fumbling with my zipper. I step inside the booth and take a good 
look around the empty box, trying to decide the best place to piss. I 
pick the back wall and aim for the graffiti near the middle, darkening 
the faded red paint and washing away some of the dirty words and love 
proclamations that had been written in marker. 

There's a photo near the top of the wall, a picture of a woman no older
than thirty with faded blonde hair and dark gray eyes. It's a portrait 
shot, but the faint hint of her shoulders reveals all the indications 
of a stunning body, the kind I could look at all day and draw every 
shadow running along each individual naked muscle. She turns blue for a 
moment, and for just that one moment all of the anxiety I've felt for 
the past two hundred miles is washed away and all I can do is think 
about this woman and where she is and if she still smiles the same way. 
Does she smile at all, or did she just feign happiness for the 
photographer? Her face turns red, her complexion darkens, and I can see 
through her faded dark eyes. I know exactly what makes her cry, what 
she's afraid of, what she's afraid to face in her life. I have those 
exact same fears. 

When I step out of the booth, Wolfman's standing in front of his car
talking to a state patrol officer. The brown car is parked right behind 
ours, its searchlight pointed in the direction of the old highway road. 
The cherries and blueberries illuminate the surrounding field: first 
red, then blue, then red again. The red forest looks like hell. The 
blue forest looks like a cheap horror movie set with a too-bright 
moon's glow casting creepy shadows under the skeletal tree branches. 
Wolfman sees me walking carefully and gives a hearty wave. 

“You feel better?” he asks, winking with his right eye so the officer
doesn't see. 

“False alarm.” I give the officer a nod. He's an old one, with sunken
eyes and a sagging belly that partially hides the front of his belt. 
He's wearing a short-sleeved uniform, revealing two hairy, ape-like 
arms. “I didn't puke.” 

The officer glances down at the I.D. card in his hand, then returns his
gaze to the Wolfman. “You live around here, Dave?” 

Wolfman frowns and doesn't answer. 

“Huh?” the officer asks, giving Wolfman another few seconds. “You gonna
answer for me?” 

The Wolfman still doesn't answer. He's managed to keep a pretty steady
calm, except for his legs. If the officer looks down now, he'll see two 
wobbly knees and a hell of a lot of bare calf muscle jiggling. Then the 
gig would be up, for sure. I don't know exactly what I'd go to jail 
for, but I probably wouldn't be left standing here in the middle of 
nowhere. 

“He's the Wolfman,” I say. “Call him the Wolfman.” 

The officer looks at me, probably to see if I'm smiling. He turns back
to the Wolfman. “You live around here, Wolfman?” 

The Wolfman's face lightens up a bit. “Black River, actually.” 

The lines on the officer's forehead smooth out. “Came to see the
fireworks down in Grand Junction this evening?” 

The Wolfman nods, smiling. “Came and went. We're just on our way back
home now.” 

The officer nods and hands the Wolfman's license back. He hooks his
thumbs in his belt, next to his gun and his can of mace. “You have 
fun?” 

We both nod, maybe a little too enthusiastically because we haven't been
cuffed yet. “We love going to Grand Junction,” Wolfman says. “Beats the 
hell out of Black River.” 

The officer smiles and nods. He's either chewing gum that he had
previously forgotten about, or he's faking it to make himself look more 
authoritative. “Understandable. And I sure as hell don't wanna ruin 
anyone's good time tonight, you know?” 

“We know,” I say. 

The officer looks at me and nods. “The last thing I wanna do is arrest a
bunch of drunks who just came down to have a little fun in our town, 
because I know how boring Black River is. I want you two to stick 
around right here for about an hour or so before you make the rest of 
the way back home, you got it?” 

“I think we can do that,” Wolfman says with a polite smile. 

The officer points one stubby finger between us. “If I catch you driving
before the hour's up, I'll throw you both in jail.” 

“Thank you, sir,” I say. We watch him get into his car and pull back
onto the main road. When the car's headlights disappear into the 
blackness, Wolfman walks over to the back seat and grabs two fresh 
beers from the cooler. I take one and we stretch out on the hood of the 
car. It's still warm from the large V-8 engine so I don't feel all that 
cold even with a night breeze across my bare arms and neck. 

Wolfman opens his beer and takes a sip. “I can't believe you wouldn't do
it.” 

“What?” I ask. 

“You wouldn't shoot,” he says. “Even if your life depended on it. Just
because maybe the fucker has a family. Maybe he's not a bad guy.” 

I take a sip of my own beer and stare up at the blank sky, resting my
head on the windshield. “Having guns didn't save those three hunters,” 
I say. 

“Probably were too much like you. And now all their families are stuck
with all the bullshit.” 

“I bet you wouldn't shoot, either.” I look at him. “I saw the way your
legs were shaking in front of that cop.” 

The Wolfman grunts. “He wasn't a cop, dipshit. He was State Patrol.” 

On the radio inside the car, the preacher's voice begins to return in
short bursts. Under his voice, the rap station's bass line grooves 
along to the homily. We spend the rest of the hour in silence, staring 
up at the stars whenever there's a break in the clouds. I can't stop 
thinking now about whether I could pull the trigger, whether I could 
kill someone else to save my own. What do I plan on accomplishing that 
would make my life so much more important? 

What does it say when you'd rather give away your life to save one of
the damned? 


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