The squirrel problem having escalated past the point of mere annoyance, Sid Wiley was reminded of the war and how much like it there was in the world. He made the observation wearily though somewhat smugly. At fifty-one, he was convinced that the universe, was, by nature, an antagonistic place, brimming over with mischief and ill-will--like a gaggle of boys snickering at their own flatulence and horselaughing at the misfortunes of passers-by. A psychologist, he was inclined to make connections, and it had been only a matter of time before the onslaught of the squirrels encouraged comparisons with Vietnam: how his wife had been as insistent as the draft when trying to talk him into hanging the birdfeeder; or how his pre-induction live-and-let-live attitude toward the war had been so much like his more recent air of good-natured indifference toward rodents--how both, given the proper circumstances, so easily hardened into jagged nuggets of enmity.
At first, he thought it silly to compare the war to a squirrel infestation, but finally decided it was more a matter of scale than classification. Hadn't the pesky creatures managed to provoke in him an abject hatred of just about everything fuzzy and four-legged? He imagined it was the same way the Vietnamese must have felt about all the round-eyes showing up in the neighborhood, throwing their weight around until everybody was hell-bent on killing everybody else. Sometimes, huddled in the dark of the jungle, poised for an ambush, he had toyed with the idea that if he were to meet some Viet Cong or NVA in a bar, have a beer and talk things out, that they might actually like one another, decide it was all a big mistake. Everyone could go home happy. Then the pop! of a flare, the blast of claymores, the chatter of small arms. So much for thought: he was ready to kill every gook motherfucker in the Eastern hemisphere.
Wiley knew that the simple solution to the squirrels would have been to take down the birdfeeder, which his wife, not he, had been so gung ho to buy in the first place, but he hadn't counted on liking the birds so much. The chickadees were his favorites, the nuthatches a close second. Unassuming creatures. Grateful even. Unlike the squirrels, who just helped themselves.
“Daddy? What are you doing?” Wiley's daughter Ingrid was eight years old, a lover of all things feathered or furred.
Wiley threw his hand up for silence. He sat vigilant, in his boxers, his thick hirsute torso straining forward from the edge of the chair, ready to spring. A squirrel stole across the patio, stopped, and craned its head up at the feeder dangling from the roof overhang.
Wiley charged the sliding glass door, pounded it with his palms, bellowed like a Cape buffalo. The squirrel clawed for traction on the concrete, then bounded into the yard and halfway up the trunk of a nearby oak.
Ingrid giggled.
Wiley turned and frowned at her. “What?” he said.
“Oh, Daddy! You're funny.” She giggled again. “Breakfast is ready,” she said, then disappeared.
Wiley hurled the door open and stepped onto the patio. The squirrel clung to the trunk of the oak, its back contorted to get a good look at him. Its tail twitched time to its agitated barking. Something fungal bloomed inside Wiley. He wished he had his shotgun.
Jean and Ingrid sat side-by-side at the dining room table, leaning toward each other conspiratorially, unaware of Wiley's entrance. The copper brown symmetry of Jean's hair was like praying hands, turned under at the base of her neck--a prelude to the angle of her slightly paler shoulders bearing the straps of a blue denim sundress. Ingrid's disintegrating helmet of inquisitive black curls was Wiley's primary contribution to his daughter's genetic mosaic.
The two broke out sniggering. Most likely, they were laughing at him--his problem with the squirrels. Jean didn't understand it. A vegetarian and a Buddhist, she loved all life. The sacredness of it.
Jean and Ingrid noticed him and broke into song: “Good morning to you, good morning to you! We're all in our places with bright shiny faces. Good morning to you!” More sniggering.
Wiley smiled wanly and sat across from them, in front of a plate heaped with scrambled eggs and two plump sausages that made him suspicious.
“These pork?” he asked. Wiley loved pork sausage.
“Tofu,” Jean said. “But they taste just like meat!”
“Yeah, Dad, they do!” Ingrid, fisting her fork, gave him a squinty gap-toothed grin. Her mother made sure the girl never ate meat.
He cut into one of the sausages and took a bite. The meat of what?
He hurried through breakfast, all the while plagued by the image of the squirrel swaggering toward the birdfeeder. It would decimate the food supply in minutes if Wiley let it. Poor chickadees. Damn squirrels.
Sure enough, when Wiley returned to the living room, the squirrel was back at it, one tiny arrogant hind foot clutching the nail from which the feeder hung, its body molded to the tube, its snout stuffed into the bottom port. Wiley saw red, charged the door. He pounded and yelled. The squirrel leapt to the column to the ground and hightailed it back to the oak. Wiley stepped out from under the patio roof in time to see the squirrel casually bound up a limb, hop gleefully onto another, and disappear into the canopy of leaves. His shotgun occurred to him again. But he knew he couldn't fire a gun in the neighborhood.
“God, Wiley, it sounded like you were brawling with someone!”
Jean stood in the doorway, Ingrid next to her.
“It's these god damn squirrels!”
Ingrid and Jean giggled. “They're just doing what's natural for them,” Jean said. “They've got to eat, too.”
“Not here they don't!”
“If it bothers you that much, why don't you get one of those squirrel-proof feeders?”
Wiley bristled. The remark sounded as though feeding birds was his idea in the first place.
Squirrel-proof feeders? His lack of bird feeding techno-savvy suddenly left him feeling sheepish.
“Those things don't work,” he said. Or maybe they do. He didn't really care. He ought to be able to hang any kind of birdfeeder he wanted to in his own backyard. It was the principle of the thing.
“Hey, Wiley! Nice duds!” Dobbs, Wiley's neighbor, grinned over the top of the stockade fence. Wiley looked down at his boxers, then threw up a wave. Jean and Ingrid giggled again. Wiley bristled again. As he headed inside, he peered up into the oak canopy but saw no sign of the squirrel. He knew it would be back.
His Sunday was ruined. He knew and accepted this. He plopped into the chair in front of the sliding glass door and waited for the squirrel.
Thirty minutes later, it started again, and each time a squirrel stole onto the patio, he smacked the glass to spook it away. Each time he did, Ingrid--romping at the back of the yard--stopped and looked. Jean--pretzeled into a lotus position--grew more and more irate.
“For god's sake, Wiley, I'm trying to meditate!”
“Oh, but look!” he said. “The chickadees! The nuthatches! They're so enjoying the food that's still there. The food the squirrels would otherwise make off with if I weren't guarding it. How satisfying it is to participate in the wonderful circle of life!”
“Then just take the damn thing down!” she said, stalking upstairs.
“It was your idea!” he shouted after her. In the silence, he bolstered his indignation by reminding himself that women always started things they didn't want to see through to the end. The squirrel appeared on the patio, creeping toward the column.
Thwack! The rodent bolted.
Wiley's hand stung.
“For crying out loud!” Jean shouted from the bedroom.
Even Wiley wondered how long he could keep it up. Then he noticed his reflection in the glass--the boxers, the hairy sagging chest, the drag of his shoulders. Guarding a birdfeeder. He thought back to when he used to guard a fire base perimeter. The comparison made him sink inside. He used to be a genuine warrior. He'd hated it. Was scared shitless most of the time. But it was war. His war. And even though he--nineteen at the time--was fairly certain it was a pointless war, he did his duty. To the end. In the intervening years he had become increasingly glad that he had. That he bore the fear honorably. Jean couldn't understand the feeling, couldn't understand war. She was an only child, ten years younger than Wiley. At the time, Vietnam had been just one more uninteresting adult utterance, as incomprehensible to her as a world without dolls.
All at once, a chickadee lit on one of the birdfeeder's perch pegs and started snatching seed. Wiley straightened up and the bird cocked its black-capped head at him, first one way, then the other. It stabbed its beak into the feeder for more food, then looked again at Wiley. The look betrayed a sense of understanding. Suddenly, his task as scarecrow no longer seemed so silly. But he couldn't sit there forever. He had to develop a strategy. Like in war.
The bird flitted away and Ingrid appeared in front of him, breathless and perspiring, her face flush. He slid the door open.
“What's up, kiddo?”
“A butterfly!” she said, breathless. “I was following it. Why're you standing here?”
“Just watching the birds. Were you trying to catch it?”
Ingrid cocked her head. “Not really. I didn't want to hurt it. It was really pretty. Orange and black.”
Children. Always see the beauty. He tried to see the squirrels' beauty and admitted they were cute, all right.
“What if the butterfly did something you didn't like?”
Ingrid just looked at him.
“Like what if it ate a hole in your favorite sweater.”
Ingrid said nothing for a moment, then rolled her eyes as though she had wised up to a practical joke.
“Oh, Daddy, butterflies don't eat sweaters!”
“But what if it did? What if it ate a big hole in your favorite sweater? Would you want to catch it then?”
Ingrid shifted her weight, pulled at some of her curls, obviously stumped by the desperation of his logic.
“I like butterflies!” she finally said and skipped away.
Before long, the squirrel appeared again. Wiley almost smacked the glass, but thought of Jean. He jumped up, flailed his arms, danced about. The squirrel rose to its hind legs and sniffed the air in Wiley's direction. The gesture infuriated Wiley.
Thwack!
The glass shuddered, the squirrel bolted, Jean yelled.
Wiley hated squirrels.
The following Friday, Wiley was beside himself. The entire week he had had to endure the frustration of coming home each afternoon to find the birdfeeder empty, ravaged by the squirrels. He felt taken advantage of. Violated. He stood at the sliding glass door wondering what to do. Give it up. It's stupid.
Then a chickadee lit on the feeder, poked its head into the port, and withdrew its empty beak. It cocked its head about in apparent wonder, seemed to implore Wiley for an answer. Why no food?
Wiley stiffened. Enough is enough. He'd beat the damn squirrels one way or the other. Even if he had to swallow his pride and do it Jean's way.
On his way back out the door, he met Jean and Ingrid returning from Ingrid's ballet lesson. His daughter's leotard was like the skin of an otter, his wife's expression, the stare of an inquisitor. The tone of her questioning validated the metaphor. She had every right to ask where he was going. The affair he'd had three years earlier with Carmen--a meat-eating, gin-swilling rodeo-ride of a girl--had often kept him out late on Fridays.
“But can't it wait until tomorrow?” Jean said. “It'll be dark soon.”
“They come early. I want to be ready.” Both Jean and Ingrid looked as though they were waiting for more. “The squirrels,” he added.
“Ready? To do what?”
Wiley didn't even know himself. “That's what I'm going to find out.”
“Maybe Ingrid would like to go with you.”
Ingrid's expression went momentarily slack, then gathered into a grin which she offered to Wiley on a face from a tissue advertisement. She stepped up and took his hand.
“C'mon, Dad, let's go.”
The feel of his daughter's hand--cool as corn silk, as fragile as trust--reminded him of the chickadee, turned him nearly giddy with love. He forgot where they were going until they were in the car buckling up.
Wiley craned around to back out of the drive and noticed Ingrid gazing up at him like he was the god of all good. The warmth of his love for her came with something extra--the cold hand of dread fanning the air between them, flagging for his attention, reminding him of his limits, his helplessness in the face of certain dangers which he had confronted and which might one day confront even his daughter. The war had left him with lingering doubts about the world, had impressed on him his real impotence even with gun and grenades at his side. It was a feeling that initially brought with it his resolve never to have a child, never to put someone more helpless than even himself in a position to be assailed by such a mad world. His marriage to Jean had been the beginning of his slide into the murky pit of compromise, his affair, little more than an effort to shore up the wall that kept him separated from his fear of all that could happen to his wife and daughter. He thought he wouldn't have much time to dwell on the vagaries of human existence while humping such a fun-loving virtual stranger as Carmen. But he soon discovered that the flight of his youth had left him too slow to dodge the jackboots of reality marching over him to the cadence of his own aging.
Wiley eased the Volvo into a space right in front of Fins, Feathers, and Fur.
“Are you going to buy something for the birds?” Ingrid asked.
For a moment, he savored the mental image of a pissed-off squirrel eying flocks of birds frolicking around a rodent-proof feeder.
“I hope so,” he said.
The sales clerk's name tag read “Igman.” The name was perplexing to Wiley but no more so than the boy's studded eyebrow and spiky blonde hair. His acne was reassuringly normal. Ingrid seemed taken with him--his liberal use of “dude,” “awesome,” “little sister.” Wiley worried what boys would be like by the time she was old enough to date.
After a brief interaction with Ingrid, Igman asked if he could help Wiley with any special feeding needs. Wiley nearly broke into comic familiarity with the boy--Special needs? Have I got a special need for you!--but thought he might sound like an unfunny old fart.
“Squirrels,” Wiley said.
Igman said nothing more, just turned and led the way down the aisle. He stopped in front of a shelf where there were boxes of birdfeeders which the pictures on the front revealed to be not unlike his own tubular one except for the addition of a large inverted cone suspended above it.
“Just what you need,” Igman said in a nasal California surfer plea. “They slide off of this thing, kiss the earth a few times and, dude, it's not long before the little butt-for-brains get the skinny.”
Wiley frowned, confused.
Igman grew more animated: “Bird food hurts!”
Wiley wasn't particularly impressed with Igman's sales pitch, but was drawn to the part about pain.
“I'll take one,” he said.
Igman beamed and nodded. “Cool!”
Wiley grew disappointed during the drive home. He would have preferred something a little more proactive than the new feeder--something which would have given him more of a direct hand in frustrating the squirrels. Something really antagonistic. Down and dirty. Electric shock. Or maybe some kind of water torture.
Ingrid's voice intruded: “Daddy, it won't really hurt the squirrels, will it?”
Wiley shot her a glance. Was she reading his mind?
“What?”
“Like that man said. The squirrels won't hurt themselves, will they?” Her brow was furrowed.
“No, pumpkin. Squirrels are really tough. No way they'll hurt themselves,” he said, patting the box on the seat between them. She topped his hand with hers. He melted. Maybe the new feeder was the best solution.
When they got home, they were met by the aroma of curry and brown rice. Wiley hoped the curry at least had chicken in it. Sitar music jangled through the house.
Jean exaggerated her surprise when Ingrid showed her the feeder. She turned toward Wiley, her eyes brimming with appreciation. Or relief maybe. Was it because he'd settled the squirrel problem peacefully, harmoniously--like a Buddhist would have? Or was it because he had proven to her that he really wasn't slipping out to go do the two-step with some lap dancer down at Philanderers-Are-Us?
“Thank you,” she said and gave him a hug.
An involuntary surge of gallantry swelled Wiley.
After dinner, Wiley hung the new feeder. It was late September, and the chill of the static air hovered around him like a test proctor. In the yard, just beyond the glare of the floodlights, Ingrid dashed back and forth, singing unintelligible rhymes and talking to herself. Jean had gone to the university to hear Rinpoche something-or-other talk about the nature of ego, animals, and the imperative of peaceful co-existence. Wiley had managed to suppress a smirk when she told him.
He didn't bother removing the old feeder--maybe he could use it again once the squirrels got the message--and hung the new one a few feet from it. After filling it, he sat down on a lawn chair to smoke his pipe (Jean wouldn't be home for a good hour, and Ingrid always seemed intrigued to participate in the secrecy of his clandestine persistence at what Jean insisted was a “foul, deadly habit.”)
Ingrid ducked into the fort Wiley built for her over the summer. All wood, two stories, quite a project. Her face appeared at a downstairs window then disappeared only to reappear seconds later at one of the upstairs windows. It filled Wiley with sadness. He had once been carefree like Ingrid, wandering the vastness of his family's farm, wondering about everything, worrying about nothing. But that was before he came face-to-face with the reality of life--how drastically things could change at the flash of an explosion, the pop of a rifle round. Even after he returned, the cacophony of war had simply transformed into the bluster of rush hours, the bickering of colleagues, the discord of domestic life. At least the war provided a means to control the chaos: kill the source.
Suddenly, Ingrid shrieked. The diligent flapping of a bat swooped and veered above her. She ran toward Wiley.
“I think it was trying to get me!” she laughed, breathless.
Wiley's head hitched with an acknowledging laugh. He drew off his pipe.
“You're way too big for him,” he said. Life was the real predator. He wished with all his might that he could warn her of this and at the same time protect her from it forever. “He was probably looking to build a nest in your hair.”
Ingrid shuffled toward him.
“A bat?" she said. "They don't make nests. Do they?” Her forehead glistened with perspiration. She drew up next to Wiley and aimlessly patted his arm. He could feel the heat radiate off her and worried that she shouldn't be standing around sweating in the cool air. He started to suggest she go inside.
“What birds will eat out of that?” she said, pointing at the new feeder.
“Same ones that ate out of the other one, I suppose.”
“And the squirrels?”
A brief smile, spiked with a hint of mischief, broke on Ingrid's face. It reminded him of Jean. He imagined he heard I-told-you-so the way one hears the moan of the ocean in a conch shell. His forehead tightened. Ingrid hugged his biceps and laid her head on his shoulder. His pique dissipated.
Behind them, the gritty slide of the glass door was followed by Jean's voice: “Ingrid, honey! Look at how you're dressed.”
Ingrid straightened up off Wiley's shoulder. Wiley didn't bother to turn around. He just watched Ingrid's changing expression as she dealt with her mother--secondhand interaction, the shadow of reality flickering on the wall of Plato's cave.
“You're going to get sick!” Jean said. The subtext of the remark was that Wiley was responsible for this impending illness, that it was he who allowed his daughter to play in the dark damp air while wearing nothing but a T-shirt and a pair of shorts.
At first, Ingrid's face was all round-eyed wonderment, but quickly relaxed into her disarming smile. “Mother--please!”
“Come on. Let's get you into the tub.”
Ingrid rolled her eyes and went tsk! Her hand slipped off Wiley's arm and the absence of it bore on him like a weight which slowly dissolved to Ingrid's comic protestations fading into the living room and up the stairs. The air quivered with Jean's presence.
“You should have heard the lecture,” she said finally. “It had a lot to do with the illusion of the ego.”
Wiley said nothing, just leisurely puffed his pipe until the door closed behind him, surprised that Jean didn't bitch at him for smoking.
That night, he dreamt he was the alpha wolf of a huge pack of wolves ranging through the streets of a city at night. He was acutely aware of everything: the rhythm of his panting, the four-footed padding of hundreds of paws, the damp of the night, the still emptiness of the city streets. He was a wolf. All at once, the street they were running down flared into a large town square. The denizens of the city were milling around naked. The pack rushed past him and tore into the crowd, savagely attacking the people. Wiley spotted a beautiful young woman who saw him and extended her arms to him. He ran to her, leapt up on his hind legs, and was suddenly wearing pants. He felt extreme relief.
Wiley woke up laughing. Jean wrenched around, gave him a sleepy frown, then dropped back onto her pillow with a groan. On the nightstand, the glare of the digital clock boasted four thirteen. The mumble of a passing car agitated the silence, and the curtains, luminescent with streetlight, billowed slightly. Wiley wished it were an indication of a presence. A benevolent presence. Something that would help him decipher the meaning of the dream. The meaning of his laughter. The meaning of the woman sleeping next to him. But there was no such presence.
At five twenty, after lying awake in the shadowy stillness of the room, Wiley got up and went downstairs. He wanted to be waiting when it grew light, wanted to be watching when the squirrels showed up, wanted to witness their frustration when they failed to breach the new birdfeeder.
The darkness of the living room was neatly divided by the tick-tock of the tambour clock sitting on the fireplace mantel. Wiley stumbled and groped his way to the sliding glass door and drew back the curtain. A predawn murk bathed the yard in primer gray. The two birdfeeders hung side-by-side--the one empty, the other full--and Wiley derived a sense of satisfaction from a vague intuition that there was, represented in the scene, some symbol of human progress. Evolution. The supplantation of the old and outmoded with the new and improved.
The protective cone poised above the new feeder looked sturdy, capable, like the turret of a castle bulwark. He stood admiring it for a moment, then the twitch of his nose drew his attention to the presence of his own ghostly reflection in the glass, and he went to the kitchen to make coffee.
By the time Wiley returned to the living room, the dawn had clarified into a reluctant vanilla. Abandoned, Ingrid's fort looked stoic, as though resigned to the presence of the oak and pine trees that might have sneaked up on it in the dark. He opened the door, set a chair a few feet back from it, and made himself comfortable. The cool metallic-smelling air pimpled his skin. He sipped his coffee and waited.
When the squirrel appeared, stealing across the patio, Wiley instinctively froze, then relaxed, realizing that there was no need to react so. He was prepared. Besides, the squirrel couldn't see him in the shadow of the lightless living room.
The squirrel made its way to the corner post, shinnied up, and scurried across the joist to the first feeder. It clutched the nail with its hind paw, stretched vertically, and buried its face in one of the feeder's ports. It withdrew, arched its back, and looked around. Wiley was giddy with satisfaction. The squirrel scrunched back up to the joist and went to the other feeder. It hesitated at first, then descended the cord upside down. When it reached the hood, it gingerly tested the surface several times with its paw, then hauled itself back up.
There, you little bastard! Wiley gloated, reproaching himself for ever having been so reactive to a bunch of stupid squirrels. Why on earth hadn't he thought things out and come up with a rational solution to begin with? Wasn't that what humans did, what separated them from dumb animals in the first place? All the while, the squirrel was traversing the joist back and forth, pausing, craning its little skull down at the feeders.
Wiley saw it but didn't pay any attention--he'd won--until the animal lowered itself back down the length of the empty feeder.
“Dumbass,” he muttered.
Almost immediately--as if to say, Not so fast there, Wiley, pal--the squirrel slid nose first down the feeder until its front paws rested on the circular catch tray and it was able to wriggle its haunches down. From that impossibly awkward position, it eyed the other feeder, fidgeted briefly, then sprang into the air.
The acrobatic display brought Wiley's train of thought to a screeching halt. Later, he would swear the entire moment took place in slow motion, would insist that the squirrel did a midair somersault like some show-off trapeze artist as it looped through space and landed smack against the full feeder.
With its hind legs supported by the spill tray, its forelegs clutching two of the perch pegs, the squirrel dug in.
Wiley nearly spewed his coffee, sat paralyzed, as though waiting for the next scene in a bizarre nightmare. The squirrel's happily masticating mouth finally sent him raging up off the chair and onto the patio.
He bellowed and slung the rest of his coffee at the squirrel.
As deftly as it had negotiated the new feeder, the squirrel shoved off back into the air, landed in the yard, and scampered up the nearest tree. Perched on a limb, it started grooming itself.
Wiley hurled his cup into the tree, then paced about the patio, cursing himself half blind to the fact that he could remedy the glitch with the new feeder by simply removing the old one. The half of him that could still see knew this, but deep down he rather enjoyed his ranting, like an old dog comforted by the sound of its own bark.
At nine o'clock sharp, Wiley was on the phone to Fins, Feathers, and Fur asking for Igman.
“Igman here.”
“Igman? Sid Wylie. I'm calling to let you know your birdfeeder doesn't work.”
Silence. Then: “Uh... I don't own a birdfeeder.”
“Nothing wrong with that. But I do. You sold it to me yesterday and it doesn't work. A squirrel breached the rampart, so to speak.”
Recognition swelled the connection: “Dude! I remember! The Squirrel Master.”
Wiley rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, we hear a lot of that,” Igman said.
“Maybe you should've told me that before I bought it. Would've saved me the trip I'm gonna have to make to return it.”
“Hey, I didn't say the thing never works. I thought you might be one of the lucky ones.”
“Well, so much for thought. I'll see you shortly. Bye.”
“Wait!” Igman said. There was a brief rustling sound, then Igman's voice again, lower, almost conspiratorial. “The feeder's the wrong way to go.”
“Say what?”
“I'm tellin you--forget the feeder. Get a wrist rocket.”
“A wrist rocket,” Wiley repeated.
“You know. A slingshot. Short of firearms, it's the only tried and true way to keep the little turds under control. Plus, it's kinda fun actually.” Igman's voice lightened at the endorsement, then immediately grew serious again: “But I didn't tell you any of this.”
“A slingshot,” Wiley said. He was so taken by Igman's recommendation (why didn't he think of it?) that he didn't even notice that the boy had hung up.
The next two hours crawled by like an eon, during which Wiley's imagination ground out various versions of slingshots along with scenarios that all ended in personal triumph and which delighted and encouraged him in his war with the squirrels.
Jean and Ingrid got up and moved about the house like barely identifiable characters in a dream. He hadn't picked up a slingshot since he was a young boy, and had, he thought, never even heard of a wrist rocket until he shook the dust off an ancient memory of the back pages of Field and Stream and an advertisement in which a man had the elastic bands of something--of course, a wrist rocket!--stretched so far along the length of one straining arm that it seemed that if he were to release it, the wind alone would be enough to knock over a rhinoceros. And hadn't there been something mentioned in the add about hunting small game? Wiley shivered with delight, could hardly wait until Jean left to take Ingrid to her ballet class.
As soon as they were gone, he was off to the glittering aisles of K-Mart's sporting goods department. The slingshot, while not a wrist rocket--in fact, it looked newer and much improved--hung like the Holy Grail from a rack locked in a case behind the cash register. It's black tubular-steel adjustable yoke, hard plastic pistol grip, and quarter inch surgical tubing bands lent it an air of precision, of mystery almost. The clerk unlocked the case and fetched it along with two cases of steel shot. He rang it up and asked for just over fifteen dollars.
“That's all?” Wiley said.
“That's it,” the clerk said.
The day was getting better and better.
When he got home, Jean and Ingrid were still out, and he had time to familiarize himself with his new toy. (For all the slingshot's high-tech appearance, it surely wasn't powerful enough to kill any game larger than a mouse.) He went into the backyard and took a couple of practice shots at the trunk of a pine tree. The resounding thonk! of shot against wood surprised him and made him resolve to be careful. A couple of dead squirrels cluttering the yard and his karma would be shit. He chuckled at the thought.
He was impressed with how accurate the slingshot was and after eight or ten shots--when he heard Jean and Ingrid drive up--felt that he would be able to wield it well enough. He hurried to his study and stashed it in the desk drawer.
He barely got the drawer shut when Jean, passing the door, paused and gave him a suspicious look.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He bristled at her tone, at the insinuation that he was hiding something, stashing a love letter or a cocktail napkin with a phone number scribbled on it.
“Just tidying up.”
All at once, Ingrid skipped past her mother and into the room. In her silver leotard she pirouetted in front of his desk, then grinned her self-satisfaction.
“Bravissimo!” Wiley said, applauding, smugly appraising his wife, how she handled his rescue from her inquisitorial gaze. As soon as they left, he removed the slingshot and stowed it behind some books on the shelf.
The next morning, at first light, Wiley listened to Jean's rhythmic breathing for several seconds, then slipped out of bed. On his way downstairs, he looked in on Ingrid. She slept sprawled on her stomach, her mouth open, her legs tangled in the covers. Such innocence. He'd do all he could to make sure she could be a child for as long as children ought to be children. In some strange way, he was even grateful that he and Jean didn't get along. The tension seemed to keep him more vigilant of his daughter's emotional welfare.
Downstairs, he eased into the study and retrieved the slingshot and a box of shot. He went to the living room and without turning on any lights, opened the blinds and the sliding glass door. In the darkness of the room, he felt like a denned animal looking out.
The yard was awash in gray light. There was no sign of movement. No squirrels. Wiley sat his weapon on the coffee table and stepped outside to fill the feeder. He filled the new one, then, after briefly considering the slingshot, filled the old one as well. Afterwards, he looked around the yard, feigning casualness, like a spy in character, then went inside to make coffee.
The whole notion of destiny, fate, meaningful coincidence had never had much appeal to Wiley, but he had to admit he felt a twinge of something extraordinary when he returned from the kitchen to find a squirrel hunkered on the patio, peering up at the birdfeeders. It did not--could not--see Wiley in the darkness of the room as he sneaked to the coffee table for the slingshot, his hands almost trembling at the possibility of finally getting some pay back.
His attention divided between the squirrel and loading the slingshot, he carefully positioned a piece of shot in the leather pouch, taking time to make extra sure it was centered and that neither band was out of balance with the other. The squirrel moved toward the column. Wiley moved with it until he had a shot clear of the door. He was surprised and a bit sheepish to discover his heart racing and his breathing shallow with anticipation.
Just like in Vietnam.
Unwittingly holding his breath, he raised the slingshot, drew back the pouch, and let fly.
The shot pinged off the patio and hit the stockade fence at the back of the yard. He winced at the noise. The squirrel froze but didn't run. It had never encountered a slingshot before.
Dumb bastard. Wiley loaded another piece of shot.
He took a deep breath and let it out. Then another, drawing back the pouch as he exhaled slowly. When his lungs were empty, he paused, focused, and released. It surprised him to actually see the silver shot streak through the air and deliver a kiss to the animal's hindquarter. The squirrel seemed to vaporize--leapt into the air and bolted for the nearest tree. Halfway up the trunk, it stopped. Its visible eye was frantic, its entire body electric with surprise and, Wiley hoped, pain.
Giddy with glee, Wiley quickly reloaded. He moved closer to the doorway and the squirrel seemed to see him but didn't move. It started its scolding bark. Wiley took aim and fired again. The shot hit the squirrel square in the back and sent it tearing its way up into the refuge of the tree's canopy.
Wiley whooped, then clapped a hand over his mouth. It wouldn't do to wake up Jean or Ingrid. He poked his head out the door, flipped a little salute to the squirrel, and pulled a chair up next to the coffee table. He sipped his coffee with great satisfaction. It really works. This as he assessed the slingshot almost apologetically. And he hadn't pulled back anywhere near as far as he could have!
He reloaded and waited.
The silence of the morning seemed to have recovered from some great commotion. Wiley sat relaxed, content, as though he'd gotten back control of something he'd lost. The tambour clock tick-tocked purposefully. He felt so at home and settled into the feeling.
Before long, another squirrel appeared on the joist next to the feeders. Hidden by the edge of the blinds, the animal had climbed the column without Wiley's seeing him. Wiley tensed, his giddiness returning. He stood and moved slowly into position. Upstairs, a door slammed. Wiley heard it but decided he had time for one last shot. Ingrid's faint voice asked, “Where's daddy?” but Wiley focused and proceeded to take aim at the squirrel.
The squirrel seemed to want to accommodate Wiley. It hung from the nail and stretched out the length of the old feeder, unaware of Wiley's presence. Wiley's heartbeat quickened at the beauty of such an easy target. He moved closer. Even the trundle of Ingrid's footsteps on the stairs did not distract him. He paused and took a deep breath, stretched the slingshot's bands as far as he could, anticipating the squirrel's pain and surprise, could already see the rodent scampering for the tree.
“Daddy, what are you doing?” Ingrid said.
Her voice--wending through the labyrinth of his utterly focused mind--was thin, hallucinatory, and he ignored it. After all, the shot was perfect, and even it proceeded as if in a dream--the straining bands hurtling forward in slow motion, recoiling from their apex like a cobra having spit its poison. The shot sank into the back of the squirrel's neck and it dropped--thudded onto the concrete and lay motionless on its side.
Ingrid inhaled with a hiss that drew off the excess fog of Wiley's mental space, condensed it back into a brick of hard reality.
He stepped onto the patio and stood over the squirrel. Its head was twisted upward, its eyes shut tight in an accusing squint.
“Daddy?”
Ingrid stood in the doorway, the look of shock on her face like that of a GI Wiley once saw right as he was shot in the forehead. Wiley could only watch her, his chest knotting as her face contorted with the realization of what she was seeing.
“No!” she screamed, then inched backwards, shrieking. “No!”
“What in the world's going on?” Jean's voice quavered with urgency from the darkness of the room.
Ingrid turned and ran, screaming like a tea kettle, and Jean prestoed into the vacant space. Her bewildered gaze settled slowly over Wiley and, almost immediately, hardened into a frown. Her neck crooked in an angle of disdain, she crept forward, glancing from the squirrel, to Wiley, to the slingshot hanging limp at his side. All at once, her features distorted grotesquely under the weight of her own realization.
Wiley had time to think: Well, I stepped in it this time.
“How could you!” she said, her voice hushed. “How on earth could you!” She glared at him momentarily, then spun around and hurried after the sound of Ingrid's screaming.
For a moment, Wiley considered his wife's question as though it weren't rhetorical, and he wished to