“You’re a real psycho... a real burning, flaming, unhinged, bonkers, nutso, crazy kinda guy. You’d kill your mother for a buck, your father for the change in his pocket, kittens for a song, and strangle babies for candy. You’re a down-’n-dirty, scum-sucking, foaming-at-the-mouth, mucho, macho kinda guy,” Billy said, sneering at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.

“You’re a dangerous, hair-trigger, blood-soaked, son-of-a-bitch that smiles when he maims, sings when he cripples, and laughs when he kills. You’re dangerous, crazy, mean, nasty, and oh, so
cool –”

Doc Sneezer’s hair cream tamed the jungle of his wheat locks.

“Mommas cover their babies’ ears when they hear your name, blind men avoid your stare, cripples run away when you come a’ walkin’ – you’re one scum-sucking, fast-drawing, vicious, crazy killer,” Billy said to himself, bare chest out, gun belt low on bony hips, baby- whiskered chin out in exaggerated machismo.

“Billy, you come down here this minute,” Mama Smithew yelled from below. “Supper’s on the table.”

“What did you call me?” to the mirror, “I’m coming, Missus Smithew,” over his shoulder, to the tiled bath, echoing down.

***

The Smithew house rang with domestic harmony. The pine-shod walls of typical, traditional, cinderblock and steel cladding – set with photos and tributes to generations of kin lost to disagreement and wild shots – absorbed only so much of the talk, the laughs, the low-playing band music. The paintings of gone relatives, sporting in postures of dignity and preparedness, bounced against the walls with the actions of the family rustling around getting another Sunday dinner ready.

“Did you wash your hands?” Mountain of Mom, Ma Smithew, inspected the neighbor boy’s mitts. Billy Hitch complied with visible restraint: the cool demeanor of the macho vicious killer buried. Ma and Pa Hitch were in Dodge for an Aunt’s marriage – and their regular family backup was with them. Still, the giantess grated on his bravado, and he positively ached to draw and plug. But while youthgranted much – fast healing, good reflexes, keen eyes – Ma Smithew could still cripple a flea off a limping dog at twenty paces: Had to have lived as long as she had and raised and buried so many of her own fast-fingered young ‘uns. “There’s something dark and farm here, Billy-Boy, but that’s probably the best as you can do, I guess.” She swatted him towards his seat at the table, putting the safety back on her pearl-gripped Widow-maker, and set to straightening the tablecloth.

Grandpa, an old wrinkled tablecloth himself, gray and white around his frayed edges, sat in his carved wooden throne depicting great moments in the winning of the West from the Unarmed Indians. “Goddamned sissies, goddamned pussies, goddamned freeloaders...” he drooled with tracking eyes and the sights on his ancient Colt revolver, as tired, rusted and tarnished as he was, trying to follow, and target, the scurrying actions of his descendants.

No panic, no ducks, no return fire: Papa was a figurehead and Unloaded – though no one was mean enough to mention it. Taken for granted was that the colt was froze and empty (gift from dead-and- buried Grandma, shot down in an honorable fashion: two for one sale at the Pixie Mart), and that Mama Smithew would always, always check that Grandpa’s hammer hit empty air.

“Mama! Rob’s almost here and the table’s not done!” “Hush it, child. The boy’s got minutes yet.” “Oh, Mama, am I pretty enough? Is he gonna fall for me?” Cluck-cluck. “You’re painted up more than a banker’s house, child.

I can’t smell your Pa’s cordite for the flowers of you.” “Oh, Mama, you just don’t like me looking pretty.”

“Nothing wrong with looking womanly, girl, but you’d just better have the good ol’ firepower to tell all your admirers, ‘no.’”

“Oh, Mama, he’s not that kind of boy. He keeps himself in his holster like a good man should.”

“He ain’t nothing but a sissy, then, is he? He ain’t nothing but a damned preacher – watch him water the roses when he faces a man’s piece.”

“Goddamned sissies, goddamned pussies...”

“Grandpa, you shouldn’t say that ‘bout someone you’ve never ever met! And Billy Hitch, you keep a civil tongue in your head or so help the Lord, I’m gonna shoot it right outa you –”

“Christina, you leave the boy alone. Sure, he’s a trigger happy little bastard, but we have to be civil to the neighbors. Now you just remember what happened to the Vernons and the Hastings –”

– now just the click, click, click on Geiger counters. A concrete memorial to neighborhood civility and local arms reduction ordinances

“Oh, Mama, he’s just a worm.”

“He’s a guest of this here family, is what he is.” A cannon-fire voice, deep rumbling gravel tones, an avalanche of words – Pa, coming in from out of the cooling night, slapping dusty hands on dustier pants: “You treat him right, you hear, Christina? That means civil and respectful – or sure as he and your beau will be eating yer Mama’s fine fixin’s while you break and clean your pistol in your room tonight. Do we have an understanding?”

“Yes, Papa,” head down low, hands clearly away from her pearl- handles.

“That’s good,” Papa said, hands slowly floating away from his own chrome automatics, eyes never leaving hers, or her hands. “Now you help yer Mama with supper while I go up and wash the fields off me.”

“Goddamned sissies, goddamned pussies...”

“Yes, Papa.” Eyes half-way down, locked on Billy’s smirking face and his hand fluttering towards a child’s cheap leather holster, towards cobalt-blue revolver (a 12th birthday toy: .22). With the practiced grace of winter schooling at Miz Hanover’s School of Defensive Charm, Christina drew and clicked her own hammer at his pimples. Billy kept his tongue out and reached down.

The doorbell. Of all of them, only Late Uncle Larry’s portrait got tagged: the bubble-glassed, black-creped photo with stiff and curling black roses exploded off the wall. A hollow-point from Christina’s lady-like pearl-handled left a splinter-ragged tear in the living room wall. Plaster was incense in the air, and she crunched and crackled as she sprinted to the door.

“Damnit! No Gunplay In The House!” A cannon’s roar from upstairs and the thunder of Papa’s footsteps from bathroom to the landing.

“Goddamned sissies, goddamned pussies...”

Eula, their Unarmed Woman, scurried out from her sandbagged bunker under the stairs, dustpan in one hand, broom in the other, weaving and ducking, ducking and weaving – even though the only thing that followed was verbal.

“Christina! I’ve told you before –” started Mama as she swung out of the kitchen, drawn, cocked and ready.

“Damnit, how many times have I –” Papa said, rounding the stairs with earthquakes of his good rattlesnake boots, shotgun pumped and itching at his hip.

“Crazy, no good, screaming chicken bitch –” young Billy said as she reached for the brass skull of the front door, too inexperienced to think of drawing.

“Rob..,” she said through the chaos and perfume of cordite, eyes too wide for her face as she opened onto a now-dark prairie night, and a striking figure in white hat, white breaches, white vest (because of blood stains, white was considered fancy and peaceful dress).

“Good evening Christina Smithew, and how are you on this temperate evening?”

“Rob, you shouldn’t say such things...” Eyelashes batting, eyelashes batting.

“Are you going to make him stand out there all night, girl? Supper’s ready and it’ll only get cold.”

“I was just going to escort the handsome young Mr. Pommer inside, Mama.” A beaming smile of perfect porcelain (dentists are always perfect and painless where biting the bullet has a special meaning), to her beau. “Will you please accompany me inside, Mr. Pommer?”

“I would be delighted. This temperate climate seems to be getting a mite chilly.”

“We’ll see about warming you right up, Mr. Pommer.” “Now, Christina, you keep your hormone talk civil, you here?” “Yes, Mama.”

“Are you quick? I’ll bet you’re not. I’ll bet you ain’t got what it takes. I’ll bet ya can’t hit yerself with a shotgun. I say you’re as yella as corn, and as slow as snow.”

“Shut up, worm. Now, Mr. Pommer – Rob – why don’t you have a seat and I’ll see about dinner.”

Stepping into the hallway – traditional with the expected reinforcing and bullet-resistance – Robert Pommer made the polite sign of entering another’s home: against the wall and spread. Papa Smithew returned the greeting with equal politeness, frisking the young houseguest, checking his little sport pistol for abnormal rounds before sticking it back into Rob’s holster and turning the young lad away from the wall. “Nice to have you here, Rob. Christina’s been nothing but fawning over your name for the last week.”

“Papa!” from the portal to the clatter and steam of the kitchen.

“Hush, girl, you know it’s true. Or are you callin’ your Papa out on a count a’ lying?”

“No, Papa, I’m not doing that –” Papa was the fastest draw in the house “– here, Rob, here’s your special place, right here at the head of the table.”

“I was just makin’ some peaceable chat with your Pa, Christina.”

“Face up to it, son, there’s damned little you can do about this kinda thing – save plug them with nickel lead. But then where’d all us men be, with nothin’ ta do all day but ping each other then. Not proper, it would be. Not right, not Christian.”

“Christina, why don’t you go see about the supper while I goes about serving the greens and fixins’.”

“Yes, Mama.” Then to the chiseled features at the head of the Smithew table: I’ll be right back with the best damned dinner as you ever did have, Rob, you wait and see.”

“Christina! I’ve told you about profanity in the house. How’d you like a flesh wound to remind your petty, heathen soul – “

“Sorry, Mama. I was just –”

“I know what you were doing, child. I knows exactly what you were doing. Now get ta fetching that supper before I take a shotgun to your scatter-brained self.”

“I’m going, Mama. I’m going.” To the chiseled, “Be back soon, Rob.”

“You’re chickenshit, aren’t you? I’ll bet you ain’t never even pointed and said ‘bang’. Ain’t that so? Ain’t there a yellow streak as wide as yer shadow at set runnin’ down yer back – I’ll betcha you cry when you hear a crack of a shot, thinking it coulda been you.”

“Goddamned sissies, goddamned pussies...”

“Billy! You watch your mouth! Or do I have to remind you that you are a guest in this here house, just as well.”

“It’s okay Mrs. Smithew, ah don’t mind. I have a little orphaned cousin just like him over in Colt Springs. He’s just full of spark and damned little sense. He’ll be okay; he’ll either cool down some once he gets his first real taste of lead and cordite, or his mamma will just swear on his cold corpse fer him bein’ so stupid. (sigh) As kin and allies of kin we just gotta try to educate him to responsible relations with his fellow armed betters or start thinkin’ about buryin’ him real early.”

“Why you chickenshit, mother-humping, yellow.”

In the next room. The kitchen knife, wiped clean of her blood, was back on its hook. Lady like finger over the mouth of the bottle, she mixed its contents with hers. Then, bending secret and covert over a steaming plate of hearty farm food, Christina emptied the little bottle. Little dabs of rust, flecked blood, on golden corn, slab of steak, on mountain of potatoes capped with melting butter, on asides of cloudy biscuits – then a little artistic smearing of that ladylike finger to hide the results of her orchestrations. Bottle then back, warm and hidden, down creamy white cleavage, label making a gentle itch between young breasts.

DR. GUNN’S MIRACLE LOVE DROPS – GUARANTEED BY THE MARVELOUS DR. GUNN TO MAKE THE CONSUMER REFLECT AND EXPERIENCE       GENUINE, HEARTFELT ADMIRATION FOR THE DONATION OF A DROP, OR TWO, OR THREE, OF LIFE’S BLOOD INTO THE PURE MIXTURE BEFORE CONSUMPTION. NO MONEY RETURNED... the rest of it had been rubbed away by those same youthful breasts and certain eager fondlings during infatuated late nights.

As hocked and praised by the scarecrow himself, a flapping great bird in academic robes and mortar board. Longevity proving his reputation and quality – in the land of bullet complaints. He’d lauded and sold, praised and handed out his variety of wares, till the sun was dull on the horizon and the audience had departed to consume their goods with confidence, leaving the confused and infatuated Smithew girl.

Experience had given him the gaze of an eagle. Finger to lips, he’d dug in the cluttered interior of his gaudy tank, finally producing a dusty trunk, which gave up a gold silk bag, which then was a tiny bottle in his thin, boned hand. The price was reasonable, even for a girl on only an ammunition allowance. She left with a bounce in her step –

– just like the one that carried her from kitchen to dining and put lovely music in her voice when she said, “A special meal for my – OUR special dinner guest. I hope you enjoy it, Rob. I made it extra special, just for you.”

“Isn’t that like the girl, to take credit for her own mother’s fine cooking hand.”

“Oh, Papa, give the girl some room to make special for her man tonight.”

“Now you restrain yourself, Rob Pommer, while I go fetch the rest of dinner. I’ll only be gone a second.”

“You take your time, Christina. I wouldn’t want you to take to me special, and deprive your kin of their supper.”

Then she was gone, back into the bustle and rattle of the farmhouse kitchen:

“Well, being a MAN sure gives me a MANLY appetite. I think I’ll just help myself to these-here tasty-looking fixings, if I may. Being a cold-hearted man-killing monster has just given me a ravenous hunger.”

“Billy, now you just put that plate right back in front of Mr. Pommer. He’s a respectful houseguest, and you should be treating him as such.” Cool words, with an undertone of civilized irritation. Still, Papa Smithew’s hand didn’t quaver, or dip, and his automatic didn’t same from it’s sight on Billy’s cherubic forehead. Billy looked up with maybe his first fear at the gun’s tunnel, and swallowed, loud.

“Now, Mr. Smithew, don’t waste slugs over the matter. I’m sure Christina’s special meal will be special no matter whose plate is whose. Besides, I like to see these young ‘uns get a taste of their little paradise till their first firefight shows them the error ah their ways.”

“Yer, right, I guess, Rob. Yeah, can’t waste the little maggot over something like this. Besides, gotta keep up the neighborly truce, and all – wouldn’t be civil and Christian at the supper table, now, would it?” Papa said, spinning his chrome shooting iron into his holster.

Taking a slow, whistling breath to restore his powerful, maniac cool, Billy smiled smug and smarmy before stuffing his leering maw with potatoes, biscuits, gravy and, again, loudly swallowing.

“God above,” sighed Mama, clicking off her safeties under the table, “eating before Grace...”

And then came Christina, arms full. “I hope you resisted the temptation, Robert Pommer, to taste my special treats, cause, after all, it is considered polite and civil to wait for the others to be served...” The plates in her arms by the law of gravity, avalanched to the floorboards. Their Unarmed Servant peeked, frightened and wild- eyed, from under the stairs at the mess, judging the spill against a squabble where she could catch a hot slug.