" Are you okay?" 
Will nodded automatically and prodded his muted Rice Crispies with an old scratched spoon.
She stared intently at the cereal box and added, "If he does this again, I swear to God..."
He shrugged. 
"No, I mean it, if he does this again we're leaving. We are just going to leave him. No more of this," she paused, and then, "No more."She saw him glance up at the clock. It was a quarter to nine.
"Going somewhere?"
"Meeting Chris by the woods," he said looking away from her.
"Not again, Will, please, we've been through this so many times..."
He hated her for fleeting moments. In between loving her fiercely and selfishly, as only a child can love a mother, he hated her. "Don't start on Chris, okay?"
Her forehead lay cradled in her left palm, "Anyway, your dad's down there hunting." 
"So?"
She scooted her chair next to his as gently as possible, and asked, "Please don't hate me."
He got up. "I don't."
She grabbed his arm, "Wait."
"What?" 
 She started to lift up his sweater from behind, "Let me see."
"No," he said, trying to get to the door.
She slid in front of him, attempting not to cry and said, "Is it bruised?"
"How should I know, I can't see my back."
 He tried pushing past her, but she pressed her hands against the door jamb, arms outstretched in a voluntary crucifixion, blocking his escape.
"Are you in pain?"
"No."
 She knew he was lying and bowed her head, defeat cramping the muscles in what could be seen of her face and pale limbs.
"I'm fine, okay?"
Her strained voice hinged on collapse, as she said, "Yeah, well, you weren't fine last night."
Will felt the ache of tears approaching as he asked her why she just couldn't leave his father. He had asked before, and the answer was always the same; trite and unceasingly true. A whisper so shrill and pained it could only be heard as a soft scream, "Because I need him, I need him, oh God...." Will mouthed the words as she spoke them. She fell to her knees, sobbing that she was sorry, so sorry. He followed her down, said it wasn't her, it was him, and before he knew it, they had performed their unique dance of shame and regret once more.
They stared at each other. Sniffles and shaky exhalations on the kitchen floor. She put her hand on his cheek, and let it slide down his face. 
  He walked out of the house onto the frozen, yellowing lawn that led to the rotten rock road. When he got onto the road, he walked on the high part,in the middle. Either side of the center had been washed out with time, so that if he were flying above it in a plane, it would have resembled a twisted spine. He looked at the watch he'd been given in July for his sixteenth birthday, and it showed that he was late. 
He was remembering something about his mother when he heard a rifle shot. It was maybe a mile off in the pine forest ahead of him. He tried to get a fix on exactly where the shot had come from, but found this impossible, and remembered what he had been thinking of. The only time he had seen her have a seizure. Four years ago, he had gotten out of bed and gone down to the kitchen for breakfast. He found her on the floor, jerking and grunting and twisting and frothing. He didn't understand how any human being, especially a woman, and most especially his mother, could be capable of doing something that looked so unnatural, so graceless. He hadn't helped her. Instead he called his father, walked out of the house and threw up on the front lawn. 
He stood at the edge of the old road where the alfalfa fields began. He crept under the electric fence that kept the dozen or so head of cattle in their place, and made his way through the rocky, voluptuous pastures. The Jersey cows eyed him cautiously as he cut through their turf, hopscotch-like, around the minefields of dung that over-sweetened the air. The last remaining leaves of a sugar maple acquiesced to a strong, bitter wind. Will watched them fall into piles of older leaves, colorless and long rotted with time. He thought of Sarah.
 A few weeks ago they had met behind the large, wooden bandstand at the town beach. Halloween winds had kept the freshly fallen leaves in a colorful state of anarchy and music. This natural chorus surrounded the two of them and welled up within him like alcohol or love and they kissed for a long time. He moved his frozen hands all over her body, shuffled one of them under several layers of clothing and pressed it against her stomach. She jerked at its coldness, laughed and told him to quit it. He told her what troubled him, and she did not judge. She said she loved him and he believed her. Their curfews came too soon and he walked home slowly, thinking only of her.
The woods came into sight. He knew his father was close and his mouth went dry. He could smell the pine, and sensed the angry vigil Chris was holding for him. It didn't matter: Chris was the kind of kid who would get pissed off if you were late, but would never leave.
"Buy a watch, ya prick," said Chris.
"Sorry."
"Is that him?" Chris asked, referring to another rifle shot that sounded close by.
"Yeah."
"We're not gonna get shot standing here are we?"
"He's just after the deer."
"You sounded bad on the phone."   
 Will nodded.
"Again?" 
"I'm gonna kill him."
"What?
Will lifted up his bulky Irish sweater. There was a .38 caliber pistol wedged between his stomach and his blue jeans.
"Are you crazy? Where'd you get that?" Chris asked.
"Where do you think?"
Chris was shaking his head, his face was expressionless and pale, and he said, "What are you gonna shoot him for?"
"Why do you think, Christopher?" Will only called him Christopher when he wanted to make a point, or when Chris was acting stupid, like now.Chris filled twenty seconds by needlessly untying then retying his right, grass-stained Air Jordan. "It's that bad?"
"Christopher...," Will complained.
"I think you're fuckin' crazy, man."
"Hey, thanks a lot, that's what I need Chris, that's a help."
"What are you doing, is all I'm saying. I mean, I know I'm not you, like, I've got it better, but Christ, this is just the wrong thing. Do what you have to do, but not this." 
"Well what then, genius? I can't just run away-"
"Why? Sure you could. Stay with me-"
"You're dreaming, kid, you're just dreaming."
"Why?"
"Because, Chris, " Will said and started searching Chris' coat pockets.
"What?"
"Gimmee a cigarette, huh."
Chris pulled out a pack of Parliaments.
"Ah, God, Parliaments?"
"They were out of the good stuff: no Marlboro Lights, no Camel Lights."
"Why didn't you go to Cumby's?"
"`Cause they won't sell to me, just Mobil, do you want one or not?"
Will took one and the boys smoked for a while.  
 Chris smiled and said, "Can you do rings yet, you loser?"
Will laughed and tried and failed miserably, and Chris thought this washysterical, saying, "But it's so simple, it's so easy, only a complete moron can't do it."
"Chris, listen."
"I mean, you must be retarded or some-"
"Chris! Will you just listen to me for a second?"
"What?"
"After I do this, I'm gonna have to get out of here -"
"Where?"
"I can't tell you-"
"Will..."
"My uncle's."
"South America!"
"Not that one, stupid, my uncle Jimmy, in Cleveland."
"That's worse, man. What the hell do you do in Ohio? Besides, what's your uncle going to think? He'll turn you in, Will."
"Jimmy hates my dad, and he knows all about this shit between us. I read a letter he wrote to my mom last year and he predicted one of us would end up getting killed, and it's not going to be me. He's cool, he'll help me."
"You got money, though?"
"Two hundred."
"How?"
"He had it stashed in the locker, with the .38."
"Oh, God, he's gonna kill you, Will."
Another shot cracked through the pines, not more than a few hundred yards away
"Ah, man," Chris moaned, "let's get outta here."
Will squashed out his cigarette. "One favor, okay?"
Chris looked sick as hell, "What?"
"You can't tell anybody where I went, but talk to my mom and Sarah for me. Tell them I'll write when I can. Go over and see my mom now and then, look after her, she gets lonely too easy. Tell her not to hate me, okay?"
"No, you tell them yourself. You're not doing this."
"Chris-"
"No, Will-"
"You have no idea. You just can't know, you can't know what it is to be me. I wish I could make you-"
"Just leave!"
Will squinted at Chris.
"Why the hell not?"
"Because it's him or me. I'll kill myself if I have to go through this again."
Will sat down on the wet grass, pulled his feet up under him and put his head on his knees. Chris crouched beside him and draped his right hand on Will's left shoulder.
"I don't know what to tell you Will."
 "I'll bet he doesn't think he's a bad guy."
"He's a loser."
"Sometimes he brings home flowers for my mother. He cuts wood for old man Whittaker in the winter time. And when I broke my leg last summer, he told me jokes, and kept me from going out of my mind for the two months I was laid up."
"So what?"
"I dunno."
"You gonna wait for him here?"
 "No, I'll lose my nerve. I'll go find him."
 "That's stupid. He's got a gun."
"I'll surprise him."
"Not if he mistakes you for a deer, you won't."
"Yeah. Hey, I forgot," Will pulled up the left sleeve of his sweater, "Look."
"Shit...that's so cool!" Chris put his fingers on Will's left forearm. There were razor cuts there and they said, "I love S.".  "Did it hurt?"
"No," he lied, "Do me a favor? Tell her you saw it, what it said, in case she doesn't see me for a while?"
"Okay."
"Don't tell her I told you to though."
"I won't."
The boys smiled at each other. Anotherrifle shot, and then a scream.
"Was that your dad?"
Will was already running towards the pine forest. Chris shouted after him, but he did not stop.
 
He walked soundlessly through the pines, fallen needles cushioning every step, lofty branches knitting a kaleidoscope of light and shadow on everything below. Sunbeams were strewn throughout the narrow clearing like fallen pillars and the place had a ruinous feel to it. 
Kneeling, and with his back to his son, Bob Cross stared in horror at the freshly slain buck that lay before him. Will felt for the pistol through his sweater. It lay secretly beneath the layers, like a breast, or a sleeping child, and reassured him like an imaginary friend. He spoke to his father."Hey."
Bob turned, frightened. "Will."
"Why did you scream?"
 "This is the damndest thing. I didn't mean to do this," he turned back to the buck, "Sonofabitch," he ran his hands over the skin of the animal, it was still very warm. "I wasn't going to do this today.""What's wrong?"
"I tracked the thing. I had him in my sights and I balked, I let him go. I moved the barrel to the right, and fired, just to scare him off, and right as I squeezed the trigger he ran into the shot."
Will walked around his father and stood before him. The buck lay bleeding between them like a broken promise.
"You always do this."
"What?" Bob looked too innocent not to seem coy.
"Why'd you come down here with a rifle if you didn't want to hunt?"
Bob looked around him, as though rational answers hung from one of the trees."What do you mean? It's just habit. My rifle's like a walking stick, it goes where I go," he laughed a little. Will's face was expressionless. 
"Don't look at me like that, Will, just don't."
"It's the animal's fault then? For getting spooked into a bullet."
"It's no one's fault. Life is dangerous and complicated." 
"Bullshit."
"You know nothing yet, Will."
"I know a liar when I hear one."
Bob stood, and Will took a step back.
"C'mere."
"What?"
Bob grabbed Will's wrist and forced his hand open. Will reached beneath his sweater for the pistol with his free hand, it was not there, perhaps it never had been.
"Look at the lines in your palm, look at how they cross one another, just look at them all. Can you make sense of them? Can you tell me what they mean?"
Will said nothing, but tried to free his hand from Bob's ferocious grip."Can you?" Bob shouted, as he let go of Will's hand, and when Will still did not answer him, "then don't talk to me like a fortune teller, `cause you don't know, you just can't know."
Will looked around for a heavy branch he could use for a club. His father knelt down again, muttering he was sorry if he hurt him, and began to gently massage the neck and shoulders of the buck.
"Poor thing. Your mother says I'm like a bull in a china shop."
Will found a rock and kept a better distancefrom his father now, "No, you're like three bulls in a china shop."
Bob smiled, and said, "Before you bash me with that rock, let me tell you something about your mother. The last time she seized up, in August, right?"
Will nodded.
"The last time she seized, I was barrel-assing down Route 1 to the emergency room, and she's in and out of consciousness. Slumped against the car door, face pressed up against the glass, she sees a hay truck coming from the opposite direction. Now you know she's been wishing on hay trucks since her mother said they were lucky? Well, she saw this truck and out of the corner of my eye I see her shut her eyes and hear her mumble something, and she keeps mumbling this wish over and over, and I swear to God Will, it made me..." 
Will turned his face, not wanting to see his father's crocodile tears. 
Bob tried to catch his breath, and whispered "God!" in such a desperate tone that Will, for one moment, stopped hating him.
"I know what I am, Will, I know, don't think I don't."
"What?"
Bob stared at Will's feet and said, "I'm evil and I'm awful and I'm a savage, and I can't," he started crying again, and covered his face with his hands, "and
 I can't seem to help it, I just can't seem to do a goddamn thing to change," he pounded the buck's shoulder for emphasis. "We can't help it, we are what we are, sick and violent and in love with all the wrong people. Do you know what she said in the car?"
Will didn't want to know
."She shut her eyes tight, pale as a ghost, foam and puke at the corners of her mouth, and she goes, `Please God, make me somebody else, make me somebody new', and she kept saying it, over and over, until she started seizing again."
Will let the rock slip from his hand. He looked at Bob and saw not a father, but a con man and a vict>
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