The door to the grocery triggered an electronic chime before swinging shut behind me. Although the front of the store had two large windows beside the door, every available inch of glass was covered with posters, signs, and advertisements for various items—everything from milk to beer to cigarettes and each line punctuated with an exclamation mark because a sign reading $1.25 CIGARETTES! was far better than one with only $1.25 CIGARETTES. There were corner groceries everywhere you turned in this city, and only the ones with the largest selection of exclamation marks survived.
I didn’t recognize the man behind the counter with thinning black hair and a plaid shirt about two sizes too small. He greeted me with a nod and lowered his copy of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The Steelers beat the Oilers yesterday, thirty to seven—the third win in a row. “What can I get for you, kid?”
The counter was a bit tall for me, but it felt a little shorter than the last time I was in here. I reached up and slid the four dollar bills as close to the man as I could. “Two packs of Marlboro Red 100s, please.”
His brow furrowed, and he returned to the newspaper, shaking his head. “You know I can’t sell them to you.”
“Why not?”
He rolled his eyes toward the sign that said YOU MUST BE 18 YEARS OLD TO PURCHASE TOBACCO PRODUCTS. This sign had no exclamation mark.
“They’re not for me, they’re for my aunt.”
“Who’s your aunt?”
“Josephine Gargery. She’s working and can’t come down here right now.”
“Jo…from Krendal’s?”
I nodded.
“And they’re not for you? You’re not going to go around the corner and fire these up with your friends?”
“Smoking is disgusting. I’d never smoke. Mr. Cougin knows me. I come in here a lot.”
“Mr. Cougin isn’t working today.”
“Isn’t he the owner, though? If he is okay with selling cigarettes to me, then you should be able to sell them to me, too, right? If you don’t, then Auntie Jo will have to leave work to come over here. If that happens, she’s gonna be mad, probably Mr. Krendal, too. Then both of them are liable to complain to Mr. Cougin, and he’s going to take it out on you. All of that can be avoided if you just sell them to me. I don’t much like confrontation, and I imagine you don’t, either. Besides, I’m not a narc. I’m one of the good guys.”
He bit at the inside of his cheek, glanced down at the corner of his newspaper as if someone printed the answer directly under the Steeler win, then blew out a breath and pulled two packs of cigarettes down from the overhead rack. “Nobody likes confrontation.”
“Nope,” I agreed. “Nobody.”
He handed back a dollar and thirty-eight cents with the cigarettes.
“Thank you.” I took the change and the cigarettes and headed for the the comic rack at the back of the store. I already owned most of the good ones, but there was one in particular I had my eye on: Superman annual volume one, number eleven. I found it when I was in here on Tuesday, but I only had seventy-three cents with me, not enough to cover the steep dollar and twenty-five cent price tag on this particular book, so I hid it behind Strawberry Shortcake number four on the top shelf, someplace no self-respecting comic lover would go, and hoped it would be there when I came back. It was, and I snatched it down. I was flipping through the book, when the chime above the store’s front door went off. I barely heard the muffled sounds of traffic and the shuffle of feet before the door closed again.
“Everything in the register, now!”
The voice was loud and gruff, coming from the front of the store at my back.
“Okay, sure, just calm down.” This was the man behind the counter. “It’s all yours, I don’t—”
The explosion of a gunshot rattled the poster and sign-covered windows.
I dropped the cigarettes.
What happened next, happened fast.
I turned as the gunman did. I watched in slow motion as he spun around, long, greasy red hair swinging behind him catching in the hood of his filthy navy sweatshirt, his arm coming up, the gun pointing toward me, smoke still trailing from the barrel.
He squeezed the trigger not once but twice.
My heart burst with pain, a thud stronger than any I had ever felt.
A wetness bloomed on my leg, my thigh, a growing mass of warmth.
The gun clicked.
Two empty clicks.
No shot. No bullet. Some kind of misfire.
The gunman frowned at the weapon, nearly threw it at me, then turned back to the register and scooped out the cash, shoving the bills into his pockets. When he got the last of them, he took a step toward me, his eyes wild. “I know what you look like, kid. I never forget a face. You say a fucking word, and I’ll hunt your ass down. I’ll slice you open and hang you from a fucking streetlight.”
A moment later, he was gone and I was alone.
I looked down at my leg. I had wet my pants. I didn’t care.
I stood there. I don’t know how long. I couldn’t move.
Eventually, I found the strength to wander back to Krendal’s and summon help.
August 8, 1986
Ten Years Old
Log 08/08/1986—
Interview with Dr. Helen Durgin. Subject “D” appears agitated.
Audio/video recording.
“I’d like to talk about your parents.”
“I don’t want to.”
“You need to. It’s best we all understand what happened.”
“I don’t remember. I was little then.”
“You remember. I think you remember everything that happened that day.”
Silence.
“It wasn’t your fault, David. You were only two. You couldn’t have known what would happen.”
“I don’t want to.”
Dr. Durgin sighed. “What would you like to talk about?”
“How come nobody else ever comes to visit me?”
“You know why.”
“But you’re not afraid. You come.”
“I’m deaf, David. I can’t actually hear you. I read your lips.”
“And that’s why you’re not afraid?”
“That’s why I’m able to visit with you.”
“So if you could hear, you wouldn’t visit me anymore?”
“I would like to, but they probably wouldn’t let me.”
“You’d talk to me through the speakers, though? Like everyone else?”
“If they let me.”
“Dr. Peavy used to come in and visit with me. He wasn’t deaf.”
“But he doesn’t anymore, does he, David? Do you remember what happened to Dr. Peavy?”
“Yes. Dr. Peavy was mean to me. I made him stop.”
“That was two weeks after your parents. If you remember what happened to Dr. Peavy, then you certainly remember what happened to them.”
Silence.
“David?”
“I’m tired. Can we stop now?”
“Were your parents mean to you? Like Dr. Peavy?”
“My daddy was.”
“And you made him stop?”
Silence.
“David, you have to speak aloud, for the record. You made your father stop?”