Peach of a Shot

by Steven Finkelstein

In the quiet, pre-dawn stillness the fog rolled back in a billowing bank from the eastern shore of the Hudson like a bedroll kicked off by a restless sleeper. Each thicket dripping with dew was touched in turn by the palest impression of light before the sun was visible. It was not truly light itself but the feel of light to come. The hour was twenty past five in the morning. It was a Sunday.

It had rained between the hours of two and four, and the carpet of leaves here in late October were roughly the same rich orange as Marvin’s hunting vest that he wore over his tan coveralls. He crouched on his haunches thirty feet above the ground in a deer stand wedged in the fork of a mighty birch, whose crown extended to unseen heights above him and which yet bore many stubborn leaves that had refused to be torn away by the torrents that had raged for the past fortnight. Marvin’s right knee was bent beneath him and his left leg was extended to its full length. His left foot in its size twelve Oakridge was propped against a protruding knot roughly the size and shape of a doorknob. Against his left shoulder leaned the barrel of a Hawken fifty-caliber hunting rifle with an American walnut stock, ready for immediate use. Between his legs was a red thermos half-filled with gas station coffee long gone cold. It was uncomfortable, but Marvin didn’t move a muscle. He might have been mistaken for a woodcarving or a painting on the wall of a ski lodge.

Somewhere down the hill to his left a sparrow chirped its first good morning. He stiffened, hunching his shoulders, then relaxed, letting out a long sigh. It was cold, but Marvin couldn’t feel it. He couldn’t feel anything. He’d been served with divorce papers the night before. His wife had pulled up to the house at about nine in her lawyer’s car, a shiny black Ford Bronco with vanity plates reading SUE4FUN. She stood there on the porch re-applying her lipstick while her lawyer (a little faggot college boy with a smirk and a ponytail who looked barely old enough to shave) had handed him what he called “the necessaries,” a stack of papers written with so much legal mumbo-jumbo that Marvin couldn’t make out much of it. He stood there puzzling over it for about a minute before the lawyer, with obvious pleasure, had asked him if he “understood everything that was required of him at this juncture.” Marvin told him to get the fuck off his porch before he whipped his narrow ass. That had shut him up pretty quick, but Denise stepped forward and said, “Look here, fuck-wit. It means you’re to appear in court on the twenty-eighth of this month, and you’d better hire yourself a lawyer, not that it’s going to do you any good, because Arthur is going to eat him for breakfast, whoever he is, and I’m going to get everything you own. You hear that? Everything.” This last word she said very slowly and distinctly, like she was talking to an infant, and Arthur stood there behind her adjusting his collar and bobbing his head up and down -- yes, that’s right, everything. And he told her where to go too, but what he really wanted to do was cry, because he knew that it was probably true. She would get everything because that’s how these bastards always did you. They stuck it to you like a two-dollar whore, and there wasn’t anything you could do about it. The Bronco had barely rolled away before he started throwing on his hunting gear; it was the only thing he could think of to make himself feel better -- to shoot something.

At about one in the morning he arrived at the deer stand, erected by his father in the late sixties and passed on to him before the old man’s death back in ’92. He parked his pickup two miles away on one of the eastern fringe of the woods. This land was state property, a stretch of sixty miles, which was mostly gently rolling hills. Marvin liked coming here. Apart from the nostalgia afforded by spending time in a place that had been uniquely his and his father’s, the area was lousy with deer. All the home owners who lived along the shaded streets miles above him had lawns that bordered the woods, and they were unfailingly grateful to the hunters that bagged their limit in the autumn months leading to the first winter snowfall since it meant fewer deer coming into their yards. The problem was that the fawns born close to human habitation grew up without fear or respect, not of cars, nor houses, nor people. They would walk brazenly into vegetable gardens and nibble the tender shoots; they would tear up the turf with their hooves, and congregate in groups on the roads near the sharpest bends, seemingly begging drivers to plow into their fragile bodies. They were a nuisance, and no mistake, Marvin was doing the world a favor by snuffing a couple whenever he got the chance.

Tonight, however, no target had presented itself; at least that’s what he thought. But he’d been so lost in his own head that herds could have walked by without his noticing. His mind was running a gamut of emotions from anger to resentment to fear to despondency. Acceptance hadn’t come yet, and it wouldn’t any time soon. This wasn’t like a hangover or a headache. This was a hurt that bombarded you from all angles and in a multitude of ways. He felt it all over, from his quads up through his hams and in the small of his back. Through the night and rain it crept up his neck and finally settled in his left frontal lobe, where it beat a drum solo until it's familiarity became comforting. But now it was gone and the rain had stopped and he felt worn out. He’d been married close to twenty years, and as shitty as the life could get sometimes, he didn’t want to be single again. Denise couldn’t cook and didn’t clean, and she’d put on about thirty pounds since they’d tied the knot; but he couldn’t get used to the idea of crawling into bed after work and not having her familiar warmth next to him even though she hadn’t given him so much as a peck on the cheek in months. She was silent, ignoring; that’s what made the whole thing so unbearable. Not that he was naturally inquisitive; he didn’t like talking about his problems or all that touchy-feely crap any more than the next guy. But there came a time when he had to ask her what was wrong, because he couldn’t go on like that forever. He came home after work to find her parked in front of the TV night after night and wasn’t able to get a word out of her, not so much as a how-was-your-day-dear. And when he’d finally gotten up the courage to ask her she’d just given him a look that said you dumb hick, if you have to ask you’ll never know. But she started dropping hints afterwards. One night he remarked how Pickens had gotten a new SUV since he’d become an assistant manager at the sporting goods store. She said, “Well. Imagine that. A man moving up in the world. A man making something of his life.” She rolled her eyes at him and turned the sound up on Springer.

So she was disappointed in him. What the fuck was he supposed to do about it? It wasn’t like they were chomping at the bit to give him any more hours at Ozzie’s. They weren’t doing enough business as it was, because of the new joint up the road having a hundred-twenty-inch Sony to watch the Jets games on. Denise knew Earl wouldn’t appreciate him asking for a raise. What could she expect out of him? She knew what he was then. Life was seldom something you could control. Mostly it was a runaway locomotive zooming frantically by, rolling along at its own pace with you trailing behind. If she hadn’t learned that already, he couldn’t teach her. And he’d never been unfaithful, not once in almost twenty years. He had the chances, Saturday night chicks ordering margaritas with salt on the rims and making eyes at him. They had when he’d had a full head of hair and five-hundred situps every morning kept his belly flat.

There weren't any children because they hadn’t wanted any. He supposed that was for the better. It made things simpler now. Right. Simple. Nobody’s life would be wrecked but his, because Denise sure as hell wasn’t broken up about things. At least there were no little wide-eyed snot nosers to have to explain the situation to, how Mommy and Daddy had grown apart but they still love you all the same. There would just be him, coming home from work to an empty house to drift into Wild Turkey dreamland in the Lazy Boy watching Cops. It was enough to make him wonder what the hell was the use, hauling ass out of bed every morning just to slop watered-down pitchers of Bud in front of good old boys, the red-faced mill workers and the raw-boned construction crews that came in four at a time grumbling about the foreman. And the truck-stop waitresses on the downhill side of forty with swollen calves, sagging tits, and greasy hair that stunk like Parliaments after two showers. He always said he was going to get away, but he got caught up staring at the glowing neon hands of the clock on the wall, and before he knew it there was the paunch and the thinning hair. The image in the mirror was his old man’s, and he was going to bed before nine on off nights because there wasn’t anything better to do. Anything could become normal after a while.

He heard something then, something moving among the leaves, and it was enough to bring him out of it, enough to remember where he was for a second. Yeah, the world didn’t go away just because you nodded off for a minute, and eventually you nodded off for good. That was about the shape of it. He leaned forward to look over the edge of the wooden slats and scan the ground beneath him. Nothing, and he thought maybe it had just been his imagination, but suddenly there it was again, the soft squelch of a hoof in the mud. He silently swung the barrel up to cup the muzzle with his left hand while he closed his right over the trigger guard. He flexed his fingers to get the kinks out. It began to drizzle again.

It was a doe. Her sinewy tan back dotted with a clump of white spots on the rear haunches passed beneath him and stopped. He couldn’t see her face, but there was the back of her head, the ripple of her shoulders, her delicate legs, and the dirty white of her lilting tail. Marvin had never shot a doe. There wasn’t any point in it. He could remember his father saying that to him, “The doe is worthless, little sprat. You’re after that buck, that ten pointer, the big kahuna. If you’re on the flank, you’re looking for right below the breastbone. That’s a kill and he won’t suffer. If you’ve got a dead shot on the head, aim for the eye. Make it clean. Get yourself a good rack of antlers, and meat for the winter. Venison steaks. Venison chops. Venison jerky.”

Marvin hadn’t been sitting out here for the past six hours waiting for a trophy to put above the mantel, and he wasn’t here to fill the larder. This hadn’t been a hunting trip. He hardly knew what it was. He needed a place to go; he couldn’t stay the night in the house where he had lived with her. It was full of her things and his things (soon to be hers). The fact that something other than himself existed in the world came as a surprise to him. Yes, it seemed that even out here it was too much to ask for a few moments of peace, but hell, hadn’t he wanted something to shoot? Wasn’t that why he was out here anyway, not to brood the morning away, but to put a bullet in something? Who the fuck cared if it wasn’t the gender that hunting etiquette dictated? It would still bleed for him if he put a hole in it. It would still scream the way that deer do; the death shriek that’s more surprise than pain that all hunters secretly revel in. The flesh would still smoke and stink and the eyes would still go gray and cloudy. The doe took two more placid steps forward. It turned so that its profile was clearly visible. Marvin slid a round into the chamber.

Steam was rising from the forest floor. Birds from a dozen trees around him took up the glad twittering all at once, welcoming the sun and the return of sight. Marvin raised the scope to his eye, narrowing his field of vision to block out distractions as his father had taught him. “Turn around, Denise,” he said.

The deer heard him and turned. Its body was now pointed like an arrow directly towards his tree, but he was frozen. She couldn’t see him, but he knew that she was alert now; her ears had pricked up and her soft eyes were scanning the tree line. “Up here, Denise,” he whispered. The deer looked up and saw him. Her eyes locked onto the gleaming barrel and the bright orange of the vest thirty feet above. She didn’t flinch. Peach of a shot, Marvin thought. Really couldn’t ask for better.

Funny thing about time, Marvin mused. Seemed like it didn’t work for anybody but itself, and mostly it was impartial to the industrious little worker ants that hustled about under its broad face, stopping every once in a while to look up and acknowledge its awesome presence. Time wasn’t something that needed us to invent it. It was always there, and it would keep chugging along after we’re all dust. Sometimes it seemed malicious, that couldn’t be denied -- the hard moments always slowed down and burned you forever, while the good times slid by in the blink of an eye, a single heartbeat, the closing note of a song.

Marvin looked at the deer and the deer at Marvin. And Marvin remembered. They say all our memories, from the day our eyes open, are stowed away somewhere in our gray matter, we just don’t have access to them. What Marvin remembered, staring into those dark, gentle eyes, was a night almost twenty years before when he and Denise had tied the knot. He had been a bit of a ladies man before Denise. He’d sure bagged his limit back in high school, but Denise was a virgin until they were married. Long before Marvin had proposed they had talked it all out. It wasn’t that Denise had been a prude; she’d had a healthy interest in men and the same raging hormones as all teenagers. She’d fooled around a few times before becoming serious with Marvin. But she’d been afraid, afraid of the act itself. Nearly twenty years before, lying on the hood of Marvin’s old pick-up with all the stars in the world shining down, pulled over in the dark by a back country lane (not too far from where Marvin was crouched right now) she’d told him how much the act frightened her, the joining of the two bodies was repulsive and so very grown up. Like the end of childhood but more than that, the messiness, the violence, the breaking down of barriers, the penetration. It was the decisive act that marked you as a member of the adult world, what Momma and Daddy did that she could hear through the walls at night, the sound of the unknown separated by a layer of drywall. And he cared about her so much, he’d never felt this way about a girl before, and he’d said it was okay to just lie there together.

But the night of the wedding, after the last drop of champagne had been sucked down and the last fork-full of butternut frosting had been licked clean and all their relatives had wished them good health and long lives they’d driven away. When it was all said and done it was just the two of them, alone in the honeymoon suite of the Marriott, with the light of the bedside lamp shining bright behind her, showing the contours of her face. They’d gotten over the threshold with their bodies intertwined, laughing, stumbling, and then she’d torn herself away. She shrugged off her dress and looked at him, shy, almost apologetic, as if to say yes, this is me, all of me, and he’d never seen her naked before. She was so lovely speech failed him and he stood there in front of her lightheaded from the booze and the day’s emotions with his shirt half-unbuttoned. He wanted her, and he supposed she wanted him. But standing before her then, with her as naked and vulnerable as a newborn, he looked deep into her dark, dark eyes and thought briefly, in the back of his mind somewhere so that it was hardly a thought at all, that this is one of those moments so loaded with meaning that years from now if they were to show a slide show of all the times in my life that meant something, all of those defining points that, taken together, make up what a life has really been all about, then this, this is one of those moments. But looking into those eyes, as much as he wanted her, he was ashamed. I’m taking something from her, was what he thought, and she won’t resist, I've only got to take her hand and she'll yeild. They did the thing with the man speaking the words and the papers that made it all good and proper -- I do, and you do, and we all do. But none of it mattered, because looking into her eyes at that moment, all that he saw was what he was taking away.

It was that same look at the other end of the scope now, those same eyes, and the woods seemed to melt away with a quiet sigh. Marvin dropped the Hawken so that it clattered on the planks beside him. And with all the graceful majesty of a queen waving from the window of her palace at the common people assembled below, the doe turned away and bounded into the woods. Marvin brushed a few hairs back from his scalp and looked up at the sky with his eyes closed and his mouth open, letting the raindrops fall freely on his upturned face.

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Steven Finkelstein is a native of Cincinnati, Ohio. He is a graduate of the English Writing program at the University of Pittsburgh. His work can be found at www.stevenfinkelstein.com.

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