X's For Eyes
Victor Gischler

We started fighting again because I said I was going down to Walmart to buy bullets for Dad’s gun.
Sharon looked up from her drawing board, a pencil behind each pink ear, another in her mouth, the burgundy lips trying to flap words at me while the square white teeth kept a harsh grip on a third pencil. "God damn, Billy. I didn’t want a gun in the house, and I sure as hell don’t want a loaded gun in the house."
She started erasing something hard, shaking the drawing table. That made her body shake too, her heavy breasts swinging in rhythm under her loose tank top. She was mad all over. Pale cheeks flush. Teeth digging into the pencil.
The fight wasn’t about the gun. It was about me and Dad and her. She’d bought the tiny one-bedroom house six months ago, and we’d crowded it with stacks of books and half-painted canvases and wicker furniture. It was fall, just turning cool, and we waited for the temperature to dip just enough to justify using the small fireplace.
It was her house, her wicker, her fireplace.
"What’s the point of having the gun without bullets?" I asked.
"Fuck you, Billy."
"What’s Pinky doing this week?" This was my feeble swipe at changing the subject. Pinky & Pals was Sharon’s comic strip. Sort of Mary Worth with a gen-x edge. We’d met as grad students. I was trying to push some poems together and make a master’s thesis out of them. She was wrestling with cubism, trying to get a showing in Soho or the Village or Flatbush or Gary, Indiana—anywhere but here in Ocala, Florida where they didn’t give a rat’s ass about anything but horses and Gator football. Certainly not cubism anyway.

Pinky & Pals was pretty popular in our college newspaper. Soon it was picked up by other college papers. Soon it was all over the damn place. Then the Boston Globe picked it up and it got the hell syndicated out of it and now it was paying the bills and the rent and buying me new shirts and new shoes and the whole time my dad wanted me to come on down to the furniture store where he said he could put me to work selling couches and bedroom sets at three hundred a week plus commission.
Sharon said, "shit on that."
I said I couldn’t just sit around while she earned all the money. I said she pushed me around because she thought she was the boss because she brought home the bacon. I’d take the job with Dad. She said that was selling out and she made enough to support us fine. I said she should go to hell and was getting fat sitting at the drawing board all day.
We had this fight about twice a week. More lately.
I put on my coat.
Sharon froze at the drawing table, cocked a sideways look at me. "Where are you going?"
"I told you. Walmart."
"No."
"What’s your problem? We need toilet paper anyway."
"No bullets."
"I’ll just see how much they are."
"I don’t care if they’re free. You’re not getting any."
My face got hot. "Look, I’m going to see Dad tomorrow. I’m going to work for him. I’ll buy any fucking thing I want out of my paycheck."
"Billy, I swear to God in Heaven, if you walk out that door to go to the store for fucking bullets for that fucking gun, you’ll find all your shit on the lawn when you get back."
"I’ll be back in an hour."
"I mean it, Billy"
I left.
When I got back with the bullets and the toilet paper, there was a sloppy pile of my stuff on the grass near the mailbox. On top was the Smith &Wesson .38 police special my father had given me.
*
It only took about a week for me to slip into the routine at the furniture store. I learned to tie a tie. I bought dress shoes. I sold couches. I sold bedroom sets.
I was staying at Dad’s for a while. Sharon called me there.
"You can’t be happy selling furniture, Billy."
"I’m good at it, actually."
"Come home. I’m sorry."
"Too late." I hung up on her.
That Sunday, I turned to the comics. I was curious about Pinky & Pals. In the strip, Pinky’s boyfriend had taken a job selling furniture. The joke was that he’d sold a whole house full of furniture to some redneck who lived in a one-room trailer. The last panel showed the redneck crowded in with all the furniture saying, "I’m gonna get that furniture guy."
Hilarious.
*
Sharon tried calling again. I hung up again.
I sold more furniture that week. Started stashing away money. Once in a while when I was sitting around Dad’s house alone, drinking a beer, I’d take out the police special and twirl it around. I kept it loaded the first night, then started getting nervous like maybe I’d drop the thing and it would go off, put a bullet through my brain. I could just see Sharon at my funeral, shaking her head at my corpse and telling my friends and family that she’d warned me about the gun. So I kept it unloaded when I played with it.
That Sunday. The comics.
Pinky’s boyfriend was getting the shaft again. A German Shepherd chased him around the yard. The boyfriend ended up hanging from the low branch of a tree, a big bite bitten out of his trousers by the dog.
Three Stooges humor. I would have expected better from Sharon.
I poured a six-pack of Schlitz into my face, stumbled to bed in a fog.
The next morning I woke with a slight hangover. I drifted in and out of the shower, dressed and went out to my car. I was late for work.
In the drive way between me and the car was a pretty big dog. He looked like he was unhappy. He looked at me like I was the reason why. It was a Husky or maybe a Malamute, the kind with the all white face. It growled.
I made shooing motions, stomped my foot.
No dice.
I’d always heard that saying about dogs being able to smell fear. If it were true than Rover was getting a snoot full. He growled. Barked. Then he launched himself, claws making that clickety noise on the cement. He moved fast, thick saliva streaming from his mouth like a cartoon beast.
I back-peddled so fast, I think I went back in time. My stomach clenched in a wad of real-life-no-shit-I’m-gonna-die terror. I spit out a little girl yelp.
Somehow I was back in the house, door slammed, dog doing a number on the door’s paint job on the other side. I was breathing fast and hard. Sweat form under my arms, on my forehead. I looked out the window. The dog circled, grumbling little barks and growls like he was muttering to himself. Was he on crack or something?
I called the police. They sent somebody with a big net.
The police had had a few questions for me.
No, I didn’t know how the mad dog had gotten as far as my neighborhood without being spotted by anyone else. No, I didn’t know who owned the dog. No, I didn’t know why the dog had chosen me to vent his embittered doggy wrath.
The cop who wrote down my information seemed very disapproving. He shook his head while he scratched his pencil in his little book and told me that animal control had taken the dog away to be destroyed. It turned out to be a Malamute.
Of course, I’d remembered Sharon’s cartoon, but I hadn’t mentioned it to the officer. What could he have thought? What did I think? A coincidence. I tried to imagine her coercing a rabid dog into my yard, training it with one of my old dirty socks to attack me on sight. Sure. Right.
Ridiculous.
But I picked up the phone to call her, dialed five numbers before hanging up again.
Ridiculous.
*
The week crawled by. Dad asked about the dark circles under my eyes. I told him girl trouble. He nodded and peppered me with dad advice:
Chin up. Buckle down. Nose to the grindstone. Don’t take any wooden Injuns.
Sure, Dad. Thanks.
I sold a couch, a love seat, a bedroom set and a mahogany wall unit. Cha-ching.
Sunday sneaked up on me. I shrugged into sweats and sandals and headed for the Quick-mart. I bought a large coffee and a newspaper. I turned to the comics before I even walked back to the car. Pinky’s boyfriend was getting the hell beat out of him by a couple of toughs. Two big guys doing a number on the boyfriend with big, meaty fists.
Splendid.
*
I tip-toed my way through Monday morning looking over my shoulder and jumping at loud noises. I spent half my time worried and the other half feeling like a dumbass. By the end of the day, I was laughing at myself pretty good. The dog thing was a coincidence. I was a moron.
I dropped by the Ale House for a quick draft or three after work. The afternoon stretched into evening. Friends trickled in. We bought each other drinks. By the time I left, it was just a little before midnight.
On the way to the car, two great big sons of bitches fell in behind me.
Shit.
"Buddy," said one. "Hold up a sec, eh?"
Shit and fuck.
I walked faster. They kept pace.
"Buddy."
I wasn’t quite running, but it was obvious I was on the move. I made it to my car, fished my keys out of my pocket and got them into the lock.
A hand on my shoulder. It spun me around.
The two big guys were right up on me. They looked like they were put together on the same assembly line. Big square granite jaws. Shoulders you could land a plane on. Knuckles like walnuts.
"Didn’t you hear us, buddy?" His words floated to me on a cloud of bourbon.
"Sorry." I tried to take the quiver out of my voice. "Just in a hurry to get home, you know?"
"We figured. My pal and me are looking for a ride."
"Sorry."
"Don’t be sorry. Just give us a ride."
"Look, I just want to—"
"Fuck that noise," said the other one. "Get his keys."
He put his hands on me, pawed at my pockets. I pushed him away.
The fist came around on me so fast I didn’t even see which one of them had thrown it. I felt important things in my jaw go crunch, and darkness fell, punctuated by little star-shaped explosions.
I shook my head, slipped to the side. I didn’t want to be caught up against the car.
One had a hold on my shirt. The other had his fists up. I tried to remember back five years to the four months of jiu-jitsu I’d taken. I put a knuckle into one’s soloplexis. He whooshed air and let go of my shirt.
The other one swung at me. I ducked and tried to kick him in the gut. I wasn’t limber enough and the kick landed low, my heel connecting with his balls. He grunted and went to his knees.
The other one took a running start at me. I punched, missed. He lowered his head and tackled me. We both went to the ground, and he ended up on top. I tried to punch up at him, but I couldn’t get an angle. He started in on my face, knuckles biting into my cheeks and eyes until my lips were bloody mashed meat against my teeth, until my nose was flat. I felt a molar jar loose. Before I could spit, I was hit again, and I swallowed the tooth. The other one came over, and they both started kicking.
As I blacked out I heard. "Fucking stupid bastard. That’s what you get."
*
I got out of the hospital on Friday, but I still looked like hell. Dad picked me up and drove me home. My face was full of Frankenstein stitches, and I had two busted ribs. I ate painkillers all weekend and slept. Sunday morning, I asked Dad to bring me a newspaper.
Sharon was laying off me this week, I guess. Pinky and pals were on to other adventures – a day trip to Daytona. In the hospital, another dour cop took my statement. I gave him the whole play by play, but once again didn’t mention Sharon.
Now, it seemed certain she was out to get me. Artistic types like her can’t let things go. Everything has to be all dramatic. I knew all about it. As a poet, I’d dated almost exclusively women with a screw loose. That’s the kind of gal you meet in dark coffee shops, I guess.
Dad told me to take the next week off and rest. But I couldn’t rest. The ribs still hurt, and I was ugly as all hell, but I could get around okay. I grabbed the police special and drove to Sharon’s house.
I wasn’t looking for trouble and sighed relief when I saw she wasn’t home. I only carried the pistol as a precaution. If she’d sent a couple of bruisers to put a hurt on me, she was capable of anything, and I was pretty goddamn tired of getting shoved around.
I went in the house. I still had a key, and Sharon hadn’t changed the locks.
I wasn’t anything like a detective, but I had to find something to show Sharon was gunning for me. I couldn’t go to the police and tell them my ex girlfriend was slowly killing me with her comic strip. They’d chuck me in the loony bin.
I went through her desk, her bedroom. Nothing. The drawing board had a half drawn strip, but it didn’t tell me anything. The trip had been a bust. Oh, she was a clever one, little Sharon. She wouldn’t leave anything damning just lying around. I should have known that.
The knob on the front door turned, and I froze. It swung open. Sharon saw me. We stared at each other a long, quiet second.
"Billy?"
My mouth opened and closed. Nothing came out.
She took a step toward me and she smiled, and I got mad because I knew what she was thinking. She was thinking I’d come back to be with her, that I was there waiting for her to come home so I could tell her how wrong I was and how right she was and all that. Bullshit.
I pulled the gun, pointed the thing right at her.
Sharon stopped. Her smile fell away a little piece at a time, and we were just looking at each other again except this time I was holding a revolver on her. That’ll stop anybody. Put a gun in someone’s face and they come to a screeching halt every time.
"Oh, Billy." She said it like I was pointing the thing at myself. Dumb bitch.
"I’ve been keeping up with Pinky & Pals," I said.
"You’re upset."
"I’m fucking beat up is what I am."
She didn’t seem to hear me. "I know it was wrong, but I was really hurt. It was just my way to blow off a little steam."
"Don’t play stupid," I said. "I know what you’ve been up to. You don’t think I can do anything, but I’m doing it aren’t I? I’m on to you, missy."
"What the fuck are you talking about, Billy?"
"The dog and the guys beating me up."
"I told you I was sorry. I shouldn’t take out my aggressions in Pinky & Pals."
"Fuck Pinky & Pals!" I shook the gun at her. "I nearly got my ass chewed by a rabid mutt, and your pals beat the fuck out of me. I was in the hospital for Christ’s sake."
"What?"
"The guys you sent to beat the shit out of me."
Her jaw fell open. A hell of an acting job. "That’s insane. I would never do that." She spoke each word slowly like I was some little retarded kid or something.
"I was insane to ever get involved with you," I said.
"That’s a laugh," she said. "You’re nothing. I supported your ass for three years while you were scribbling your precious little poems."
I got hot all up through my face, and my fist tightened on the gun. I jerked the trigger at her three times hard.
Click. Click. Click.
The bullets. I’d unloaded the gun at Dad’s house, so I could twirl the damn thing.
The blood had drained from Sharon’s face. Each time I’d pulled the trigger, Sharon had flinched, sucked in a horrified breath.
"God damn you, Billy," she whispered. Seething, final hatred seeped into her voice. "God damn you to hell."
I pushed past her. My hands shook. I shoved them into my jacket pockets with my empty revolver. I climbed into the car. Cranked it. Drove home.
*
Two Sundays later, Pinky’s boyfriend met his comic but untimely end in the funny pages. Pinky had crawled through his bedroom window and presented him with an exploding box of valentine candy. Didn’t somebody edit these things? How could they show this to kids?
What struck me about the dead boyfriend in the comic strip were his eyes. You ever see a dead guy in a comic strip. They put Xs in for the eyes to signal that the guy’s a corpse. Pretty damn freaky when you’re looking at yourself.
So I don’t sleep anymore. Not for a week. I’m jittery and nauseous from so much coffee. I sit up in the chair in the corner of my room. I wait. Sometimes, I start to doze, and a night noise sends the panic up my spine. I clutch the revolver. It’s loaded now.
She thinks she has me. But I’m ready. I’m waiting. Waiting for candy covered death to slip in through my window.
Cocked and loaded.

Victor Gischler's work has appeared in COZY DETECTIVE, PLOTS WITH GUNS (no, I don't mean this one, dummy), BLUE MURDER <http://www.bluemurder.com>, BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES 1999 and elsewhere. He suggests you visit www.themestream.com <http://www.themestream.com/> where you'll find his essays on film noir and his column "Hardboiled Dixie". It's free and tastes like chicken!