Free Cry Father by Benjamin Whitmer Page A

says. “I just need to take a piss.” There’s a loud thump from the direction of the bathroom. Then a strangled high sound, like a pig’s squeal, that cuts off in the middle.
    “Piss in the alley,” the bartender says, grinning. “Your friend is fine.”
    Patterson turns and walks back toward the front door, ignoring the other sounds coming from the bathroom. Just thuds now, like somebody stomping on a pumpkin. The girls sit in the booth, ramrod straight, their eyes craterous, shell-shocked.
    But Patterson had one of those little Raven .25s in his younger days. Bought it for fifty bucks at an Ohio flea market. He got drunk the night he bought it and fired off an entire magazine at a tree that couldn’t have been seven feet in front of him, and managed to miss with every shot. When Patterson’s put four paces between himself and the bartender, he swings around, pulling out his .45, and puts his front sight right on the man’s chest.
    “You pussy,” the bartender says, but he doesn’t raise the .25. Patterson figures he’s probably shot it once or twice himself. “You are a fucking pussy.”
    “Put it down and turn around,” Patterson says.
    “You pussy,” the bartender says again. But he places the pistol on the bar and turns around.
    Patterson grabs him by his thin black hair and shoves him down the hallway, through the men’s room door.
    It’s over. Junior’s washing his hands in the sink. One of the boys’ legs are sticking out from the stall and the other is slumped against the wall, staring senseless through bloodred eyeballs, the capillaries exploded. The bartender’s breath hisses out between his teeth.
    Junior shakes water off his hands. “I was wondering if you were going to show,” he says to Patterson. Then he takes the bartender by the back of the neck, like you might take a friend to draw him in to tell him something. Patterson lets go of the bartender and steps back.
    “You’re a pussy, too,” the bartender says into Junior’s ear.
    Junior shoots a rabbit punch into his gut, and when the bartender tries to hustle back to get some boxing room, Patterson grabs him by the cheek and slams his head into the wall. Patterson doesn’t like having guns pointed at him, and doesn’t particularly give a shit for the reason. The bartender doesn’t even try to resist after that, and Junior makes short work of him. First fists, then boots.
    “Now I got to wash my hands again,” Junior says when he’s done.

Justin
    I didn’t keep a gun around the house when we had you. They make your mom nervous, for one thing. For another, there didn’t seem a whole lot of need when I was working Questa and Taos. I looked forward to teaching you how to shoot, though. I don’t hunt much, but I like skeet shooting. I figured that sooner or later I’d buy a little .410 single shot for your own. I had it in my mind. Just like teaching you how to throw a baseball. Or fishing. All of those father-and-son moments you see on television. But shooting was one of those many things I didn’t get around to when you were alive. It seems like my memory’s nothing but a series of holes where those moments should be. Moments I spent drinking beer, sitting on the front porch. Moments I spent wondering how the hell I ended up settled down in Questa, New Mexico.
    It was only after you died that I started carrying a gun full-time. I was in Louisiana, just after Hurricane Katrina. I’d never carriedone up until then, even when I was working with the worst crews. Most of the men I was with aren’t exactly opposed to violence. That comes with the job. Hell, when you’re young, it’s part of the attraction. When you still give a shit about things like whether you can hold your own in a fight, you’re more than happy to work with those kind of men.
    It’s a job that attracts that kind, I guess. The kind of men who get shaken out of normal life and collected at the bottom. I ain’t saying everybody, but I doubt there’s