Free Interstate by Stephen Dixon Page A

but didn’t say that—up to the counter looking around—“You know, I went to Julie’s grave a few days ago, try to do it every other week but then sometimes find myself going two or three straight days, lay some flowers, just stand there, listening to the wind whistling and things, everything looks great, same with your grandparents’: shipshape,” “That’s good; I’m so sorry I didn’t visit it while I was there, I used to with Mom pretty much before we moved away, it was all very sad, especially because it was so soon after she died”—something’s wrong, he almost knows what’s coming, he was robbed a few years ago on the street going home from work: “Give me your money,” “You got it, baby,” for there were two of them with sawed-off shotguns it seemed, little bit of overkill he later liked to joke, “What would you have done if there was just one?” he was asked, “Just what I did: handed it over with a smile, what do you think?”—the guy’s eyes: shifty, suspicious, jittery movements, sweaty-faced—never any mention anymore about his trip to Portland some summer so he supposes it’s off—he says “Yes sir,” no other customers, from where he’s standing nobody looking in at the place from the street, boss and his wife out buying meat and deli for the week, Jesus he sometimes wishes he had a handgun under the counter for when his life’s at stake, at least some mace—“Anything I can do for you?—you come in for chow or what?” and the man pulls out a gun he doesn’t know where from it’s out so fast, maybe from inside his coat sleeve—that’s what he should have told the detectives for a laugh: “Check all the theatrical agents in town, the thief was a magician, the gun was followed by rabbits and doves”—and says “This is a holdup, keep your fat mouth shut, no stupid moves, hands where I can see them and quick let’s have everything you got in your register and pockets and if you got a safe in back then open that or you’re going to be one big dead prick,” and he says “A holdup? a holdup? in this joint? get out of here,” and looks around for something to scare the guy with, something’s pumping in him where he swears he can tear off the whole twelve-stool counter with his hands and throw it at the kid, iron skillet’s way over there, hammer he uses to nail things up sometimes is at the end of the counter in a shoebox, knives are around but they’re short and he doesn’t know how to throw them and the big carving ones are in the sink, grabs a long spatula by the grill he’s beside and waves it and says “I told you to beat it or I’ll brain your fucking brains in, you fucking imbecile, for who the fuck you think you’re dealing with?” and when the man doesn’t move he swings it at him and the gun goes off, that’s all he remembers that happens: he hears, gun, sees, fire out of it, and maybe he doesn’t even remember that but just imagined it, and is treated on the floor by the emergency med people and taken to the hospital, no memory of anything in the restaurant or ambulance after he’s shot, just went black, no pain, none after that except for a few days later when a nurse is told by mistake by the floor resident who meant another patient that he’s to be taken off painkillers and boy for a while did he scream before they put him back on, someone came in he was told, guy with a stack of flyers for a new neighborhood runner’s shop, which he probably would have tossed out right after the guy left, no place for them—counter ends and top of cigarette machine crowded as they are—and nobody takes those things except to stick their chewed gum in and anyway who wants them flying to the floor every time the door opens with a little wind behind it or just