Free Damned If I Do by Percival Everett

and I love them, but they’re common.” He led the way out of the shaded area and into the backyard. There was a hole in the middle, the digging of which had long been abandoned, the pick and shovel covered with dirt. “I was trying to put me a pond in here for the ducks, but I sprained my back. The ducks are going to love it. It’s going to be a sight better than those plastic pools I’ve been using.” He stooped to pick up a black chicken with feathered feet. “This here is a Cochin. She ain’t too special, but she’s a nice one.”
    “How many birds do you have?” I asked.
    “Don’t know.” He stopped at a coop with a wire top. “These are my fancy babies. There’s a pair of Silver Sussex. That one there is a white Croad Langshan. That breed was almost gone. There’s a black Croad. Indian Game. Silver Dorking. You know, I love chickens.”
    “I know you do, Chick.” I looked at his shoes. Black Red Wings with one loose sole. “Thanks for the tour. I’d better get going. Come to my truck with me.” We walked back through the lath house, out the gate, and I stopped at the hood of the truck. “Chick, what’s your real name?”
    “Why do you want to know that?”
    “Give me five dollars,” I said.
    “What?”
    “Just give me a five.”
    The Chicken Lady fished out a lonely five and handed it to me.
    “What’s your damn name?”
    “Iverson P. Mowatt.”
    “You’re kidding me. What’s the P for?”
    “Peyton.”
    “That’s a great name, Chick.”
    “Yeah, yeah.” He looked at what I was writing. “What are you doing?”
    “I’m making out a bill of sale.”
    “Why?”
    “You just bought my truck.” I handed him the title and the key. “And here’s the card of that movie guy.”
    The Chicken Lady looked at the bill of sale and the title and the key, then the truck.
    “It’s okay, Chick. It’s your truck now. You can do what you want.”
    “Thanks, Rawley. I don’t know what to say.” The big man was starting to mist up.
    “Just do me a favor. Hold out for thirty thousand. Okay?”
    The Chicken Lady collected himself, stiffened his face, and said, “No problem.”

Age Would Be That Does

    It was with some resolve that Rosendo Lapuente put a bullet through the head of his sister’s dog, Grasa. Some resolve, a great deal of excitement, and an admirable measure of luck as he dispatched the animal from well over forty yards. Of course it was not until Rosendo and his friend, Mauricio Rocha, were well upon the fallen prey that they realized it was a dog and not until Rosendo’s face was mere inches from the canine’s head that he recognized it as Grasa.
    “Oh my,” Rosendo said. “This is your fault.”
    “It was you who shot him,” Mauricio said.
    “You told me it was a deer.”
    “All I said was, ‘There, there is one.’ I didn’t say ‘deer.’”
    Rosendo studied the dog. “No matter. I’ve killed my sister’s Grasa. Me siento mareado.”
    “Respire hondo,” Mauricio said and sucked in much air and let it out slowly to show what he meant.
    “And she’s always yelling at me that I’m too old and blind to go hunting. She’ll never let me forget this.” Rosendo sat on a nearby log and laid the rifle on the ground between his legs.
    “No es para preocuparse,” Mauricio said.
    “How do you figure that?”
    “How will she know?” Mauricio asked.
    Rosendo sighed. “I suppose you’re right. It would be a shame to hurt her with such news.” He looked at the dog. “It was a terrible pet anyway, a car chaser. Did you know that?”
    “I had heard.”
    “Bit a hole into the tire of the UPS truck.”
    “Oh my.”
    The two friends began their hike out of the forest, saying nothing. Rosendo gave the rifle to Mauricio to carry. They shared the gun and kept it hidden in the shed in back of the house that Rosendo shared with his sister Maria. The men also shared vision; that was how they saw it, Mauricio claiming an ability to see things some distance away and