Free Smoke by Elizabeth Ruth

Buster averts his eyes. “A person might think he has no real friends to speak of,” the doctor continues. “No future in sight, though he’d be wrong. He’d be wrong to think like that. What he needs most is to keep busy until things change again. Oh sure, I know what a boy needs. I’m not that old. Cars. Girls. Adventure, I know.” And with that, he pulls a .38 Special out from inside the box and hands it to the boy with no thought for what he might be providing other than entertainment. “Maybe you’d like it?”
    Buster reaches out, trembling as if a live wire is twitching in his hand. It’s thrilling to be this close to power, the power to destroy. Now it’s within his control. He clutches the pistol tightly and feels a shift in attitude. For some it would be a new crop, or maybe a paintbrush or even a warm body to curl into. For him this old gun holds all the potential he thought had been destroyed in the fire.
    â€œWait a minute. I almost forgot.” Doc John retrieves the pistol, opens the chamber and removes all six bullets, placing them inside his desk. Then he turns and relinquishes the gun for good. “Go on,” he says. “What am I gonna do with it now except watch it collect dust? Mind, no need to mention this to anyone. This is not a toy. She’s a thing of beauty, hardware like this. Deserves respect. Every time you hold her I want you to repeat after me. I know who I am. I know who I am.”
    â€œWhat?” Buster shifts his weight from foot to foot. What good is pretending to shoot?
    â€œC’mon, let me hear you.”
    â€œUm,” he clears his throat.
    â€œC’mon.”
    â€œI know who I am?”
    â€œNo, not like you’re asking permission. Like this.” Doc John raises his narrow shoulders high and expands his chest. “From the gut. Like you mean it. Like you really know.” Buster imitates the doctor’s posture. “Good. Better.” Doc John relaxes. “At least once in his life every man asks himself, Who am I? It’s not always easy to answer, son. Now, you hang on to this and maybe it’ll help you like it did me.” The boy turns the pistol in his hand. He’s never seen one this old in his father’s case.
    â€œWhere’d you get it?”
    Doc John stands, moves to the small bathroom, ducks inside and returns with a white fedora, a black ribbon around its base. “A friend gave it to me. Long time ago.”
    â€œRaymond Bernstein?” Buster can hardly contain his excitement. “Ruthless Eddie?”
    â€œI knew some people who knew them.” Doc John plunks the hat on top of Buster’s head. “This’ll help keep the sun off your face.”
    â€œWere you friends with the Purples?” Buster asks. “Or a rival? Were you really there? You can tell me. I won’t squeal, I swear. C’mon, tell me everything!”
    Everything?
    Doc John shudders at this. Everything is a maelstrom he can’t afford. The hair on the back of his neck stands on end. “You’d best get going,” he says. “School’s waiting.”
    Buster reaches for the box and places his new gift inside as delicately as if he’s lifting an infant from a crib. “I’ll take good care of her, sir. I swear.”
    â€œYou do that,” the doctor whispers. “You do that.”
    B USTER TAKES THE BACK ROADS, stops to lie down in a cornfield with the gun box on his bony chest and examines the gun in the bright sunshine. It’s blinding to look at it out of doors. Clouds roll overhead and he imagines all the times it’s actually been fired. Who might’ve pulled the trigger? Who was injured, even killed? He will find out soon enough, but today the edges of his village move with pigs and cattle and there is no urgency for answers.
    From a distance the long, narrow troughs of the Walker farm hold swine as big as calves. Sturdy