Free Eoin Miller 01 - Faithless Street by Jay Stringer Page A

ago.
    -Chick Mallison



A Bullet For Bauser

 
    “Is that-?”
    “Yes.”
    “For real?”
    “Yes.”
    “Fuuuuuck.”
    “Uh huh.”
    Bauser looked at the cold steel in his hand.
Funny, he thought it would be heavier. He’d always imagined holding a gun would
be like holding a cannon, a real sign that you had some fucking strength in
you.
    He’d held an air pistol once, at his best
mate Dex’s house after school. He’d shot Dex in the balls and he’d walked with
a limp for six months. Thing was, that air pistol was pretty much the same
weight as this gun. His little brother Marcus was staring at the gun as if it
was the greatest thing he’d ever seen. Bauser had never heard Marcus swear
before. He cuffed him round the ear proudly.
    “Listen to you, swearing like Granny.”
    “I’m a man now, just like you.”
    Bauser laughed. Marcus was only a week past
twelve years old. Which put him two weeks past the eighth anniversary of their
daddy walking out. Stood there in second-hand pyjamas, a faded power ranger on
the belly, and swearing with pride.
    “Is that right? When you going to start
working for a living, then?”
    Marcus smiled and pulled a face. When he was
younger, that had been the face he pulled if he didn’t like the food he was
given, now it just made do for anytime he wanted to be funny.
    “Workings for looooosers.” Marcus stretched
it out in a high whine. “I never seen granny working, and she’s always got
money for magazines and shit.”
    “Shit? You’re really getting the hang of
these words. You been watching my DVD’s?”
    Marcus rolled his eyes.
    “Nah. I get the words from school, man. I
only watch your DVD’s if I want to see boobies.” He paused while his big
brother gave him a high five. “But one thing I wanna know? What’s a clit?”
    Bauser blushed and looked at the floor. Then
at the wall. Then at everything else in the room other than his brother.
    “I, uh, I dunno.”
    “Granny didn’t know neither.” Marcus shook
his head. Then his eyes fell to the gun again and his face lit up once more.
“Why you got a gun, Eric?”
    Bauser tucked the gun into the waistline of
his jeans at the small of his back. He usually wore them a size up, but he
needed the waistband to be tight today so he’d worn an old pair. He flinched
when his brother used his first name.
    “Cuz today’s a big day for me.” He checked
himself out in the mirror to make sure the gun was concealed. “I’m getting
promoted.”
    **
    He stopped in the kitchen to kiss him mum on
the cheek before going out.
    She was stirring a pot while trying to stop
something under the grill from turning to charcoal. From the living room
Bauser’s granny was shouting in a running commentary in her Caribbean lilt.
Bauser and his mum shared a laugh at the old woman’s rantings.
    “Where you off to?”
    “Doing overtime at work. They say they’re
gonna teach me to drive the forklift.”
    His mum smiled at him with a sad tilt to her
mouth. She didn’t call him a liar. She didn’t need to.
    “You’ll stay for breakfast first though?”
    “Nah, can’t. I’ll be late if I don’t get off
now. I’ll get a pot noodle or something, don’t worry about it.”
    “I saw Dex at the supermarket last night, he
was asking about you. You don’t spend any time with him anymore?”
    “Nah, he’s with a bad lot. Gotta keep my head
in the work, you know?”
    Dex was working at the warehouse that Bauser
was pretending to work at. He was on the straight and boring, and Bauser had
new friends now.
    “Mwah.” His mum kissed him on the forehead
and waited until he returned the sentiment on her cheek, then turned back to
her cooking.
    “Don’t work to hard Eric.” She said.
    “Mum, don’t go calling me that. That’s his name, I don’t want it.”
    Bauser had almost made it through the living
room before his granny caught him. She was settled in her usual arm chair,
directly in front of the telly and below a photograph of