Free Black Maps by David Jauss Page B

almost feel it again. A thin shiver of pleasure ran through him. “It was my favorite toy,” he said wistfully. “I wonder what happened to it.”
    â€œI used to think it was so awful for kids to play war,” Susan said, lifting her long dark hair off her neck and settling it over her shoulders. “But now I don’t know. Look at this generation of kids that were raised without toy guns—they’re all little Oliver Norths. They’re playing with real guns now. And kids like you—you turned out all right. You wouldn’t even think of going hunting, much less killing someone.”
    â€œAt least not anymore,” he said.
    â€œWhat do you mean?” she said. “You mean you used to hunt?”
    Susan was a vegan, and she did volunteer work on Saturdays for the Humane Society. Elliot had told her many stories about his childhood—he had grown up in a small town in another state and didn’t meet her until they were in college—but he hadn’t told her he’d been a hunter. It wasn’t that he considered that fact a dark secret; he just knew she’d be upset and didn’t think it was worth telling her. He hadn’t meant to mention it now either—it had just come out. Perhaps he’d drunk too much wine at the party. Or maybe he’d gotten so lost in his memories of the toy rifle that he spoke before he could think. Whatever, he didn’t want an argument. He was in a romantic mood and he didn’t want anything to destroy it.
    â€œI was a kid,” he explained. “I didn’t know any better.”
    â€œHow old were you?” she asked.
    â€œWhat does it matter?” he said. “You know I wouldn’t even kill a spider now.”
    â€œBut you killed something then?”
    He could lie now, he realized, and say he’d gone hunting but never shot anything. He could make up a story or two about his ineptitude as a hunter, and she would laugh and everything would be fine between them. But as he’d gotten older, lies had become harder for him. They had come easily to him in his youth, but now they tasted like rust in his mouth.
    â€œYes,” he said.
    She took her hand from his thigh and sat there silently. They passed under a streetlight, and her face flared into view. “Come on, Susan,” he said. “Don’t be mad.”
    Then she said, “How could you do it? Why would you even want to do it?”
    It was a question he had asked himself from time to time. He had enjoyed hunting and trapping animals as a teenager, but now that he was an adult, he had no desire to do either. He thought of his brutality as a phase he had gone through, a period of hormonal confusion, perhaps, like puberty. But he still remembered the pleasure hunting and trapping gave him, and he still understood it.
    â€œDo we have to talk about this?” he said.
    â€œI want to know,” she said.
    He sighed. “Okay. If you really want to know, I did it because I wanted to see if I could hit something a long ways off.” It was the simple truth. It was a thrill to shoot at the empty air half a sky in front of a pheasant or duck or goose and see that emptiness explode with the miraculous conjunction of bird and shot. It was a kind of triumph over chance, over the limitations of time and space, and each time it happened, he felt powerful and alive.
    â€œBut you could have shot at targets,” she said.
    â€œTargets don’t move,” he answered.
    â€œWhat about clay pigeons? They move.”
    He wished they hadn’t started this. “Can’t we talk about something else?” he asked. He tried to make his voice as warm as he wished hers would be.
    â€œFirst answer my question. Why not shoot at clay pigeons instead?”
    He considered several lies while he turned onto the avenue that led toward the suburb where they lived. Then he sighed and said, “Because they aren’t