Trigger Finger Read Free Page A

far as the AM waves would
reach.
    “Ever been on the
air before?”
    Billy Horton, the
host of AM 1110’s Alamance Talks, sat in one of the chairs before a single
desktop computer.   He looked exactly as
Tom Spicer had described him; fat and old. He had a head of messy gray hair
shot through with white.   His body
overflowed the edges of the chair, drooping towards the ground like the wax of
a melting candle in the same way as the lower half of his face hung below his
chin.   Some of his hair had migrated from
his head to other places, and remnants of it grew in his ears and his
nose.   He’s fat and old, Tom had said. And
he’s a son of a bitch.   If you want to
punch him in the face at some point during the program, do it.   I’ll post your bail .
    During Tom’s
unsuccessful run as the Democratic candidate for the state Senate in 2010,
Billy had run a segment every weekday evening called Stupid Things Tom Spicer
Says, culled from Tom’s statements to the press and the myriad closing arguments
he’d made in Superior Court over the years.   During the run, Billy came to be known in our office as The Fat
Satan.   Consequently, when I entered the
studio, I walked in expecting horns and a tail, or at least a forked
tongue.   I found none of that.
    “No,” I said.   This came out unsteadily, which alarmed
me.   The program hadn’t even started yet,
and I had already mangled the simplest word in the English language.   What would happen when I had to say my name?
    “It ain’t no big
thing,” Billy said with a chuckle.   “Most
of the time, hardly anybody’s out there.   My wife don’t even listen no more.”
    Not true in my
case.   I could count on Allie tuning in,
and Abby, too.   Abby’s friends and their
parents.   Everybody at the firm.   Every lawyer who knew me.   All of my clients, past and present.   Every man and woman in broadcast range who
had ever worried about a home invasion but read in the newspaper that Kevin
Swanson had foiled one.   Six months
later, the community still basked in the warmth of one of those rare occasions
when the good guys had won.   And they
would all listen tonight.
    “We’re on in
thirty seconds,” said the engineer, a young intern from one of the Greensboro colleges.   Unlike his boss, he was rail-thin and boasted
a head of shaggy, Beatle-esque brown hair.   Billy had introduced him as Dylan, or maybe William.   I hadn’t really been paying attention, so his
name had sailed in and out through the same ears as his college.
    “Remember what I
told you,” said Craig Montero from a seat in the corner.   He had insisted on coming to supervise me, he
said.   To make sure I behaved
myself.   “Try to imagine what a
well-adjusted family man in his mid-thirties would say and channel him.   You say anything crazy, I’m cutting you off.”
    “Just be yourself
and don’t say any cuss words,” Billy added.   “You’ll do fine.”
    “Back on in ten,”
said Dylan or William.
    Everyone fell
silent.   Billy cleared his throat.
    “Five…four…three…two…one.”
    And I went live.
    “Welcome back,
ladies and gentlemen, you’re listening to Alamance Talks, the voice of
conservatism in Alamance
County.   I am, of course and as always, Billy
Horton.   I’m in here tonight with a very
special person, a man who needs no introduction   because every one of us knows him, likes him and wants to be him—a man whose index finger did more for society in
five seconds than most men do with both hands their entire lives—Kevin
Swanson.   Good evening, Kevin.”
    I opened my
mouth.   A tumbleweed fell out, but
recognizable English words followed it.   “Good evening, Billy.”
    “Now, just in case
there’s somebody out there who spent the last six months in a coma, Kevin here
is a lawyer from Burlington, but in February of this year, Kevin used a
privately-owned firearm—an AK-47, am I correct?”
    I nodded.   Then, remembering nobody could