Trigger Finger Read Free Page B

see this on
the radio, I said, “Yes.”
    I looked to Craig
for approval.   His features unreadable,
he nodded once.
    “Kevin used an
AK-47, people—a weapon your liberal opposition thinks common folk shouldn’t
have—to defend his home against two criminal punks who came over from Durham to make trouble here in Alamance County.   Bad move, guys, bad, bad move.   Kevin, if you could…tell us what happened.”
    I swallowed.   Billy looked at me expectantly.   Craig looked at me warily.   On the wall, the ON AIR sign glowed bright
orange as the dead air crackled before my lips.
    Ki breath, I remembered.
    “Well,” I began in
a voice a good register or two higher than normal. “It started in my
basement.   I fell asleep on the couch
watching a Carolina
basketball game.”
    “Go Tarheels,”
Billy interjected.
    “Yes,” I
said.   “Go Heels.”
    And I told my
story.   I told it without freezing up,
without shaking, without crying—and without boasting.   The whole time, Craig watched me like a
parent watching his three-year-old pour milk over cereal, waiting for me to
drop the jug and make a huge mess.   But I
didn’t make a huge mess; I got through it, and when I reached the point in the
story where I shot the
    ( vermin)
      (rats)
    (snakes)
    (roaches)
    intruders, I
paused.
    Shooting human beings , Craig had told me
earlier, is supposed to be difficult no
matter who they are .   I want you to pause a little bit like you’re
having trouble with the memory.   Sigh.   Pretend it bothers you.
      “And
then I pulled the trigger,” I said.
    “And then you
pulled the trigger,” Billy echoed.
    “Yes.   And…”
    Another
pause.   Craig raised his chin as he
stared at me.
    And then I stood over their bodies and I
grinned at them and I pulled the trigger again to make sure they were dead, but
I had fired every round in the magazine and so the hammer fell on an empty
chamber, which sucked because I’d really just gotten started.
    “…and that’s it,”
I finished.   “That’s where it ends.   My wife called the police, they came out, and
they took it from there.”
    “Wasn’t much to
take after you got done with them, though, was there?”
    “No,” I said.   “There wasn’t.”
    “Kevin, I’d like
to open the phones to our listeners, if you don’t mind.”
    “Sure,” I said.
    “All right,
then.   Our first caller is…Randy from Burlington.   Randy, good evening.”
    I actually did
mind.   I’d feared the call-ins the most;
I could prepare myself for an interview with Billy Horton, but I had no idea
what any of these callers would say.   They could ask me anything.   I’d
have to think on my feet, never my strong suit.   Preparation, strategy, planning, yes, yes and yes, but spontaneity?   Decisive reaction?   No.   And no.
    Ki breath.   The Mind of No Expectation.
    The only people who listen to Billy Horton’s
show, Craig had assured me , are
right-wingnuts who are probably going to drool when you talk about shooting these
two guys.   Nobody’s going to ask any hard
questions.   They’re just going to call in
and tell you how awesome you are.
    And Randy from Burlington did just that.
    “I just want to
say that…uhh…good shooting.   That’s it,
right there, that’s how you do it.   Good
friggin’ job.   You’re our hero, man!”
    The next caller
wanted to praise me, too.   As did the
next.   And the next.   In fact, I didn’t get a single hard question
the whole time, right up until Billy clicked the mouse on his computer and
said, “Looks like we got time for one more caller.   Thomas from Mebane, you’re on.”
    A moment of
silence.   In the corner, Craig
frowned.   Billy reached for his mouse,
but then Thomas from Mebane spoke.
    “Good evening,
Kevin.”
    Devoid of emotion
and accent, the voice possessed a flat quality so different from the other
callers that every red light in my head suddenly blazed to life and I thought, here it is.