It was sunny and warm for the first time all in a long time.  Girls were wearing their skirts and big sunglasses too.  There was a general feeling of togetherness.  I walked outside and next door to Vince’s house.
 
At Vince’s house, nothing much was going on.  The Phillies were on TV and they were losing because the Phillies were always losing.  Leiberthal popped one up high and left and it was going and going.  When it looked like the Phillies might not be losing anymore, it dropped from the sky and into the fielder’s glove.

“Vince, something has to change.”

“Yeah, the Phils can’t lose forever,” Vince said.

“I guess they can.”

Vince’s house was a mess.  It was always a mess.  There were beer bottles all over, old food that wasn’t recognizable anymore, puke and piss in the corners, newspapers scattered that people probably should have puked and pissed on but didn’t, and all sorts of other things.  It smelled like death.

“But I mean something has to change,” I said.

“Like what.”

“We need to do something.”

“But the Phillies are on.”

Rick threw the door open and kicked some garbage out of his way and said the same thing.
 
“This place stinks like shit.”

“Nahh, just puke and piss.”

“Lets go somewhere.”

***

At Wal-Mart there were lots of things to look at that would have been fun in the warm weather.  There were volleyball nets.  We could have set that up in the yard and invited the girls in the spaghetti-strap shirts and flip flops and sunglasses over to play.  I would pretend to be aloof and the volleyball would come down on me and bounce off my head.  The guys would think it was funny and the girls in the sunglasses would laugh and think how cute the whole thing was.  The house would be clean and we’d drink and listen to music and I’d screw one of the them or a few of them.  Vince and Rick would be downstairs trying to do what I was doing.

There were other things too in the sporting department.  Rick and Vince saw the B.B. guns.  They looked to be very solid, made of metal, made to look identical to a .44 Magnum.
 
“We have to have these,” Rick said.

“We do?”

“Yeah. We do.”

The guns were thirty dollars.  It came with a holster, a box of Copperhead ammunition, two CO2 cartridges, a scope, and a large pair of yellow-tinted safety glasses.  Thirty dollars was a couple of books or an electricity bill or a new pair of converse, but Rick and Vince were already sold.  There were walking to the register with their guns.  I picked up a package and walked to the register.  I paid with my debit card.  It was as if I’d paid nothing for it.

***

The sun was still out though it was approaching dusk. Vince was driving us on the smaller back roads in cow country.  There wasn’t anything to look at besides cows and fences and pasture.  I wondered why we weren’t back in civilization where the girls were, strolling around in their sunglasses and maybe they looked at you when you walked by and maybe they didn’t.  But you never could tell either way, and all you knew for sure was that they just passed by you and you just passed them. 
Rick had his gun loaded with the CO2 and ammo and the scope set and his safety glasses on.  Vince was driving and fumbling to get his gun loaded too.  I couldn’t get the packaging opened and put the gun on the floor.

“Are you loaded?”

“I can’t get the packaging opened.”

“Christ, you woman.  Just open the goddamn thing.”

I opened the goddamn thing.  I weighed the cold, steel gun in my hand.  It felt heavier than it looked.  I put the CO2 cartridge in and loaded the magazine and I clicked the safety off, showing the red band for a moment just to see.  Vince pulled the car over.

“Why are we stopped?”

“Shut up a second,” he said.

“But what are we doing?”

“Eddie, just shut the fuck up.”

We were parked next to a pasture.  There were some cows grazing and Rick and Vince wedged out through the windows.  They unloaded their magazines into two cows and the cows ran back the pasture.  They laughed and I looked out the window on the other side of the road.  The sun was setting and it was a pretty mix of pinks and purples and it looked very nice over the pasture.  In the distance there was a pickup truck behind and I wondered if it was maybe a farmer who owned the pasture and maybe seen it all.

“It’s your turn,” Rick said to me.

“My turn?”

“Yeah, you have to.”

Rick and Vince were turned around looking at me.  Rick had his gun pointed at in my direction.  I assumed it was emptied.  The truck was coming and I had no idea what’d happen to us if he’d seen Vince’s car parked to next to his pasture and his cows running from the fence. 

“But there’s a truck back there.”

“He’s way off.  We’re not moving until you do.”

The truck was red, a Ford.  I saw that much and a trail of dust behind.  I leaned out the window with my gun and aimed at one and fired once and then twice and then a third time and the cow jolted and ran and Rick and Vince laughed and patted me on the back.   Cold, they said, the man’s cold, a cold-blooded bastard.  The truck turns off and that was the last I saw of that.

***

Back at Vince’s house and we sat and had some beers and watched the bottom of the ninth.  The Phillies were down two and there was a man on second and a man on third.  Jimmy Rollins was at bat.  Rollins swung once, held once, and swung again and the Phillies lost.  The crowd funneled out, leaving their beer cups, popcorn, and hotdog wrappers in the stands of Philadelphia. 

“Well the Phillies blew it.”

“Yeah, nothing changes with them.” 

The house was still a mess and girls started coming through the door.  I opened another beer and started talking to a blonde wearing a pink spaghetti-strap shirt.  We talked about the game, she had watched it too. Rick and Vince were talking to the rest of the girls and making them laugh.
 
I put on my yellow safety glasses and the blonde in the pink spaghetti straps laughed.  If she knew what she was laughing at, I don’t know if she still would’ve laughed.  But maybe she would have.  Maybe she would have looked the other way and laughed and taken me upstairs for a warm, warm night with a cold-blooded bastard.