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Lincoln Rush drove out Willow Grove Street in his black 1964 Nova SS, thinking thoughts the color of his fender. Unnaturally hot and humid air enveloped him, and he wiped the sweat from his forehead. Hot as the jungles of Vietnam, or at least he imagined so. The dread of being drafted overwhelmed him. As he drove past the American Legion Hall, he pressed his fingers on the blinker and moved it upward slowly until the signal engaged, then he depressed the clutch and lifted his foot from the gas pedal in the same plodding way. The racing-tuned 283 cubic inch V8 loped and the Cherry Bomb glass packs rumbled loudly in that telltale off-kilter rhythm of a street rod. The sound lifted his heart for just a few seconds and it quickened his motions as he turned the steering wheel, hand over hand. He imagined others hearing his car, knowing it was him and being jealous. He drove on past the Legion and alongside the ball field that followed, grasping at the fading emotion. The green grass, clay infield, and cinder-block dugouts of the baseball field provoked a deep longing for his childhood, the kind of ache that some would call a symptom of depression. He craved that simpler time.
Linc thought about Rich Jessup’s death all the time now, more often than he had in the months immediately following it. Rich was his best friend’s older brother. They had tagged along behind Rich as young kids, cheered for him in football, wrestling, and baseball, dreamed of growing up to be as strong and tough as him. His death had been jarring. It was the first time anyone Linc had been close to had died. At the funeral, he had stood with the Jessup family, feeling the emotion well up inside of him. As the soldiers folded the flag and presented it to Mrs. Jessup, tears cascaded toward him and then shook his body. That night, Rich left the waking world and entered Linc’s dreams for the first time.
The dreams came frequently in those first days after the funeral, but they slowed with the passage of time. Ten days ago, they had returned with a vengeance. Nightly, Linc was transformed into Rich as he lay on the jungle floor and felt blood, real blood, pulsing out of his wounds, oozing through his clothes until it darkened the ferns and fronds around him.
The infield passed. Just a quarter mile further, the pavement ran out and the road turned to gravel. His tires rolled over the jagged, gray rock, pressing it against the dry clay and kicking up a heavy cloud of dust that obscured his trail. A short distance after that, he pulled the Nova over into the tall grass of the big fields that lay behind the buffer of towering trees and before the river. He needed to clear his mind, and let go of his fear. What he had to do would be easier if he could relax a little. Linc switched off the ignition, removed the keys, and ran his right hand over the coarse fabric of his front seat. He sat still for a moment, staring at the faded thread-bare material. His eyes lost focus.
He had planned to get the seats re-upholstered: black leather, rolled and pleated. He saved all the money he needed from his job at Rockaway Sales. He had been really excited about getting the work done, but lately it didn’t seem to matter that much. His finger found a tear in the fabric, and he wiggled the lonely digit until he felt a dry, powdery surface beneath. He knew he could focus and clear his eyes of blur if he really tried, but he couldn’t muster the will. Why should he?
Where is the gain in that?
The car door creaked as it opened and again as it shut. Linc paused for a moment, his hand glued to the door. He stood with his shoulders hunched, cutting two inches off his height. His normally taut muscles seemed to droop with fatigue. Again, he thought back to little league baseball. He remembered the day in 1963 that he got a chance to pitch. He had struck out two batters before walking three in a row and then giving up seven runs in one inning. It was the first and last time he pitched, but at least he was a decent third baseman. He was always nothing more than decent in sports, and he now realized how much that it gnawed at him. In high school, he tried baseball, basketball, football and track, looking for his sport, the one he would be good at. In track, he tried sprints, the mile, hurdles, and even the pole vault. He was OK in most, but excelled at none. It was like watching The Honeymooners every night on Channel 5, Ralph making the same mistakes, never learning, never getting better and never even seeing himself for what he really was: a pitiful man.
At the back of the car, Linc paused again before inserting the key and popping the trunk. He reached in and grabbed an old, dingy, grayish-white towel that used to hang in his bathroom at home. He threw it over his shoulder as his thoughts turned to his parents. He knew that both his father and his mother loved him, but he wondered if his father would really miss him if he died. Sure, he would tell everyone that he mourned his son, but deep down, would it really make a difference? Linc felt like a disappointment, not the son his father wanted or deserved. He also felt like he was betraying his father by doubting him, but the thoughts came anyway; he couldn’t stop them.
He reached back into the trunk to pick up his Chamberlain spring-loaded skeet thrower and an old sack that sat next to it. He thought about his father again, a more benevolent portrait, the father who taught him how to shoot skeet when he was ten years old. It was the one sport for which his father had a right to be proud, even if all it took was a steady hand and a keen eye. It took ten minutes to set up the thrower, the act soothing in its familiarity. He anchored it with dented, dirt-encrusted metal tent stakes and brought over a box of twenty clay pigeons. You didn’t normally have to anchor a skeet thrower, but Linc had rigged up the equipment with a six-foot length of rope, so he could trip the spring and shoot solo.
The thrower was set. Linc dropped the stiff, dry towel on the ground next to it and returned to the open trunk. He paused, staring at the gun case. Again, a glimpse of Vietnam played out in his head, something he had seen on TV: bombs dropped above a green canopy, huge explosions tore at the earth’s fabric, and fireballs engulfed the forest. He let the illusion wash over him unimpeded. He felt he could touch it, feel it, smell it. The fire came at him in a crimson wave. He waited for it to consume him.
He lifted the gun case into his arms, cradling it like a baby. Slowly, he unzipped it, revealing the Charles Daly 20 gauge over/under shotgun that had been a present from his dad on his fourteenth birthday. How clearly Linc could remember that day.
Better times, he thought. The smile on his father’s face, the words of praise accompanying the present, and the sheltering feel of his father’s hug were there, comforting, for a moment. He removed the firearm from its case. “Firearm” was his father’s word, so formal and sanitized. Linc inspected it as he had done countless times before. He opened the breech, stared into the empty barrels. It had a comforting feel that helped clear his mind just a little. Once again he thought of his father, knew his father’s heart was good, his love for Linc strong. He felt his own disappointment in himself. He was questioning his father’s love to avoid thinking of his own weakness.
Let’s get to it, he thought and walked back to tie the rope around his ankle. He loaded the shells and raised the gun into position, then paused and tried to concentrate. It wasn’t easy. He couldn’t stop thinking about the war, and there in his mind was Rich once again, the unwanted guest. He imagined Rich, shot in the chest, blood soaking the nametag on his U.S. Army issue shirt. There weren’t any sounds in his conjured death scene; Rich did not scream or call for his mother like they did in the movies. There was just blood rhythmically pumping out of his chest. It was almost as if Linc could see and feel the ether of life drain away until nothing was left except those eyes, those scary glassy eyes. He didn’t have to imagine Rich’s mother screaming in anguish at the news. He could remember that clearly. He had been there. The memory of that scream shot through him and rang in his ears. He re-lived the instant that her body collapsed in on itself, a puppet whose strings had been cut. He could also remember Mr. Jessup crying, tough as nails Mr. Jessup, crying like a baby. Their cries were soothing to him now, a parent’s love, warm and beautiful in those salty tears.
He took a deep breath and felt the thin ribbons of steel under his index finger. “Pull,” he said aloud, and he jerked his leg back three inches. The clay saucer flew. As he had done so many times, Linc led the pigeon and pulled the trigger. The shot missed and the saucer fell from the sky unharmed. His head felt cloudy.
“Shit.”
He took a deep breath, and then another. He tried to focus on the breeze rustling the leaves of the big trees surrounding the field, a trick he had learned in competition. He reloaded the thrower and the gun, got back in position, and once more spoke the word “pull” and drew back his leg. Again he missed. He didn’t swear this time.
You can do better than that with your eyes shut.
For the hell of it, he reloaded, shut his eyes and pulled. He opened his eyes in time to see shards of clay exploding in the sky. Linc laughed out loud. He kept his eyes open for the next shot, but it was no good; he missed the bird. He couldn’t remember missing this many shots since he was a little boy. As he bent down to load the thrower yet again, the lost feeling returned and in its wake, the despair that he most feared. He remembered opening the letter and reading.
You are hereby ordered for induction into the Armed Forces of the United States…
Linc had graduated high school a year earlier, but that was a year later than he should have. He hadn’t studied much in school and hadn’t worried about his grades, never expecting to go to college. Now here he was being drafted by Uncle Sam. His mind returned to the thought that had been haunting him, the one he wanted to stuff away so deep that it could never get out. I’m gonna die in Vietnam. It had been ten days since the letter arrived. Ten days with hardly any sleep. Ten days in which he could think of nothing else. He couldn’t even shoot skeet any more. He knelt next to the box of clay pigeons and felt his nagging self-doubt as it rose up within him, so deep and so clear. The doubt swept through his body like blood, invading each vein, each capillary, each organ.
Last Sunday, he’d tried talking to his dad about it, but that didn’t help. His dad fought the Nazis in the war. He believed in doing your duty and serving your country. He felt his dad’s nobility and resented it. “Dad. I can’t go to ’Nam. I won’t come back.” Linc had broken down and cried.
Linc figured that his dad knew first-hand that war was hell, but there he was telling Linc to put it out of his mind, “until he was in the thick of it.” “You’ll be alright son,” he said. “It’s just like shooting skeet. You’re a damn good shot.”
Linc loaded his gun one more time, wiped his sweaty palms on his shirt, and stood up. One word left his lips, “Pull,” and four more raced through his mind. Just like shooting skeet. Linc shot and missed. Sure Dad, he thought.
Just like shooting skeet, and I’ll miss when it counts.
He bowed his head and stared at the grass until his vision blurred. He waited. One blade of grass came back into focus, then another. I have to, he thought. He stood motionless, sinking into himself. He pictured Rich Jessup as he had last seen him, home on leave from Vietnam. Rich had a fresh, puffy, red scar on his cheek, his hair was just stubble, and his eyes were different, glassy and hard. He looked so different from a year earlier. He looked like a killer. Linc felt queasy thinking about those eyes and about the shriveled “gook ear” that Rich had shown off.
I’m not tough like him. If he couldn’t make it, I never will.
Linc’s shoulders carried the weight of his depression. He thought about his alternatives. Josh got his draft notice a few days before Linc. Josh was going to Canada. Why not? Linc wondered, but the thought was unbearable. He would have to break up with Eileen. She wouldn’t come with him. He would never see his friends or family again. It was overwhelming. Linc reached into his pocket for one more shell and filled the lower chamber.
I can’t go to Canada. I don’t even have the nerve to do that.
Linc moved his right foot forward and felt the tug of the rope still attached to his ankle. He bent down on one knee and untied the knot. After he was free, he stood back up. Once again, gravity and emotion forced his gaze downward. He stepped his right foot forward about twelve inches in front of his left. He fixed his resolve, then lowered his Charles Daley and laid the bottom barrel up against the big toe on his right foot. He swallowed his indecision, his Adam’s apple struggling to hold it down.
The crack of the shot rang louder in his ears than those before it. Pain enveloped him, rising up with the dense sinuous cloud of smoke, swirling from the open crater next to his foot as if it were a snake was being charmed. He fell to the ground and his scream filled the air. He had never felt such acute pain, head-jarring and concussive, as if a locomotive was smashing his skull. It demanded every ounce of his concentration. There was no distraction from the totality of its hold on him, so clean and satisfying.
Linc saw Rich’s face once more, and then his father’s as well. It’ll be OK, Dad. It was just like shooting skeet, and I didn’t miss.
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AUTHOR BIO:
Gareth Frank is a retired union organizer and administrator. He has studied writing at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and his short stories have been accepted for publication in the Mulberry Fork Review and the Dupont Review. He has also completed a first novel and is now seeking representation.
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WHY WE CHOSE TO PUBLISH “Like Shooting Skeet”:
This piece held a special resonance for me (Rick Taubold) because in 1969 I was starting my fifth year at college (to do a double major) when the college declared to my draft board that I wasn’t in a regular five-year program. I was declared 1-A (available to serve) and ordered to report for a physical. That was the year President Nixon instituted the lottery of Selective Service. Unlike Lincoln Rush, I feared service in Vietnam, but I pulled a high number in the lottery and was spared having to make any decisions.
But I was well aware of the feeling that went through young men in Lincoln’s shoes, so this story rings all too true. I remember one of my college friends who went to ’Nam and did not return. I applaud author Gareth Frank for providing us with such a powerful piece of writing.