A man died in the ravine behind my house. He was a homeless man looking for a place to sleep where he wouldn’t be bothered. Another homeless man discovered his body. The police said there was no sign of foul play.
After that I bought a gun. I’ve never owned a gun before. A pistol. A Beretta. My friend, George, sold it to me, and showed me how to load the clip, set the safety, and fire it so it wouldn’t fly out of my hand. Then I put it and an extra clip in the drawer next to my bed.
That was the last time I saw the pistol till that night when I came home from the tavern drinking with my friend, George, the one who sold me the gun.
I live on a road canopied with chestnut trees. It’s dark, in a good way. We’re in the city but it feels rural, because of those chestnut trees.
The ravine by the house is steep, and pretty deep. It rains a lot here so the sides and the bottom of the ravine are a jungle of vine maples, ferns, blackberries, giant trees and brambles. I have tree rats in my attic that come in out of that ravine. As long as they stay in the attic, I can live with that.
I went into my house through the back door. I keep it screened, because I get mosquitoes. The screen door squeaked when I opened it. I put the key in the lock, turned it, and heard the deadbolt slide, grabbed the knob and put my shoulder against the door. It sprung open and I flipped the light. The kitchen lit up. I hung my coat on the hook over the light switch, kicked off my wet boots, and went to the refrigerator in stocking feet.
The Stoli was right where I left it in the freezer. I took a small glass, the kind of glass old Italian men drink wine out of. Not a shot glass. Not a tumbler. Just a small cylinder. I filled it with vodka, and went into the dark living room.
At first I didn’t notice anything. I thought I was going straight to bed, to read and drink till I fell asleep. There was a click. It was the lamp next to my reading chair, a big wingback that was easy to curl up in. It was then that I saw the pistol, lying on its side on the table alongside the chair. A man with a dark blue knit cap and a pea coat sat in the wingback. He had the look, perhaps because of that cap, of a longshoreman. I recognized him immediately. He was the man who’d found the corpse in the ravine.
“Hello,” he said. “Did I scare you?”
“What are you doing here?” I said.
“You know who I am?”
“Of course. You’re from the ravine.”
“That’s rich,” the man said. “From the ravine.”
“You are, aren’t you?” I said.
“I guess I am. I hadn’t thought of myself that way.”
My eyes darted to the gun.
“I found it in your drawer by the bed. I figured if you had one, it would be there, or under the mattress. I found two hundred dollars in twenty-dollar bills in your sock drawer but I didn’t take it. You can count it.”
“What do you want?” I said
“I’ve been watching your house.”
“From the ravine?”
“That’s right,” he said. “But not like you’re thinking.”
“What am I thinking?”
“That I want to rob you. Or mean you harm.”
“What do you want?”
“Look, sit down,” the man said gesturing to the other chair. There are only two chairs. It’s a small house. “This wasn’t the way I planned this,” he said.
“No?” I said.
“Not at all.” He pulled off his knit cap and scratched his head. He was bald but there were a hundred or so stray hairs that grew like weeds on a desert of skin. There was a tangle of curly hair on his neck. His salt and pepper beard grew up to his cheekbones and over his Adam’s apple.
“Look,” he said. “I know who you are. You’re Charlie Lungren, the poet. I’ve read your stuff. I like it.” He reached for the gun.
I put my hands up in front of me as though they could stop a bullet.
“Relax, Charlie,” the man said. He reached past the gun and picked up a book of my poetry. The title was “KAthika.” It means, ‘I am lost.’ I’d written it over thirty years ago when I was living on the island
“I should never have bought that gun,” I said. “‘Those who’ll play with cats must expect to be scratched.’”
“That’s from Don Quixote,” he said.
“You’ve read Cervantes?”
“Charlie, I’m homeless,” he said. “That doesn’t make me ignorant…”
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