I remember the bang of thunder from overhead. I remember how happy I was, with the decision finally made and the night to look forward to. I remember the murmur of men’s voices and the murmur of Mattie’s response as she told them where to put the stuff. Then I heard all of them going back out again.
I looked down at myself and saw a certain lump was subsiding. I remember thinking there was nothing so absurd-looking as a sexually excited man and knew I’d had this same thought before, perhaps in a dream. I left the bathroom, checked on Kyra again — rolled over on her side, fast asleep — and then went down the hall. I had just reached the living room when gunfire erupted outside. I never confused the sound with thunder. There was a moment when my mind fumbled toward the idea of backfires — some kid’s hotrod — and then I knew. Part of me had been expecting something to happen . . . but it had been expecting ghosts rather than gunfire. A fatal lapse.
It was the rapid pah! pah! pah! of an auto-fire weapon — a Glock nine-millimeter, as it turned out. Mattie screamed — a high, drilling scream that froze my blood. I heard John cry out in pain and George Kennedy bellow, ‘Down, down! For the love of Christ, get her down! ‘
Something hit the trailer like a hard spatter of hail — a rattle of punching sounds running from west to east. Something split the air in front of my eyes — I heard it. There was an almost-musical sproing sound, like a snapping guitar string. On the kitchen table, the salad bowl one of them had just brought in shattered.
I ran for the door and nearly dived down the cement-block steps. I saw the barbecue overturned, with the glowing coals already setting patches of the scant front-yard grass on fire. I saw Rommie Bissonette sitting with his legs outstretched, looking stupidly down at his ankle, which was soaked with blood. Mattie was on her hands and knees by the barbecue with her hair hanging in her face —
it was as if she meant to sweep up the hot coals before they could cause some real trouble. John staggered toward me, holding out a hand. The arm above it was soaked with blood.
And I saw the car I’d seen before — the nondescript sedan with the joke sticker on it. It had gone up the road — the men inside making that first pass to check us out — then turned around and come back. The shooter was still leaning out the front passenger window. I could see the stubby smoking weapon in his hands. It had a wire stock. His features were a blue blank broken only by huge gaping eyesockets — a ski-mask.
Overhead, thunder gave a long, awakening roar.
George Kennedy was walking toward the car, not hurrying, kicking hot spilled coals out of his way as he went, not bothering about the dark-red stain that was spreading on the right thigh of his pants, reaching behind himself, not hurrying even when the shooter pulled back in and shouted ‘Go go go!’ at the driver, who was also wearing a blue mask, George not hurrying, no, not hurrying a bit, and even before I saw the pistol in his hand, I knew why he had never taken off his absurd Pa Kettle suit jacket, why he had even played Frisbee in it.
The blue car (it turned out to be a 1987 Ford registered to Mrs. Sonia Belliveau of Auburn and reported stolen the day before) had pulled over onto the shoulder and had never really stopped rolling. Now it accelerated, spewing dry brown dust out from under its rear tires, fishtailing, knocking Mattie’s RFD box off its post and sending it flying into the road.
George still didn’t hurry. He brought his hands together, holding his gun with his right and steadying with his left. He squeezed off five deliberate shots. The first two went into the trunk — I saw the holes appear. The third blew in the back window of the departing Ford, and I heard someone shout in pain. The fourth went I don’t know where. The fifth blew the left rear tire. The Ford veered to that side. The driver almost brought it back, then lost it completely. The car ploughed into the ditch thirty yards below Mattie’s trailer and rolled over on its side. There was a whumpf! and the rear end was engulfed in flames. One of George’s shots must have hit the gas-tank.
The shooter began struggling to get out through the passenger window.
‘Ki . . . get Ki . . . away . . . ‘ A hoarse, whispering voice.
Mattie was crawling toward me. One side of her head — the right side — still looked all right, but the left side was a ruin. One dazed blue eye peered out from between clumps of bloody hair.
Skull-fragments littered her tanned shoulder like bits of broken crockery. How I would love to tell you I don’t remember any of this, how I would love to have someone else tell you that Michael Noonan died before he saw that, but I cannot. Alas is the word for it in the crossword puzzles, a four-letter word meaning to express great sorrow.
‘Ki . . . Mike, get Ki . . . ‘
I knelt and put my arms around her. She struggled against me. She was young and strong, and even with the gray matter of her brain bulging through the broken wall of her skull she struggled against me, crying for her daughter, wanting to reach her and protect her and get her to safety.
‘Mattie, it’s all right,’ I said. Down at the Grace Baptist Church, at the far end of the zone I was in, they were singing ‘Blessed Assurance’ . . . but most of their eyes were as blank as the eye now peering at me through the tangle of bloody hair. ‘Mattie, stop, rest, it’s all right.’
‘Ki . . . get Ki . . . don’t let them . . . ‘
‘They won’t hurt her, Mattie, I promise.’
She slid against me, slippery as a fish, and screamed her daughter’s name, holding out her bloody hands toward the trailer. The rose-colored shorts and top had gone bright red. Blood spattered the grass as she thrashed and pulled. From down the hill there was a guttural explosion as the Ford’s gas-tank exploded. Black smoke rose toward a black sky. Thunder roared long and loud, as if the sky were saying You want noise? Yeah? I’ll give you noise.
‘Say Mattie’s all right, Mike!’ John cried in a wavering voice. ‘Oh for God’s sake say she’s — ‘
He dropped to his knees beside me, his eyes rolling up until nothing showed but the whites. He reached for me, grabbed my shoulder, then tore damned near half my shirt off as he lost his battle to stay conscious and fell on his side next to Mattie. A curd of white goo bubbled from one corner of his mouth. Twelve feet away, near the overturned barbecue, Rommie was trying to get on his feet, his teeth clenched in pain. George was standing in the middle of Wasp Hill Road, reloading his gun from a pouch he’d apparently had in his coat pocket and watching as the shooter worked to
get clear of the overturned car before it was engulfed. The entire right leg of George’s pants was red now. He may live but he’ll never wear that suit again, I thought.
I held Mattie. I put my face down to hers, put my mouth to the ear that was still there and said:
‘Kyra’s okay. She’s sleeping. She’s fine, I promise.’
Mattie seemed to understand. She stopped straining against me and collapsed to the grass, trembling all over. ‘Ki . . . Ki . . . ‘ This was the last of her talking on earth. One of her hands reached out blindly, groped at a tuft of grass, and yanked it out.
‘Over here,’ I heard George saying. ‘Get over here, motherfuck, don’t you even think about turning your back on me.’
‘How bad is she?’ Rommie asked, hobbling over. His face was as white as paper. And before I could reply: ‘Oh Jesus. Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Blessed be the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Oh Mary born without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee. Oh no, oh Mike, no.’ He began again, this time lapsing into Lewiston street-French, what the old folks call La Parle.
‘Quit it,’ I said, and he did. It was as if he had only been waiting to be told. ‘Go inside and check on Kyra. Can you?’