Wednesday evening/Thursday early morning

(Parking lot behind strip mall)

The Roy boys finished drinking all their beer. They returned to the Sears loading dock and sat with their legs dangling over the large planks of the dock, contemplating whether or not to hitchhike to downtown Dallas and join the bedlam. Then they took turns trying to toss the empty beer cans into the paper bag.

“I gotta pee.” Donny jumped down and moseyed over to the scrub brush that was overgrown, full of trash dumped along the Sears backlot. He unzipped his pants. “AAhhhh.” Donny leaned back to create the fountain effect with his urine. Stone decided he needed to pee as well. The boys competed, as they often had done as five and seven year olds. Who could pee the longest. Who could pee the farthest. Who could pee the highest.

“Hey. What’s that?” Donny pointed towards the far corner in the back of the Sears lot as he zipped up his jeans. Both boys walked over for a better view. Partly hidden behind a large bush sat a black painted step van. One could see that the black paint didn’t cover well. The Swanson Bakery logo outline was apparent. The streetlights around the area had burned out and never were replaced. Dark shadows with no defining light to see clearly, shrouded the lot under the starless night sky. 

It was going to rain, one could just feel it coming like a bulldozer. Knock the Earth to attention. It was going to be one big storm.

Stone tried to open the driver’s door. It was locked.

“Donny, feel the top of each tire. Sometimes fools put the keys on top of the tires. It’s a code I read off the internet today. They think they are smart, but it’s from a detective series–I saw it on TV years ago.”

Donny walked around the van. Sure enough a single keyfob was left on the left back wheel. He opened up the driver’s door with two clicks. The boys jumped in the cab with Stone in the driver’s seat. 

The van started on the first turn of the key. “Come on, let’s take it for a ride. Around town, at least.” Donny gave Stone a punch in the arm. (That seems to be a typical sign of affection between these two.)

“Shhhhhhh…I’m trying to think.” Stone wore his distant face. Donny could tell that Stone was fixing a plan in his head. Donny started to get excited. Stone had an idea that probably would get them some fast money, and maybe into trouble.

“Let’s drive on the logging roads. No one’s going to be up there this time of night. We could see how it drives. Maybe we’ll take a trip.”

Donny literally jumped up from his seat. “Okay, I’m going to see what’s in the back. There’s a camouflage tarp covering up something.”

Donny tried to bend his 6’5” frame over the passenger seat. He caught one shoe on the plastic upholstery, and fell backwards into the cargo side of the van, hitting his head on a wooden crate.

“Shit. That hurt,”  Donny rubbed the side of his head. He pulled the tarp off the box. Boxes, plural–Donny counted five boxes of automatic AR-15s, grouped together under one tarp. He didn’t count the number of guns that were in each box. On the other side of the back cargo space were boxes of ammunition. Donny started to tear open one of the gun boxes.

“Happy birthday, Stone. You wanted an automatic AR-15 for your birthday, well, here you go.” Donny held up one of the guns of, at least, two dozen guns in the opened container.

Donny moved over to the ammunition side of the back and pried open one of the wooden boxes. Donny proceeded to load one of the guns with ammunition.

The van ride was bumpy down the dirt logging trails. Stone pulled the van over to get a look at the crates for himself.

Stone started to go through the open box. Stone counted 30 automatic assault weapons in the open crate. 

“Donny, you know how to load one of these?” Stone watched Donny moving gears, setting his sight. “I’m impressed. How did you learn to do that?”

“Saw it on YouTube.” Donny was pleased to show off in front of Stone.

Stone climbed back in the driver’s seat and pulled the van back on the pine needle path. Both boys had drunk at least nine cans of beer by then. Beer often was the catalyst to inspire false courage and dangerous plans when these two brothers put their heads together while drinking. 

“Donny, what would you think of driving to Las Vegas tonight–now? We could look up Dad’s friend who has the chop shop. We could take the van to him. He could cut it apart. He would know what to do with the guns. I remember him from our last visit to Vegas. I’m sure he would pay us. Maybe enough so that we can buy a new truck. That is, once we get our licenses. We could bank the money until then.”

“What about Dad? He’s going to be pissed if we disappear–the school will call him. You know that.” Donny had the loaded gun leaning on the edge of his seat, between his knees, He caressed the shaft and rubbed his fingers down the length of the barrel. Donny thought that he had never touched anything so beautiful.

Stone: “Don’t worry about Dad. We’ve disappeared before. We’ll drive to Las Vegas through the night and arrive there by early evening. We’ll visit Dad’s old buddy. He’ll sell the guns, I know. We’ll catch a bus home with some cash in our pockets. We might miss school tomorrow too. Tell everyone we were camping, or fishing, or something. We’ll be back in time for practice–next Friday’s our first game. Remember?”

The van continued down the loggers’ road following the curves in the night with only their headlights as light. Fallen leaves and wisps of dirt particles scattered across their windshield and flew down. The sky was dark under shelves of fat billowy black clouds. Distant sirens, whistles and gun shots could be heard. Donny opened the side window. 

Drunk. The van was driven by a 16 year old with nine beers in his system. The curves in the road he saw were exaggerated by his beer affected perception. Their van’s speed made the ruts in the road butt bouncing sore, tires hip hopping, in and out of craters. The boxes of ammunition bounced and slid across the cargo’s metal floor. The crates of assault weapons slid forward. 

The truck lights bounced through the forest, the truck’s speed too fast for the terrain. The branches scratched the black paint on the van like someone dragging their key across the metal sides of a new car that wasn’t theirs. Donny steadied himself with one hand on the dashboard, one holding the barrel of the gun between his knees. Stone’s jaw was locked in that serious face of concentration–within the wildness of a drunken child, with the physical strength of a drunken man.

As they followed the bend, the headlights caught a moving reflection–fluorescent neon. Stone pressed down on the gas pedal, driving faster, crazy drunk, as the van turned the curve, determined to scare the runner. Both boys saw him in the distance. Donny turned and studied Stone’s face. 

“What arm does Christian throw with?”

“He’s a lefty.” Stone watched his brother roll down the passenger’s side window all the way down. Donny positioned the AR-15 against the edge of the step van window, yet Stone didn’t try to stop him. Donny took aim.

Boom!

“Looks like you’ll be the starting quarterback after all.” Donny laughed, as he returned the gun to its position between his knees.

“Shit, Donny. You blew his shoulder off.” Stone yelled as he stopped the van. 

Both boys got out of the van and walked towards the remains of Christian. His shoulder and left arm were completely shot off. His neck and head were pretty much severed from the rest of him. As they got closer to Christian’s remains, thunder resounded. The sky crackled thunderous echoes and the lightning let loose, painful God-like tears fell as rain and left the sky in torrents. Blood flowing from Christian’s wounds mixed with the pine needles and the rain. Both boys stood over him, waiting for him to turn his face heavenward, brush himself off, and grin. 

“Shit, Donny, now what are we supposed to do?” Stone stepped back from Christian’s body and squatted to see if Christian had any pulse. Stone stood up and headed for the van.

“What are we going to do?” Donny yelled back. He was sure Stone would know.

“Get the tarps from the van. We’ll wrap him up in the tarps and drop him off in the middle of the desert. The animals will eat him in a day. They will carry his bones away. There will be no evidence that he was ever there.”

So the boys got the tarps out of the back of the van and wrapped the pieces of his arm and shoulder and the rest of his body still attached to his spine in two tarps. Together they carried the tarps to the van, opened up the back doors and lifted the tarps up onto the floor between the guns and the ammunition boxes.

The rain was blowing hard, pushed by the wind. The boys were soaked. Stone played with the switches and got the heater on once they loaded Christian in the step van. Shivering, Donny monkeyed with the radio. Nothing but static on every station and the sneer of God spitting down on the dark shadows of the forest.