He slumped back in the highchair. He knew Uncle Herman’s type. If his mother’s brother spied the discarded spinach in the garbage, he’d go into a vicious rage, and the rage would be directed at Andy. If Uncle Herman did not find it, he would simply fill the bowl with more slime. Uncle Herman wanted to rage —needed to rage.
The boy knew a few simple truths:
First, he would not eat the slime.
Next, he would not allow himself to be beaten.
Finally, Andy’s father kept a .32 revolver locked up somewhere in the kitchen.
Andy moved all the way to the left in the chair, slid forward, picked up the bowl with both hands and placed it on the seat next to him. He placed the spoon in the bowl and lifted the wooden tray until it quietly came to rest on the wall behind the chair. Once the tray was up, he slid to the edge of the seat, turned and climbed down.
Once on the floor, he quickly scanned the kitchen. Beneath the counter, on both sides of the sink, were six drawers. One of the drawers sported a flat black plate containing a keyhole. The boy went to the door, glanced through it, and saw the back of Uncle Herman’s head as the man finished off the pint of whisky, put the empty on the end table, then popped open the beer and took a long drink. The TV’s volume was on very high. If Andy made some noise opening the drawer, the noise from the TV would probably cover it. The boy turned from the door.
Once he reached the drawer, Andy reached up and pulled on the handle with both hands. Locked. He looked around, went to the edge of the counter near the sink, and picked up a dinner knife. Going back to the drawer, he inserted the knife in the crack above the lock and pushed hard. The crack widened as the thick part of the blade next to the handle jimmied the lock. Holding the knife in, he pulled on the drawer’s handle. The drawer slid open easily. He reached into the drawer and felt around inside the drawer until his hand found the hefty chunk of machined metal.
It was cold and heavy, its touch bringing strange images into his head. Dark marks, spatters of red, a waiting place for death. With both hands he took it from the drawer. It surprised him how surprised he was at the weapon’s size. He could comfortably fit two fingers side by side on the trigger. Looking to the side, he toggled the cylinder catch and checked the load. All of the chambers were filled.
As he stood looking at the open cylinder, there were flashes of things: horrors, screams, blood, the jump of a gun in his hand.
He looked dizzily at the gun, knowing somehow that using it would take his life away from him. He wasn’t going to let Uncle Herman take away his new life. He closed the cylinder, reached up and replaced the revolver in the drawer.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Andy whirled about and saw Uncle Herman staring in disbelief at the highchair with the bowl of creamed spinach on the seat. The man staggered around and looked at Andy. “You get over here and eat this spinach and don’t get out of your chair until I let you out, understand?”
Andy Rain narrowed his eyes, clenched his teeth, and balanced making an issue of eating a bowl of creamed spinach against his new life. “I understand.”
He took a step toward the high chair and met his uncle’s left hand flying the other way. The open palm against his face twisted his head around and drove him to the tiled floor. “That’s for not doing what I told you the first time.”
Face down on the tile, Andy’s tears dried up as a cruel heat filled his face. His eyes went in and out of focus in time with his heartbeat and he placed his hands on the tile, lifted his head from the floor, and turned his head toward his uncle.
“Don’t you look at me like that!” The man dropped his beer can, strode across the floor, and swept down with his left arm, slapping Andy with the back of his heavy hand. The boy twisted over onto his back from the force of the blow. “Now, get up and eat that spinach, and no more mouth!”
With the taste of blood in his mouth, Andy pushed himself to his feet, wobbled over to the open drawer, reached in with both hands, and came out with the .32 pointed at Uncle Herman’s head. The gun shook wildly as he cocked it with both thumbs.
“What … now, Andy. Now, kid. You don’t know what you’re doing. Give me the gun!” Uncle Herman was bent over, his left hand extended toward the boy. “Give me the gun, boy. That’s not a toy.”
The angle was all wrong. It had to be in the left temple or the mouth. The mouth shot wouldn’t work unless Uncle Herman had his mouth open and was looking up. Unless he had a beer or bottle to his lips, his mother’s brother had permanently clenched teeth. There could be no broken teeth. Uncle Herman was a southpaw. It had to be in the left temple. He thrust both of his index fingers through the trigger guard and looked at the door to the living room. Opening his eyes wide, he exclaimed, “Mommy!”
Uncle Herman, still in a crouch, swung around to face the empty doorway. At that instant, Andy took three steps closer, stood on his toes, held the gun close to the man’s left temple, and pulled the trigger. He jumped back and fell to the floor as the pistol barked and jumped out of his hands. His heart beating wildly, he looked around and saw that Uncle Herman was down on his right side on the floor. Andy stood, walked around the still form, bent over, and held the backs of his fingers beneath Uncle Herman’s nose. Dead.
Going to the counter, Andy stood on a chair, took another cartridge from the gun drawer and opened the window above the sink. After that he took the dinner knife from the counter, polished it with a dish towel, and went to the corpse’s side. Placing the knife in Uncle Herman’s left hand, he wrapped the fingers around it, then removed it by holding it by the blade with the dish towel. Replacing it on the counter above the open drawer, he took the towel back to the weapon, replaced the spent cartridge with the new, cleaned the prints from the gun, placed the grip in the man’s left hand, wrapped the fingers around the grip with the index finger on the trigger, waited for the right commercial to come on the TV, aimed the gun out the window, and fired. The gun jumped and shook itself out of the dead man’s limp grip and fell to the floor. Andy checked the powder burn around the entrance wound and concluded that the pattern looked small enough. Then he climbed up in the chair before the sink, put some dish soap on his hands, and washed his hands all of the way above the elbows, using a vegetable brush to get beneath his fingernails. After he had changed his pajamas, he was done, and all that was left to do was to wait.
Andy curled up in the corner of the kitchen opposite the door to the living room and stared at the body. He was surprised at how little blood there was. As he sat looking at the remains of Uncle Herman, his feelings returned. He hated the man. He hated the man’s memory. He hated that Uncle Herman had been who he was and what he was when and where he was, and that all of that added up to making Andy Rain a killer. There was a nagging thought, though. The thought was that it was not Uncle Herman who had made Andy into a killer. It was, instead, something else.
Uncle Herman had done the big wrong. He had hit Andy. What Andy had done was self defense. Using the gun was the use of too much force, if he had been an adult. He could have just wounded the man, but then it would be his word against Uncle Herman’s, and he’d be in trouble for having the gun, and most likely his father would be in trouble for allowing the boy to get to the weapon. Better for everyone that Herman Jenner should get severely depressed and act on it. Andy wrapped his arms around his knees, let his head nod down, and went to sleep.
The scene when his parents returned was predictably hysterical, but brief. Once the doctor had sedated Marnie Rain and put her to bed, the uniformed police officers had only a few questions. Andy kept shaking his head and they allowed the doctor and Andy’s father to put the boy to bed. Afterward, Andy crept part of the way down the stairs and watched the scene in the kitchen through the balustrade. In addition to the two uniformed police officers, the mystery writer, John Draper, was there. Instead of his suit, he was wearing jeans and pajama tops beneath a rumpled trench coat. He only watched and listened as Andy’s father continued.