THE DEATH OF ED by CAM VILLANUEVA

Not everybody takes to the South.

Ed just finished serving his five-year tour in the Navy. A copy of his separation papers was sent to his mother’s house in New Jersey, so she found out before her boy Edgar had a chance to tell her.

“What happened? Where are you?” she said on the long-distance phone call. Cats were chasing each other in circles, running up the curtains. “Stop it!” she yelled into the phone. 

Ed was looking at the surf. He put the phone on the towel, lifted his thick spectacles, and put suntan lotion on his nose. “I’m in Hawaii,” he said. “I’m with George.”

“What happened to Japan?”

“The Navy just wasn’t for me, Mom. Four years. I’m done. I’m officially discharged.” He held up the letter from US Naval Station Long Beach, wet and sandy, so it blocked the sun, then crumpled it. “Besides,” he said, “Italians don’t really belong on the sea.”

“What about Columbus?” his mother asked. But what could she do? Ed had always been a lover of freedom. He often found himself in detention in high school and then would escape.

“Mrs. Giancotto,” Mr. Sniggle’s baritone voice would echo into the phone. “Ed is missing again.” 

She wondered how he had lasted in the Navy so long. Later, she would write about that in his obituary. 

“When are you coming home?”

“I’ll be home by Monday.”

Soon the whole town knew. A family friend and fellow churchgoer, Mr. Sandy Smith, the President of Black Cat, a shipping company, found out about Ed’s return like everyone else did—through the priest’s sermon that Sunday. Sandy dropped by that week and offered him a job as a driver. Ed took it and soon fell in love with driving, and after a few years of fine work, he was promoted to warehouse manager of a new regional hub opening in Atlanta. He would leave New Jersey again, but this time with his new wife and a one-month old baby boy.

Sandy said, “you’ll be able to come home twice a year. The money is good, too.” 

The wife, Loretta, who he had met in church, knocked up, and married within a year of his return, was a bit taller than Ed. She had long, straight brownish blonde hair that had been sunned too long on the beaches of New Jersey in her youth. Ed broke the news to her while she was nursing little Ed, otherwise known as Junior, who happened to have a smudge of black hair near his forehead just like his papa. 

“I have a sister who lives in Atlanta,” she said while pulling a bottle of Absolut out of the freezer.

“Your sister? Which one?” Ed couldn’t keep count. She had four.

“The youngest, Marlene.” Loretta pressed the TV remote button but the screen was blank. She handed the remote to Ed.

“Marlene the hippy?” he said. “Where are the batteries for this thing? Ah, found them.”

“I think she just got married.” She watched Ed put batteries into the remote.

Ed remembered Marlene’s big chest and then handed the remote to Loretta. “Where’s Junior?”

“Sleeping.”

He sat next to her on the sofa and straightened his glasses. “What shall we watch?” he asked.

“I’ve never seen the South,” she said.

“Oh, Atlanta is good,” he told her. “They got land there and the people are very friendly. Southern Hospitality they call it.” A man with long hair and an apron appeared on the screen. He grabbed a pan. Ed grabbed Loretta’s hand and squeezed it.

Loretta took a sip from her vodka tonic and watched the man break an egg into the pan with one hand.

“I’ve never been able to do that,” she said.

“I’ve heard all about it from George,” he said. 

“Heard what?” she said.

“About Atlanta.”

“From who?”

“George, you know George.”

“Your black friend in Sasebo?”

“Yeah, George.” 

“That looks good”, she said. She chewed on her ice, stood up, and pulled Ed down the hall and toward the bedroom.

George, Ed’s friend, was from Atlanta, but he was still based in Sasebo. He was cooking on the MCM-7, a USS Patriot minesweeper, that Ed called home for three of his five years in the Navy. George, as much as he loved to shoot guns, was missing the top of his right pinky finger from a woodshop accident in high school. An inch more and he would’ve been disqualified from entry. He often lied and said he was a former yakuza, but no one believed him. No one had ever heard of a black yakuza before. Besides, George was too sweet of a person. He would often give Ed an extra helping of mess so then Ed would end up giving George his beer tickets. Ed couldn’t stomach alcohol and George was too big and burly to get drunk on the two piddly beers he received each month. The two men became best friends and always took liberty from the ship together.

Ed sat on the sofa and opened a can of ginger ale. “Your mom and dad are in Texas, right?”

“Texas?” Loretta, in high heels, was frantically turning knobs on the stove as a cloud of smoke rose up. She jumped around like a rooster in a cock fight. “That’s not the South,” she said. “That’s Texas.”

“Are you ok in there,” Ed said. 

Loretta dumped a glass of water on the inflamed chicken. “Atlanta is in the South,” she said. “That’s the real South.”

“Oh, I didn’t know,” Ed said.

Loretta held up a knife. “It’s dangerous there, isn’t it?”

“More dangerous than Newark? I doubt it. Come on. Let’s make a new life.” 

She cut up some carrots for Junior and said, “What the hell, why not?”

They packed up their things and loaded it all into a U-Haul. It took two days to drive down. Marlene, Loretta found out soon enough, had met a man outside the Coca-Cola building, where she worked, and decided to take off for Florida for a week. 

No one could show them around the city, so Ed, Loretta, and Ed Jr. found a cramped apartment close to his new job on Lombard Street. It was in a less-than-ideal part of town, but was quiet so the baby could sleep. Each night Loretta would watch from the second floor window as shadows moved up and down the street. 

“What’s that place over there?” she asked Ed.

“That’s the mission.”

“What do they do?”

“They serve food to people who need it. Look,” he said, pulling the newspaper down from his nose, “we won’t be here forever.”

Loretta noticed something moving on the curtain. When she realized what it was it took flight and buzzed her head and screamed. Ed ran over and, after a few minutes of chasing it, smashed it with his newspaper.

“These cockroaches fly!” she said.

“Yeah, we gotta move outta this dump,” he said. 

Marlene came back and helped them find a place in the Highlands. Rent was more expensive, but they were happy to be out of what Loretta called, “the ghetto,” even though it was only a few miles away.

After two years, they had enough money to put down on a two-story brick home with three bedrooms at the end of a cul-de-sac, up in Alpharetta, about an hour north of the city. During that time, Ed’s friend George also left the Navy and returned home to Atlanta.

Every Friday, Ed and George would meet at the Corner Pocket, a pool hall about a block from Ed’s work. Ed would drink ginger ale and George would drink beer. Like old times. They shot pool. One summer night, George asked Ed about his new house.

“It’s 3,000 square feet on two and half wooded acres,” he told him. “But those squirrels. Those gosh darn squirrels. I hate em. They keep eating my garden.” 

“I think I hate them more than my mother-in-law hates me.” He smiled and sipped from his mug.

George angled his shot and looked at Ed. “Squirrels?”

“Yeah, what’s it to you? Nice shot.”

Ed chalked his stick.

George sipped his beer. “Let’s shoot ‘em,” he said.

“No way, I’m afraid of guns.”

“Tell you what, I make this bank, and we shoot some squirrels tomorrow.”

“What the hell,” Ed said. He then watched the 6 ball glide smoothly into the hole. “Shit,” he said. 

George looked up and grinned.

Later that night they walked out to George’s car.

“Tomorrow is Ed Jr.’s birthday,” Ed said. “Shooting guns. I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Hell it is.” George held up the rifle and rubbed the smooth black cylinder like he was conjuring a genie. “This is for hunting deers,” he said as he spat on the parking lot. “But you can still kill squirrels. Just gonna be more messy.”

“I don’t shoot guns. I told you already.”

“Why not?”

“I’m from Jersey.”

“I forgot you was a yankee. You know what?”

“What?” Ed kept his hands in his pockets.

“You’re taking the first shot.”

Ed looked up at the stars. He remembered the time he and George were on the ship and watching the comet. Life was so simple then. 

“What the hell,” Ed said, grabbing the rifle from George. “So show me. How do I use this thing?”

“Hold on little man.” George took the gun back. “This is a Marlin model 336. One of the most famous rifles ever made. Treat this thing like a baby.”  

“A baby?” Ed looked on.

George took a .35 Remington cartridge and loaded the chamber. “Here, hold this,” he said. 

This time Ed held it out awkwardly. He thought about the first time the nurse gave him Junior. 

George chugged his beer and let out a howl to the sky. “That was nice,” he said. He walked to the ledge of a lamp post in the parking lot and balanced his can on it. “Give me back that big black baby,” he said.

Ed handed it over. “You can’t do that,” he said, looking around the empty parking lot.

“Hell I can’t. At 3am, it’s open season.” George held up the gun. “This is how you do it. See?” He cocked the lever handle. “Now your turn.”

Ed held it up quickly and fired a shot that seemed to hit a dirt rise near the main road.

“Down, down more,” George said. He put his big hand on the barrel and pushed it down. “One more time. Cock the lever.”

Ed focused on the can, more focused on anything than he had ever been in his entire life.

“Now shoot.”

Ed pulled the trigger and missed the can but hit the center of the can which fell onto the pavement.

“Holy shit,” Ed said. “I can’t hear. Can I? Holy shit!”

“Ok, we got about 10 minutes before the cops get here. Give me it.” George cocked the handle and the spent casing popped out. He aimed high and took out the light at the top of the pole. “Let’s go,” he said.

Sirens could be heard in the distance and the two jumped in the car and sped into the humid night. 

“I love that baby,” Ed said.

Later in bed, Ed couldn’t sleep. He kept thinking about the demolition of that can and how it jumped back like that first time Loretta found a spider in the new kitchen. Before moving to Georgia, Ed had never been in the woods before. He used to dream of it as a kid. But his image was of a dark place filled with monsters. Maybe he shouldn’t kill those squirrels. Look at me, he thought. Living in a house in a forest. Shooting guns. I’m a freaking cowboy, a bandit. Ed fell asleep and dreamed that his garden grew a giant beanstalk into heaven and that Junior was trying to climb up. The elder Ed was a giant living way up in the sky and reached for Ed Jr but he couldn’t grab him. Ed Jr fell from the beanstalk back to earth and Ed cried in his sleep, so much he woke himself up.

It was Junior’s birthday. He wasn’t so little anymore. He was turning four and followed his father around every weekend. Thankfully he took after Loretta. Tall for his age, lean, with light colored hair and just a hint of his father in him, with his dark eyes and thick glasses. 

But Ed had to work late on account of a busier than normal Christmas season, with the release of these new toys called Beanie Babies. He took a later bus but was late arriving home. He stomped his feet hard before coming in. His son heard the noise and opened the door.

“Daddy!”

“Happy Birthday!” the man said.

The boy wrapped his arms around his father. The father handed him a wrapped box. 

“What is it?”

“Open and see.”

“Eddie?” the boy’s mother, Loretta, called from the kitchen.

Ed Jr ripped open the paper and saw it was an Aladdin game he wanted. He ran down the hall toward the kitchen.

“Daddy’s home,” he said. “Look, look what he brought me!” 

Ed shook out of his coat and took a deep breath. He looked around his foyer and thought about how wonderful his life was. Everything down South had seemed so foreign to him the first two years, he thought. But now, out here away from the city, the crickets welcome you home in the evening and the birds see you off in the morning. And the winters are so mild it wasn’t even like winter. More like spring. 

He walked into the kitchen and his wife had lots of supplies for the party tomorrow. There was food on the table, a sign said happy birthday was ready to be hung.

“What did your mom send Ed?”

“Oh, they are shipping it. Should be here sometime tomorrow around noon, when the party starts.”

“Shipping it?”

“Yeah.” She held up the sign. “What do you think?”

“That’s great,” Ed said. He picked up his car keys. “I’m going to go outside for a bit. I’ll be back later.”

“What are you going to do?” She looked around for Ed Jr., who was now watching TV in the living room. “Do you have a surprise planned?”

“Oh no, I just got a gun from George. I want to put it in the shed.”

“Why did George give you a gun?”

“To shoot the squirrels. He’s coming tomorrow to show me how.”

“It’s Junior’s party.”

“I know, I know. He’s coming in the morning to show me how to use it. I should be finished, we should be done, by noon.”

“Get rid of the gun. You know how Mother feels about that.”

“She’s from Texas for crisesakes.”

“I haven’t seen any squirrels round here.”

“They’re there. Believe me.”

The next day George arrived early holding a beer can out the window.

“Drinking at this hour?”

“Hey,” George said as he slammed the door, I’m on an extended vacation. 

“You find work yet?”

George said he hadn’t found anything permanent.

“Let me check around the warehouse. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Check this out.” George opened the trunk and pulled out a newer model of the rifle yesterday called a 30-30. “Where’s the one I gave you yesterday?”

“It’s in the shed.”

“Go get it and give it to me. You can use this.”

After a minute, George took the 336 from Ed and slung it over his shoulder. He held up the 30-30. 

“Remember what I taught you last night?”

“Sure.”

George handed Ed the rifle. He pointed to a yellow ribbon tied around a tree.

“See that,” he said. “Can you hit it?”

“Remember, set your sights, cock the lever, check your sight again, fire.”

Ed tried and missed. After the fourth time he hit the ribbon. He was getting better. It wasn’t long before they spotted a squirrel. George fired first and missed and the squirrel ran off. They came across another and this time Ed tried and hit it. The two men galumphed forward to examine their work. The squirrel was nearly torn in half by the blast but Ed picked it up proudly and held it out like a parent checking their child’s art project from school.

“Beginner’s luck,” George said.

“That was a good shot,” Ed said, finding in himself a new voice.

George said, “It’s almost 12:30. Shouldn’t we be getting back.”

“Right.” Ed put the squirrel in a bag tied around his waist.

“I can’t hear,” he said.

“You’ll get used to it.”

As they walked back Ed started to get dizzy and had to sit down. He hadn’t been feeling too well at work the past week. “I’m ok,” he said. He got back up and complained he still couldn’t hear well. “The ringing,” he held his hand over his ears.” A delivery truck was driving slowly down the hill aimed for the Giancotto’s. The truck gradually picked up speed as it shot down the hill. The driver was still a young cub in this business and was trying to look at a map while he drove.

Ed and George heard the truck coming and hopped off the road but the drive was not looking, and instead noticed that his gear was too low for his speed, so he tried moving the lever down but it was stuck in third and he could move it to neutral by the time he looked up. The men, they were telling jokes and carrying their rifles on their shoulders like young children do when they are playing war. George said he had a new joke for Ed. “Did you hear about the restaurant named Karma?” The driver tried to turn the black steering wheel but it was heavy and slick, and he turned the wheel but the truck kept going straight toward the curb and side of the road, seeming to ignore physics. George said, “There’s no menu.” He was about to tell Ed the punchline when the truck came into George’s peripheral vision. He was turning his head at the same time and he read the numbers as they went by, 2. 9. 4. 5. 7. 3. The large wheel was a merciless as it cruelly cut into the earth. George remembered the sweet smell of sod, and the green lawn of the Giancotto’s neighbor became red.

Back at the house the party started early and the kids were smiling. Loretta looked out the kitchen window to see George running up the hill and into the lawn. He was mouthing something and Loretta didn’t understand. She couldn’t see the words. But she could see the colors. The mouthed words turned the air yellow. Much like an old photo turns yellow over time, blurring the image until the details are gone.