Buzzard Lagoon Reid Maruyama

Buzzard Lagoon

REID MARUYAMA

My good friend Toni brought a gun to school on Wednesday, said it was his dad’s. He showed it to me and JB during lunch, in the bathroom behind the cafeteria. It was much heavier than I expected.

“This, my friends,” Toni said, “is what you call a nine millimeter.”

He thumbed back the hammer and pulled the trigger, and the gun made a click sound.

“Pretty cool, huh?”

Toni said his dad had just bought a whole bunch of guns, just like this one and bigger ones too, that were now hidden in the wall in his basement. JB thought Toni was full of shit, but Toni said he’d show us the rest of them on Friday, after school got out.

My mom had warned me many times about hanging around kids like Toni, said he’d only get me into trouble. But both she and my dad were at work all day, which meant there was no one to look out for me, no one to tell me what to do. Friday after school, me and JB and Toni took the bus to Toni’s house in Corralitos, way out in the boonies. Toni’s dad owned this house out there, deep in the foothills, up the old

logging road called Buzzard Lagoon. The three of us sat in the back of the bus, where the driver couldn’t see us. Ever since Toni was caught selling dime bags to a couple of sixth graders, the bus driver had had it in for us. But Toni, he didn’t care. He was crouched down in the backseat taking fat rips out of a peace pipe he’d made in woodshop earlier that day and was blowing the smoke out the back window. We smoked so much weed back then, it’s a miracle I can remember anything at all.

“God, I like the way those Indians think,” Toni said. “I think I might’ve been one in my past life.” With a pencil, JB punched a hole in the seat in front of us and was showing me how to properly fngerbang a chick.

“See what you got to do,” JB said, “is you take your fnger, and you stick it in like this.” He jabbed and poked at the hole with his middle fnger and slid it in and out, and in and out, and in and out, again.

“See,” he said. “Like this.”

“JB, would you please shut the hell up?” Toni said, coughing up smoke. “You don’t know shit about that. No chick in their right mind would ever let you fnger fuck them.”

JB defended himself, “I’ve fngered tons of chicks before.”

“Bullshit,” Toni said. “You’re a liar and you’re fat. That makes you a fat ass liar. The only thing you’ve fngered is your fat fuck asshole.

JB fipped him off. “I’m not fat,” he said. “Don’t call me fat.”

Then Toni took the pistol out of his backpack and pointed it right at JB. “And what are you going to do about it, fat ass?” he said and he pulled the trigger. The gun clicked.

The bus dumped us off at the bottom of the logging road, and we hiked the two miles up to Buzzard Lagoon. Toni’s house

was a small cabin-like thing set deep in a clearing, with a satellite dish and a woodshed outside and an old Chevy truck with bullet holes painted all over the passenger side door. There were overturned lawn chairs and empty beer cans scattered across the gravel driveway, a broken TV left in the weeds. Toni’s dad was out in the front yard, bathed in sunlight. He had a giant meat cleaver in his hand. He stood at the woodblock, a pile of headless iguana corpses laying at his feet. His face was covered in fecks of blood. He was getting ready to make his next batch of jerky. No joke: every few months, Toni’s dad mail-ordered a couple dozen iguanas from Brazil or some other place like that and they came in wood crates, and for a few weeks he kept them stored in the woodshed. Then he butchered them and skinned them and cut them up into bits and pieces. They screamed, and their tails still wriggled even after their heads were cut off. Toni’s dad waved the meat cleaver at us when he saw us coming up the driveway. He wiped the sweat off his forehead, leaving a streak of blood across his face, like Indian war paint. He was a tall, scary-looking man with a tattoo of a bear having sex with a naked woman on his forearm, which Toni said he got in Vietnam.

“Hey, boys,” he yelled. “You got to come check this out. This one was having babies.”

Buzzard Lagoon—it was a weird place out there, no other houses for miles around, just acres of old grove redwoods, creeks and meadows, deep ravines the size of craters. Toni’s dad told us the place used to be a sacred Indian burial ground, but now it was haunted by evil demons and spirits. Some people in town claimed to have seen UFOs out there, and one man even said he once saw Sasquatch.

We were sitting in Toni’s living room, waiting for Toni’s dad to go to work so Toni could show us the guns. The house smelled of mildew and rot, the foor was covered in cigarette butts and bottle caps, the windows were patched with strips of

duct tape. We smoked some weed from Toni’s dad’s secret stash and were watching one of his porn videos. Ever since Toni’s mom died a few years ago from a brain tumor the size of a fst, the man had been crazy for these movies, started ordering them wholesale from places like Tijuana and Thailand. Now he had the biggest collection I’d ever seen, boxes and boxes of them piled high in the basement. On his nights off, he liked to stay up late with us explaining which positions were which. Some of them were real raunchy movies. Some of them were in foreign languages. This one was in Chinese.

“God, I love Asian girls,” JB said, then laughed.

Toni ficked a bottle cap at him.

“Shut up, fat ass,” he said. “I’m trying to watch this here.”

Sometimes I felt sorry for JB, he couldn’t help being so fat. He suffered from this rare type of disease with his glands, which made him fat, I mean real fat, and Toni was always making fun of him for it. He was sitting on the foor watching the porno movie with one hand crammed down his pants and the other hand picking at a big, ugly scab on his forehead. Just last week when we’d set off a frecracker in Toni’s backyard, JB was standing too close and got hit in the head with a rock. There was blood everywhere and Toni, who said he knew a little about Indian medicine, shoved some dirt and leaves into the gash to stop the bleeding. Now the cut looked infected, full of green puss.

“Man,” JB said. “I would totally eat a hot pocket out of that chick’s ass.”

“JB,” Toni said. “You would eat anything out of anyone’s ass.”

“Yeah,” JB said. “Like I did with your mom last night.”

Toni glared at JB, gave him a look like he was about to leap across the foor and strangle him to death. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he actually did—stranger things have happened before. I never asked Toni about his mom because I knew it made him uncomfortable. I understood that kind of thing, I guess. He

just didn’t want to talk about it, and I made sure never to bring it up.

Finally Toni turned to JB and said, “Say that again and I’ll fucking waste you.”

Later, Toni’s dad came inside with a string of iguanas in a twisted coil of wire, dangling by their tails. He threw them on the coffee table, and they fell with a blapblapblap, then he sat down next to me on the couch. His hands were covered in blood, and the blood ran down over the sleeve of his shirt. I could see the tattoo pulsing on the skin of his forearm. He laid out his knives on the table. There were four of them in total: a swaybacked skinning knife, a scalpel, a drop-point caper, and a ten-inch hunting knife. The rolled edge of the Bowie, he told me, was the best tool for feshing out a skin without tearing it.

“Hey, you kids want to help me skin these little bastards?” he asked. “Before I go off to work?”

“Dad, we’re kind of busy here,” Toni said. “Find someone else to do your bitch work.”

If it were me that said that to my dad, the worst that would’ve happened was I’d get sent to my room. But Toni’s dad was different. He liked to give Toni a real beating. He took him outside by the neck and covered his entire body with a belt. I’d seen the bruises before and they were pretty gruesome, but I never said anything to anyone. When they came back inside, they sat down on the couch, as if nothing had happened. Toni’s dad took out his hunting knife, then went about skinning the iguanas. There was an old 80’s action movie on the TV now—a Stallone or a Schwarzenegger movie, something like that. Toni’s dad really loved these movies, couldn’t get enough of them. He lay back on the couch and lit a cigarette and still managed to continue skinning the iguanas. The feet and the tails he threw in a cardboard box, along with the heads, and the pelts he neatly stacked on the foor.

me.

Since Toni’s dad worked nights at the stockyard in town, we pretty much owned the place until six in the morning. It was almost midnight when we heard his truck start up and sputter down the logging road. The weed we’d been smoking, the malt liquor we’d been drinking was making me feel for once dangerous and brave, though deep down I knew I was a coward, nothing more than that. Toni kicked JB in the stomach and told him to get his fat ass up, and we followed him down into the basement. The basement was cold and dark, lit by a single bulb; the foor was covered in several puddles of muddy water. There was a piece of cardboard duct-taped to the wall. Toni ripped it off and pulled out a big sleeping bag full of guns and he began taking them out one by one and laying them out on the foor. The barrels were shiny and glinted blue in the light.

“See,” Toni said. “What did I tell you?”

There must’ve been at least twenty or thirty guns, all kinds of them too: pistols, revolvers, rifes, shotguns. Most of them were unregistered, Toni said, because his dad didn’t trust the government. He bought them for real cheap at gun shows in Salinas and Watsonville.

JB grabbed at them like a child after a toy and started digging through the bag, picking out one gun, then another, then another. He picked up a shotgun and started pointing it around the room. “I feel like Rambo,” he said.

“You look more like a fat kid with a gun,” Toni said.

“Screw you,” JB said, and aimed the shotgun right at Toni’s head. “Don’t call me fat.”

From the big pile of guns, I picked out some kind of pistol—a little .22 revolver, I think—and I put it in my waistband. I looked at myself in the mirror with it, and I had to admit, I looked

pretty cool, though it wasn’t as if I would’ve actually pulled the trigger, I was too much of a coward.

“Let’s go hunting for raccoons,” JB said. “Or a mountain lion. Yeah, a mountain lion. Let’s kill a fucking mountain lion.” ***

We started off through the woods, in the dark. We were pretty wasted that night, stoned, drunk off malt liquor and some of Toni’s dad’s homemade whiskey we found underneath the sink. Toni led the way, I carried the revolver in my waistband, and JB had the shotgun hefted up on his shoulder. He was whistling to the tune of “Come all ye Faithful.”

“Shut up,” Toni said. JB shut up.

Several bats few overhead, hunting for moths. The wind in the trees made a sound like whispering voices. The only other sound was the sound of our feet crunching over leaves and branches. Then we heard a small animal scurry away in the bushes. “Raccoon! Raccoon!” JB screamed, and he went running after it through the woods, waving the shotgun around in the air. For a second it was dead silent. But then we heard the sound of gunshots, one after another after another.

After that, we got lost. We walked through the woods for what felt like hours. I had no clue where we were or where we were going. Pretty soon we came to a hill and we stumbled softly down it and into an open feld. All around were lightning bugs, the crickets were chirping loudly, and the grass was bending in the wind. Toni and I climbed over the wooden fence at the edge of the clearing, and we waited for JB on the other side.

“You guys go on ahead,” JB said. “I’ll catch up.” He was out of breath, panting loudly.

“Come on, JB,” Toni said. “Just climb over. Don’t be such a pussy.”

“Come on, you fat piece of shit. The fence isn’t going to break.”

“I warned you about calling me fat,” JB said. “I don’t like being called fat.”

“Yeah, and what are you going to do about it standing way the fuck over there? Fat ass?” Toni nudged me on the shoulder.

“You’re really asking for it,” JB said, and he started climbing over the fence. But when he got to the top and swung his leg over, one of the posts broke and the fence tumbled over and JB hit the ground with a thud, face frst.

Toni started laughing and slapping his knees, pointing at JB lying on the ground. Then I started laughing too, though I didn’t mean to. He looked helpless lying there on the ground. He struggled to push himself up. His shirt was covered in dirt and leaves. He brushed himself off.

“Stop laughing,” he said.

“Holy shit, that was great,” Toni said. “If only you could’ve seen your face, JB. Hilarious.”

“Stop laughing. I mean it, Toni.”

But Toni couldn’t stop laughing. “Damn JB, you’re so fucking fat. My god, Jesus Christ. Wow. Oh boy.”

“I told you to shut up about that,” JB said. “I’m not fat, got it? I’m not fucking fat,” and he raised the shotgun and aimed it right at Toni’s head.

The gunshot tore through the air and echoed off into the hills. You could almost see the sound waves, the blue-gray smoke curling up from Toni’s pistol.

JB staggered backwards, his knees buckled, and he fell to

“Fuck,” he said. “You shot me. What the fuck?” His hands were covered in blood and the blood expanded quickly across his shirt. “I can’t believe you shot me,” he said and he lay down on his back and stared up at the sky.

Toni and I stopped laughing. We ran over to where JB was lying on the ground and knelt down beside him.

“Holy shit,” I said.

“I can’t believe that just happened,” Toni said.

The wound in JB’s belly was welling slowly with blood. Toni poked his fnger into the bullet hole and JB let out a scream.

“Fuck, that’s nasty,” Toni said. “But look on the bright side, JB. At least you have a new hole to fngerbang. I mean, one that’s not your asshole.” He turned to me and winked.

JB grunted like he had just been struck in the stomach with a club.

“What does it feel like being shot, JB?” Toni asked.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh. It kind of hurts.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Shouldn’t we call an ambulance or something?” I asked.

“An ambulance? Look around. Does it look like an ambulance is going to fnd us way out here?” Toni said.

“I’m going to die, I know it,” JB said. He was crying now. Tears were sliding down his fat cheeks. “I know it. I’m dying. My God, I’m dying.”

“Calm down,” Toni said. “You’re not going to die. All your fat probably stopped the bullet. Show me, where does it hurt?”

“Hold on. Don’t move.” Toni got a handful of dirt and leaves and started jamming it into the bullet hole in JB’s stomach and JB screamed out in pain.

“The Ohlone Indians used to do this, you know, to heal their wounded when the white man frst came with their guns and started blowing holes in everyone. It might hurt now, but trust me, this will save your life.”

Toni and I started carrying JB back to the house, but he was too heavy.

“Goddamn, JB. Why you got to be so fat?”

Finally we got back to Toni’s house dragging JB by the legs and leaving behind a thin trail of blood. It was still dark out. All the lights in the house were turned off. I didn’t know what time it was, but Toni’s dad was already back from work, his truck parked in the gravel driveway. We got JB sitting up in the cab of the truck, and we threw the shotgun into the backseat.

“Try not to bleed all over my dad’s truck,” Toni said. Then he turned to me, “Do you know how to drive?”

“No,” I said.

“Yeah, me neither.”

Toni got into the driver’s seat, and I got in next to JB. It was the kind of truck you didn’t need a key to start. Toni started the truck and backed up out of the driveway and we sped off down the road. It was a long way back into town, about a thirtyminute drive, and the road was bumpy and narrow, and I wasn’t sure if we were going to make it. JB had started shivering. “God, it’s so cold,” he said. “Sorry,” Toni said. “Heater’s broken.”

The truck rattled on the dirt road, the headlights cut straight through the dark. The stars in the sky looked like dancing knives and the moon disappeared behind a cloud. As he drove, Toni fddled with the radio, trying to fnd a station, but there was only static, so he turned it off. JB was pale and sick looking, and he couldn’t keep his eyes open.

“What are you going to tell them when we get to the hospital?” Toni asked.

“What happened,” JB said.

“You got to promise to tell them it was an accident, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah,” JB said, and he let out a deep painful groan.

We were making pretty good time and for a second I thought we were going to make it. But then JB started crying and coughing up blood. He kept saying how he didn’t want to die yet, how he was still very young, how there was still so much he hadn’t done yet.

“I’ve never fngered a chick before,” he sobbed. “Never even kissed one.” The tears were pouring out of his eyes now and snot was dripping down his chin. “I used to want to be a veterinarian,” he said. “You know, when I was I kid. How crazy is that? Me, a veterinarian? Jesus Christ. Oh man, it hurts.” He was coughing and spitting out blood, his face was pale and scared. “But now,” he said, “now none of that’ll ever happen.” Then he went silent.

“How’s he doing?” Toni said.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Well, is he still alive? Take his pulse. The key isn’t to let him fall asleep.”

I touched my fngers to JB’s wrist, then I pressed them on his throat, but there was nothing. I couldn’t feel a thing. He wasn’t crying anymore, wasn’t shivering.

“Well?”

“I can’t tell.”

“Shit, do I always have to do everything?”

Toni hit the brakes and the truck skidded to the side of the road. He pushed me aside and tore off the rearview mirror and held it beneath JB’s nose, to make sure he was still breathing. Nothing. Then Toni turned and looked at me with a face more frightened than anything I had ever seen before.

“What?” I said. “What happened? Is he all right?”

“I think—I think he’s dead.”

“What? What do you mean he’s dead? He can’t be dead. No. He can’t be dead.” My voice felt like it was screaming. I started shaking JB’s shoulders, but no matter how hard I shook he wouldn’t wake up. For a moment there was only silence and the sound of the engine throbbing.

“Now what do we do?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve never done this before. Does it look like I’ve done this before?” Toni said.

He had the steering wheel clenched in his fsts so tight I could see his knucklebones. JB sat in between us, his shirt completely soaked through with blood and his pants soiled with piss and shit. The truck smelled awful. Toni turned off the engine, and we sat there, staring out the window at the headlights that lit up the dirt road. We listened to the crickets chirp. Neither of us said a word. What was there to say?

Finally Toni said, “I didn’t mean to kill him. I swear, it wasn’t my fault. He was going to shoot me.”

“You won’t say anything, will you?” he pleaded. “You’ll tell them it was an accident, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, “sure.” And I knew then I wasn’t ever going to rat on Toni because he would’ve done the same for me. Because we were friends.

I don’t know how long we sat there in the truck before we decided to do anything. Cold air was coming in through the window, but I wasn’t cold, I couldn’t feel a thing. Gigantic redwoods loomed over us, a creek rushed down a hill nearby. I could feel the barrel of the revolver rubbing up against my thigh like a cold fnger. I’d never been so scared in my life. What was happening to me?

“Thanks,” Toni said. “I owe you one.”