Kevin Grauke
Captain America & Billy the Kid, Much Too Deep in Louisiana
after Easy Rider
I didn’t mean to do nothing but scare that one boy even though what I wanted more than anything after he shot the finger at us was to put a ragged hole through his long-haired head so I was just as surprised as he was when he fell over like a domino into the grass alongside the highway and my brother who was driving can say the same as me on this because that’s what I told him myself that I didn’t mean to do nothing but scare the boy for being fool enough to look as he did in a place such as this and being so goddamn peacock proud about it and so my brother he turned the truck around—maybe to help, maybe to not, it makes no difference now which way it was—and when I saw the other boy now heading back our direction on his fancy low-slung contraption I pushed the shotgun past my brother’s face and on through his window and I did it again I pulled the trigger and just as soon as I did I knew it meant blood and fire because I hit his gas tank painted with the stars and stripes because they thought such disrespect was funny and even once we got back to the house I could see from the porch the black smoke still rising above the trees as I’m supposing the grass had caught fire and then kept on burning and no I don’t regret it no sir and I’d do it again and nothing ever bothers me in my dreams when I sleep at night because why the hell would it since I never meant to do nothing but put the fear of Jesus into a couple of boys who were begging for nothing less than just that very thing but I do wonder sometimes when that fire’s ever gonna go out because every night its burning lights my bedroom a flickering orange even after I’ve screwed my eyes shut so tight my face quivers with aches
I didn’t mean to do nothing but scare that one boy even though what I wanted more than anything after he shot the finger at us was to put a ragged hole through his long-haired head so I was just as surprised as he was when he fell over like a domino into the grass alongside the highway and my brother who was driving can say the same as me on this because that’s what I told him myself that I didn’t mean to do nothing but scare the boy for being fool enough to look as he did in a place such as this and being so goddamn peacock proud about it and so my brother he turned the truck around—maybe to help, maybe to not, it makes no difference now which way it was—and when I saw the other boy now heading back our direction on his fancy low-slung contraption I pushed the shotgun past my brother’s face and on through his window and I did it again I pulled the trigger and just as soon as I did I knew it meant blood and fire because I hit his gas tank painted with the stars and stripes because they thought such disrespect was funny and even once we got back to the house I could see from the porch the black smoke still rising above the trees as I’m supposing the grass had caught fire and then kept on burning and no I don’t regret it no sir and I’d do it again and nothing ever bothers me in my dreams when I sleep at night because why the hell would it since I never meant to do nothing but put the fear of Jesus into a couple of boys who were begging for nothing less than just that very thing but I do wonder sometimes when that fire’s ever gonna go out because every night its burning lights my bedroom a flickering orange even after I’ve screwed my eyes shut so tight my face quivers with aches
Biography
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Kevin Grauke is the author of Shadows of Men (Queen's Ferry Press), winner of the Steven Turner Award from the Texas Institute of Letters. His fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared (or are forthcoming) in journals such as The Threepenny Review, The Southern Review, Quarterly West, and Columbia Journal. He’s a Contributing Editor at Story and a Texan who teaches at La Salle University in Philadelphia. Twitter: @kevingrauke
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