A Saturday, Playing Guns

The noon sun hung above like a heated spotlight as I took cover behind an evergreen shrub. Across my chest I held my bright orange Nerf gun. The prickly grass strands in Mom’s backyard tickled my bare feet. Little helicopter leaves fell, spinning down all around the yard as I peeked through the evergreen, pushing the needles away from my face. My enemies, Bryan and Kev, were both hiding across the yard behind similar shrubs; little Kev tucked under the shrub in prone position, his tiny bare feet peeking out underneath. Bry’s gut hung out while the rest of his body hid behind the bush.

My sneak attack, complete with graceful somersaults and silent barrel-rolls, would be stealthy, like a new and improved Elmer Fudd.

Out from under a shrub, a fat rabbit skittered across the lawn. His gut dragged across the dandelions and grass, and I shot a quick yellow bullet at him. Target practice. I hit him in the fluffy butt, and the bullet bounced off, landing nearby.

“Stupid wabbits. Bugs got fat,” I muttered to a pretend audience as I pushed a new yellow bullet into my gun. “I must be vewwy, vewwy quiet; I’m hunting Bwyan and Kevvie.”

I poked my face through the shrub again. Bry and Kev were gone. My head swiveled left and right, but I couldn’t see them anywhere. I figured they ran inside my mom’s house to get a drink or a quick freezepop, like usual, like the cheaters they were; we’d agreed no going inside until our battle was over. I’d’ve killed for a freezepop at that moment, my mouth dry and sticky, my arms slick and shiny from sweat and white sunscreen.

Instead of cheating, I climbed into the middle of the huge shrub to hide. I shrunk into a small ball like when little kids hide in the center of clothes racks at Target. Peering out of my hideout, I saw our backyard neighbor, Mr. Linley. He watered a lipstick-red flower as an American flag flapped and slapped him like a happy dog’s tail. Like usual, Mr. Linley wore no shirt, and his chest and gut, leathery and cracked and hairy, grossed me out. His nub arm, which ended at his elbow, always got my attention. I couldn’t help staring at it. Like when your mom drives past a car accident scene and you just have to look. Rubber-necking, she called it. Mr. Linley’s bloated bicep above his elbow looked like a lumpy football inside his baseball-glove skin.

He lifted a wilting red flower, smelled it. He puckered his lips and smooched it.

Everyday, he worked on his flowers and plants that filled his backyard. Hanging pink flowers draped onto rows of fancy flowers, some red like Mom’s lipstick, others yellow like Sunny Delight. Mrs. Peterson, my art teacher, always talked about using the color lavender, and the vines that ran down the sides of his house like untied shoelaces were perfect lavender. I planned to tell her once school started again.

Bees and flying insects hovered above rows of floppy orange flowers. Mr. Linley had set up rabbit traps all over his yard, about a free-throw apart. Little fences protected plants from intruders, and he’d planted flagpoles in all the corners of the yard. Even on the roof American flags whipped at each of its corners.

Mr. Linley adjusted his big fisherman glasses which covered half his face. I’d never seen him without those sunglasses. Even at night, July 4th, when he lit off a kajillion dollars of fireworks—kaboom every three seconds—he still wore those huge sunglasses.

Dad called him Corey Hart for some reason. Dad’d say, “Stay out of Corey’s yard ‘cuz he’s been in love with those plants since we moved in.” Sometimes Dad warned me of Mr. Linley, like he was some evil man, but they got along most of the time and made stupid jokes about weather and baseball, like buddies. Dad’d say his joke...