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  • A Nervous Boy
  • David Bottoms (bio)

1

I was a nervous boy, small and nervous.I liked to hide.

I sought out places of refuge—close spaces where thick air was a balm for remorse.

And there were many secret placesbetween the store and the dog lots, the barn and ball field.

The chicken house, for instance, at the top of the pathto my grandfather’s dog lots,empty for yearsbut still rich with the smell of broilers and feed—

a quiet dark enjoyed by ratsand rat snakes, spiders, roaches, beetles, earwigs,

and once, even a stray dog birthing her litter in the dank sawdust.

One day I hid there all afternoon.

2

I hadn’t wanted to shoot the rabbit.It sat on a ridge of the pasture, stiff ears reaching for the sky,

and even from that distance I could see it trembling.Wind whipped the grass and blew inthe stench of dog turds. My stomach turned. [End Page 462]

My grandfather laid the barrel of his rifle on a fence railand held the stock to my shoulder.I was a good shot. I sighted the head, I steadied,

but I didn’t want to shoot that rabbit tremblingin perpetual surrender. I inched high, squeezed, and dirt flew upa foot beyond it.

My grandfather sighed as though my failuresuggested the sort of man I’d be.But I didn’t want to shoot that rabbit.

He shrugged. He shook his head.He pumped the rifle againand pressed the stock tight against my shoulder.

3

From the chicken houseI could hear the horse neighing in his stall,the crows in the pines on the hill above the dog lots.

After a while, shouts rose from the ball field at the foot of the hill.But I only wanted to hide.

I only wanted the dark, the solitude.

I don’t recall the shot or the rabbit jumpingsideways and falling,only that old man lifting it by the ears

and flinging it into the dog lot.I must’ve shot the rabbit. [End Page 463]

David Bottoms

DAVID BOTTOMS’s most recent book is We Almost Disappear from Copper Canyon Press.

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