He was seven years old the first time he shot a gun. It was both a surprise and a mistake, which can be true of many things. Francis couldn’t wait to be seven his whole six years of life. He felt strongly that the number carried magic with it. Being seven would make one’s luck invincible. He thought it would be the last time he’d shoot a gun. He preferred fighting with his hands anyways. 

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It happened in a monochromatic bister bathroom in Reno, Nevada—the kind where the tiles are beige and the grout is coated by stray sand spillage and the lights cast a dim warm yellow on the countertop. The rungs from which the shower curtain hung were rusted and the bathtub sat deep enough for about forty percent bodily submersion. A small square of night sky slunk low in the window on the east-facing wall.

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The Sniper spent most of the time he lived in the house inside that bathroom. He wasn’t living with them all too long; the 89th and 90th year of his life overlapped with Francis’s seven and eight. His name was really Grandpa Steve, but when he moved in he demanded the children address him by his given title. He was known in the army as Blanco Muerte; his aim both quick and deadly. Francis’s father was adamant that the kids shouldn’t call him something so gruesome. Nonetheless, the Sniper was dreadfully proud of his war service and boasted the same rotation of stories to any room that would, or wouldn’t, listen. The real stories he kept hidden in between the spokes of his ribs. Francis thought he was just the coolest. 

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The Sniper was a habitual man. He wore the same broad-toed cowboy boots on his feet, smoked the same pack of Camel blues, rose with the sun, and drank when it set. He walked to church on Sundays and ogled women on the way back. He liked traditions when they applied to his ways, and he liked speaking his mind. He would fill the kids' heads with how things should be like he was pouring honey-gold into a jar, meticulously, and sticky in the way it settles. There was always a residue of him even after he was long gone. 

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At night, orange light would spill out in a sliver on the carpet from the bathroom door. When approached, the smell of smoke and the sound of humming permeated the wood. Francis would reach up for the rickety handle and pull slowly, wanting to be a part of the scene without disturbing it, to watch and capture it like an old film that a subconscious part of him knew he would later return to. Those cowboy boots hung over the lip of the tub, the Sniper’s leathered skin only a shade brighter than the hide itself. He liked to keep them on at all times. He wanted to make sure he died with his boots on. 

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He was completely naked beneath the lukewarm water, save the top of his storm-wisped chest exposed to the heavy air. A thick cuban chain hung a few inches from his gathered neck. A true western oilskin hat braced against his skull. A broad silver band sat on his left hand. A lit cigarette in his right hand, perched between his pointer and thumb, only because he was missing the middle and ring. In his twenties he had found and picked up a dummy grenade on the battlefield, except it wasn’t a dummy grenade and it exploded right there in his palm; taking part of his ego and two of his best fingers with it. 

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One of these nights, in May—or maybe June—the Sniper noticed Francis’s tufted head peeking through the crack. Or maybe this time he was feeling something Francis wouldn’t understand yet, and maybe never will. 

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“Kid, your father ever teach you how to shoot?” 

 

Francis paused, his bones braced, unsure of how to proceed. He had never been invited in before, and the promise of it all both excited and alarmed him. 

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“Get in here and close the door behind you.” The Sniper wasn’t one to wait. He believed hesitation to be a cardinal sin. 

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Francis entered. He pulled the door shut behind him, and for some reason he better recalls the sound of the latch than anything else. The air hung between them like a wet cloth. He leaned his back against the counter and kept his hands clasped in front of him. 

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“Colt revolver,” he said, his eyes never lifting from his lids to look at Francis directly. Francis felt nervous whenever the Sniper looked at him. His eyes looked like cellophane. 

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“Go on, pick it up. Your father raises y’all too soft. Need to know how to defend yourself. Your family. My father had a gun in my hand by the time I could walk.” 

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The weapon rested on top of the toilet seat. Just by looking at it, he knew he didn’t want to wield it, not now, or ever. He was soft. His parents always called him sensitive, with a heart too big for the home. It overflowed from the living room and spilled out of the floorboards. When he was younger, dumber, he would steal all the eggs from the fridge and bury them in the yard, disappearing for hours to sit on them. He’d wait for them to hatch while the voices of his mother and father arguing flitted through the kitchen window. He’d dream about raising the chicks once they emerged from their shells, slick and skinny, all bones and membrane. He’d take care of them. They’d never want for anything, never fight over room in the nest. The dream never hatched. His mother left and Francis stopped stealing eggs. 

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He wrapped his fingers around the grip. It was heavier than he expected. Like most things. He had to use both hands to hold it without the front drooping down. The Sniper beckoned for him to come closer with his left, his right still holding the smolder of a Camel.

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“Relax, it’s empty. Quit your tremblin’. Put your hand on the grip as high and as firm as possible. Now wrap your left hand around the right, and keep your left thumb on top. Press it against the frame.” Francis did as he was told. He didn’t want to disappoint. The Sniper’s gaze lifted to Francis’s insecure grip. 

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“C’mere, you’ve gone and got it all wrong,” as he placed his leather hand over top of Francis' own, “your damn finger ain’t even on the trigger.” 

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His finger readjusted Francis’s. He felt the velvet curve being swallowed by his index. 

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“Now pull it son.”

 

Francis knew hesitation is a sin. He squeezed his finger inwards. 

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The recoil rang from the butt to his hands to the brunt of his shoulders. His eardrums were still ringing from the shot itself and the crack of the wall, and only beginning to register the low, brunt laugh coming from the tub. A hole had burst open in the linoleum, cracks splintering off and the white dust still settling on the floor beneath. Hot tears sat in Francis’s waterline. 

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“Check the chamber next time.” 

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Francis heard his father pounding up the stairs, the arc of his baby sister’s wail, and the Sniper’s choking laugh. His entire face broken up in a howl. His rawhide chest wheezing to breathe. 

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A year later, after he died, Francis would see that humor on his grandfather’s face at night. He would try and remember if he had ever laughed like that before. He couldn’t. He never quite lost the smell of gunpowder. 

 

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*

 

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With the Sniper gone, the bare bones of the home ached for something to fill it. Two years passed like water down a drain. Francis’s siblings began to grow up, only noticeable by their needs for bigger shoes every other week and their bottomless stomachs. It all seemed to blend together in a sepia haze, months differentiated only by birthday candles and marked by skills learned and mastered; whistling, cartwheels, whittling. Their father was rarely home. Francis would hear his steel feet come through the door, shuffling and banging into objects scattered in the hallways. He’d fall asleep on whatever surface he could find, never even bothering to unlace his boots. Before the sun touched the driveway, he’d rise and bring boxes from his bedroom and haul them outside. He’d lift them into that burnt orange pickup truck, arm muscles squirming and pulsating like something alive. Francis wondered when he would be strong like that. 

 

When the truck peeled out of the driveway, Francis would begin his ritual. He’d forage for new sprouts of flowers or spiny sticks and other souvenirs, tuck them close to the fabric of his chest and bring them inside. Creep up the stairs so as to not wake his brothers and sisters. In that bathroom, he’d run his fingertip over the ridges of the hole that he created, this mark of something solid and real between him and a ghost. 

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He’d stuff the morning treasures into the crevice and go wake the kids, rousing them with the promise of orange juice with the pulp and cartoons on channel nine. It didn’t matter much that the juice was mostly water from the tap and the cable hadn’t worked in weeks. 

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Francis didn’t care much for his brothers. They felt different from him. When they watched Planet Earth on the VCR, Francis couldn’t help but notice similarities between the rhinoceroses aggressions and the commotions of his siblings. Luis and Benjamin were only a year apart, but Francis was almost three years older than them. That gave him a level of respect he likely wouldn’t receive otherwise. The two could head butt each other all they wanted, but one interruption from Francis had them untangled in a huff. Unless it was a tussle over something real serious, like when Benjamin ate the last strawberry pop tart or Luis snapped the left arm off of the Wolverine figurine. Francis let them have it out. That figure was objectively the best one. 

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He felt oppositely for Camila. She was the littlest when their mother left. Francis felt bad for her because she was a girl. He didn’t really know what difference it made other than that it was important, and now she was the only one. And her clothes were the color of the bubblegum their dad sometimes had in his pockets. This made him feel tenderly for her. Francis made sure she was fed and clean and whenever she cried he’d coo at her small face and find objects to comfort her. Most times she wouldn't stop crying, not even for the satin-trimmed edge of her blanket, a cup full of assorted buttons, or the spoon with the weird handle. 

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“Francis, make her stop already.” Luis would groan from the living room. 

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“I don’t know how,” he would reply, “I’m trying.”

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“Tell her to shut the fuck up!”

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That was a word he acquired from the Sniper. 

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Francis would sink into desperation, only coming back out when the only sounds from the living room were the clacking of toys or the hum of TV static. His nerves would settle when he turned the corner, and Luis’ head was propped up against the pillow without the casing and Camila was slumped on a couch cushion, crayon in hand. 

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When their father hadn’t returned in a few days, Francis ventured into his bedroom. The kids were never supposed to go in there, especially not the younger ones. He couldn’t fully open the door from the amount of boxes packed tightly together. The mattress on the floor, an island amidst, is flat and yellowed. A sheet was spread haphazardly by the foot. It hadn’t been used since it was last kicked off. 

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He didn’t want to open anything. He was afraid if he peeled back the packing tape, his father would know, he’d notice the sticky tack of it to be paled and something, he wasn’t sure what, something unpleasant would happen. The room smelled stale. It smelled like sulfur. 

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A small box, one of a different color, sat atop a stack by the closet door. It was labeled For Francis. Curiosity nipped at the base of his neck. He could hear the boys squealing outside. 

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He opened the box carefully. Inside was a gun, a box of bullets, a silver belt buckle, and a piece of paper. The belt buckle had an ox engraved on it, a cactus to its left. The paper was in his grandfather’s handwriting. 

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“For Francis on his tenth birthday: Wear the belt buckle every day. A good man knows the importance of consistency. Use the gun when you should. You’ve got two options now. Stay and struggle or go and fight. It’s up to you which hell you want to live in. Grandpa.” 

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He put the paper into his pocket after folding it over four times. He picked up the gun, this one a bit smaller and a bit slimmer. It felt familiar this time. The metal was cool in his hot palm. He was just shy of ten anyways. 

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This gift, this reminder, became a part of his ritual. Instead of discovering objects to offer to the wall’s cavern, he would find substantial target practice. Empty milk cartons and beer bottles were hunted, positioned, and shot. It took a while, but eventually Francis could shoot the slim copper neck of a Coors light straight in the trachea. The sound of the bullet biting the glass echoed like the Sniper’s own laugh. The thickest shard from that bottle was added to the collection that afternoon. 

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*

 

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The guttural purr of the pickup truck announced his father's return a week or so later. Francis was unsure; he had stopped keeping track.

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“Dad’s back!” 

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The faces of his siblings turned towards him, eyes wide. His brothers scrambled out the front door, their superheroes abandoned on the carpet’s warzone. Francis picked up Camila, her face sticky and her hair a wisp of black. With her on his hip he came outside. 

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Something about his father seemed smaller. Not physically, but on the inside.

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His brothers clung to his calves while their father tousled their hair. Francis approached slowly. His sister squirmed and began to babble. Francis watched his father’s eyes shift and look over his shoulders. 

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“Hey, son. I’m gonna need your help, alright?”

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Francis nodded. 

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“We gotta pack everything up. Kids, get your things.” His father clapped his brothers on the back. Benjamin shouted about packing all the best belongings and Luis scrambled after him, competition in sight. A gray pit opened up in Francis, somewhere behind his belly. 

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“Where are we going?” His voice sounded thin, like there was no breath behind his words. 

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His father pushed his hair back from his face.

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“Anywhere but here. I’ve gotta lose…” He glanced around. 

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A bird call echoed from nearby. 

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“Don’t got time to stand around and chat, alright? Start hauling boxes.”

“I don’t want to leave.” His voice, louder now, standing on its own.

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“It don’t matter what you want. I did this for you. For your siblings.” Something washed over his father’s face. Francis felt a lump sitting heavy in his throat. 

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“You’re gonna understand someday, alright? You’re gonna understand that this is all there is. It’s just leaving one war for another. And we can’t stay here any longer. This truck is leaving in an hour, whether you’re in it or not.” 

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He stalked past him, stinking of smoke and sweat. Francis hated when his father made statements like that. The Sniper would do the same, but at least when he talked nonsense it seemed to mean something. 

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The Sniper. Francis realized that leaving here would mean leaving him, all the markers that he once existed here with them. The pockmarks in the hallway from his dart shooting, the gray smoldered cushions he’d stub his Camel out on, the glass bottles of Jack, and stacks of dirty magazines. The hole in the wall, the only time the Sniper saw Francis, looked into his core, and knew what needed to be done. He had shifted something in him that day. Something had split right open.

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Francis went back inside. He put his sister down on the carpet, checked that his father was having a smoke on the back porch, and went back into their bedroom. He took his gun from the closet shelf and waited to hear the swing of the porch door. When he did, he crept outside.

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He wasn’t sure what he needed to do. He just knew something had to change. That he needed to prove himself to the Sniper, that he was going to fight, that he wasn’t who he was. 

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The air was red hot. He felt claustrophobic, caught between his home and the precipice of something else. Patches of grass were stripped bare in the yard. As if the grounds weren’t willing to provide, as if the layers of eggshells of holes once dug built a barrier. There was nothing for him to uproot anymore. The fence lining the edges of the yard had slats missing. Slices of beyond stared back between the slats. 

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A rustling sounded from the juniper tree Francis and his siblings had climbed every summer. He knew where every foot hold was, which branch could hold weight. He knew what color the sparrow that emerged from the shrouded depths would be. 

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Now he knew just how to brace his shoulder blades so the recoil wouldn’t ruin the shot. 

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The body fell quickly. Grace was not expected. The sparrow plummeted, hit the rail of the fence with a thunk, and toppled over the opposite side. 

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Francis exhaled. He had only executed the creature to retrieve it, to use its body as a final gift, not to have it die without purpose. To have it be unattainable. For it to be a pointless act of willful slaughter. A lump formed in the root of his throat. 

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Standing, he saw his father watching, leaning against the side of the house. 

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He held his gaze, but nothing was said. It felt like understanding. Like something hard and tense and solid. 

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Francis walked back inside. 

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He climbed the stairs with caution to the tender ones that creak. He slipped into the bathroom, closed the door silently, and approached the far wall. The bullet hole gazed back at him, the previous decorations an empty nest, an empty grave. Francis knelt onto the unforgiving tile and pressed his forehead against the crevice. He knew better than to cry. He swallowed, and raised his lips to the top ridge of the cavern. He pressed against it, for one, two beats. Then he stood up and walked away. 

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Luis and Benjamin were filling a box with their shared belongings. One box was large enough. Francis carried it outside and loaded it into the bed of his father’s truck and helped him lift the rest of the home and tie it down. His father called out for his brothers, and Francis went inside to carry Camila out. He climbed up in the front seat when his siblings were settled and secure. As his father finished fixing up the back, Francis leaned his head against the window. He stared into the rearview mirror at the sight of his childhood’s backdrop blurred with thumbprints. 

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He wasn’t sure if absence could be decorated, if it could be filled up, if it could be left behind. He wasn’t sure what the balance was between how much should be left behind and how much should be taken too. The Sniper never taught him about leaving. He only ever talked about survival. 

 

The shudder of the tailgate closing felt like thunder. 

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“Off we go,” his father said, and they did.

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