On graduation night we skip out on the dreaded ceremony with its foldable metal chairs and grandparents dabbing sweaty necks with lace handkerchiefs and walk single file along the dirt road to Cormack Beaver’s farmhouse. Ellis walks up front with a BB gun tipped against his bare, tanned shoulder, tobacco spit dribbling down his chin. Every so often he spits to his right and August flinches and curses. August always walks too close behind his twin brother, hovers in his shadow.
Ellis can shoot a tin can off a tree stump from thirty paces. He rides horses bareback and sometimes barefoot, too. There’s a rumor that girls will run across the Quebec-Ontario border late at night in their jean shorts and flip flops if they hear Ellis will be at an Ontario party that night. Then Ellis will charm them in his broken French, and they’ll laugh because he has a good-looking face.
“We’re going to get killed by Beaver,” moans August. August did not inherit the looks or the charm that his twin brother is graced with but instead an affinity for bugs and no hearing in his right ear. He often squats down in the dust and dirt and sticks his finger in the ground, admiring an ant or a spider or a fat caterpillar. At school people lean into his deaf ear and whisper “freak” and “queer” and “creeper”.
At school people buy Ellis slices of pizza and offer to lend him their dirt bikes. August squats in the dirt and smiles and doesn’t hear what people whisper in his right ear.
“Shut up, August,” I say. “Cormack Beaver’s dead.”
The sun is almost down but the heat is smothering. Crickets are popping in and out of the dry yellow grass along the road. The sound they make is like a high-pitched whine.
Cormack Beaver’s farmhouse is a long walk outside of town. Ellis wanted to shoot out the windows instead of getting his high school diploma. He brought me along because he knows I’m a good shot and I don’t talk much. I have my dad’s hunting rifle with me. The weight of it feels powerful, the butt of the gun bumping against my thighs as I walk. Once Ellis said that he’d want me on his team for the zombie apocalypse. I grinned like an idiot for the rest of the day.
“People say that if you shoot out the windows on Beaver’s house then he’ll haunt you in your sleep.” August walks with his head down, his glasses nearly sliding off his face. The tips of his ears are sunburnt.
“Then go home, August.” Ellis doesn’t turn when he speaks.
An old pick-up truck grumbles along the road towards us. It is shiny silver and reflects the late evening sun in white flashes. We all stand and squint at it as it approaches.
“There’s no hunting here, boys,” says an old man’s voice from the window.
I stand with August as Ellis goes to speak with the driver. August points out a wasp nest a few feet away, nestled in the gnarled branches of a magnolia.
“That’s a nice spot,” he says.
Ellis walks back to us and the truck drives off, leaving behind a cloud of yellow dust.
“Old asshole,” Ellis says. He spits a wad of black grime and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
“He’s reporting us?” I ask.
“He bought the property beside Beaver’s place. He said he’ll call the cops if we don’t leave.”
“What the hell are we gonna do?” I dig my shoe into the dirt. This was supposed to be a good time. The old man has ruined everything.
August is staring off at the magnolia tree, hypnotized by the lazy hum of wasps.
Ellis raises his BB gun and aims in one fluid motion. He fires ten times at the wasp nest and smiles when it hits the ground.
Issie Patterson is a writer from Toronto. Her fiction and reviews have been featured and are forthcoming in untethered, Prism, Gargoyle Magazine, and Vancouver Weekly. Her stage plays have been performed on both coasts of Canada. She is a recent graduate of the University of British Columbia’s MFA creative writing program. She lives in Nova Scotia.