Gun Lake by Travis Thrasher Read Free Book Online Page B

thought. He hadn’t treated Collette badly. He loved Collette. He supported his family and had just had a bad stretch as of late. A bad stretch of months. Some bad habits. Bad tendencies. All men had such habits, and sometimes they got a little out of control. But he was doing better now. And sooner or later, he knew, Collette would see that and come home and they would move on. She had to.
    When she left, she told him she needed time to reflect about her life.
Her life
, he thought with amazement. It wasn’t just her life. It was their life. Their family’s life. She would take him back soon. She would come back. And things would start looking up for him.
    Don was getting tired of Fleetwood Mac on the jukebox. It was hard not to think of Bill Clinton as “Don’t Stop” played. And it was hard not to think of Collette when “Go Your Own Way” started up. Maybe it was this music making him melancholy, making him wistful and sad. A slow ballad sung by one of the women in the group played next, and Don felt downright depressed. He felt awful. Led Zeppelin didn’t make him feel awful. It made him feel alive and made him want to drink more Bud. Some music does that. Some makes you want to curl up in a bed and whimper yourself to sleep.
    “The Chain” began, and at least the tempo picked up.
    This life of his, where had it gone wrong? He was only forty-three. His boys joked that he was an old man, and sometimes he felt that way, but he wasn’t. He could still call up some of that same attitude he’d had in his twenties, when he was in shape andColleen thought he was great and life was as open as the blue sky above the lake on a summer day. The question was, how did he get from there to here? A few jobs here, a few moves there, some assorted mishaps and mistakes, a marriage, a couple of kids—and suddenly he was sitting in the Joint cursing to himself and wondering where it all went. Listening to Fleetwood Mac and watching old Alfred dance by the bar and seeing Kay grin and sip on the beer she had served herself.
    Is this everything I have?
    He didn’t want to answer that question.
    “Listen to the wind blow …” the singer sang.
    And that wind said something, told him something, whispered stuff in his ear he didn’t want to hear.
    Perhaps this was all he wanted. All he’d ever have. All he’d ever dream of being.
    He tipped up the cold bottom of his bottle, drank the remains, and stood up. The music began to grow louder, as though Kay had turned up the volume when the guitar solo really began to crank.
    He threw down a tip, waved at Kay, headed out the door, and wondered what he would find at home.

13
    WHAT IS HE DOING NOW?
    “Get back up here.”
    A curse answered his order.
    “Lonnie, I swear … I said get up here.”
    Kurt spoke in a deliberate whisper. By now his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and he could make out Lonnie’s tall figure and crew-cut hair.
    “Why don’t you make me?”
    Kurt shifted his body while balancing on one hand. The otherhand held the Glock 26, which he speared the darkness with as he approached Lonnie. He slipped off the ledge of the crawl space and used the gun barrel to locate Lonnie’s side, then waved the gun upward, making contact with Lonnie’s head.
    Lonnie let out a garbled curse that sounded like “Cherrruggh.”
    Then he was down, keeled over, his hands holding his head, while Kurt aimed the gun at him.
    Who do you think you are?
    “Get back up there. In the crawlspace.”
    “Or what?”
    “I swear, Sean’s hearing about this. If you go upstairs I’ll use this.”
    “I wanna see you do it.”
    “It’s either that or let you do something stupid.”
    A brief pause, then a lighter, quieter voice said, “You guys are being really loud.”
    Lonnie must at least have been contemplating his options. This was the second time Kurt had lunged at him. Kurt figured there probably wouldn’t be a third.
    “Pistol-whipping in the dark,” Lonnie said, coughing.