(Excerpt from WHERE THE GRASS DON'T GROW AND VULTURES SING)

 

We were hunting on Old Man Wertman's 80-acre field of corn and soybeans when Lee's head disappeared. 

Okay, it didn't actually 'disappear;' it was blown into a million pieces by a blast of DJ's 12-gauge pump-action shotgun, but from my vantage point, walking behind Lee, it pretty much disappeared. When DJ's shotgun went off, Lee's little head, wearing a bright-orange hunting cap, was turned into an opaque cloud of bone and blood, blown high into the cloudy sky and pushed away in a chilly October wind. 

"Fuck!" DJ shouted. To me it sounded like a whisper with my ears ringing from the shotgun report. DJ swore non-stop for another minute until Hot Rod slapped him. 

"Fuck," DJ said again, rubbing the side of his acne-scarred face. "Why'd you do that?"

"Because I was getting tired of hearing your bitch-ass mouth." Hot Rod sat his muscular six-foot two body down cross-legged on the crushed cornstalks of the field. He carefully placed his Mossberg double-barreled 16-gauge across his lap and took off his own orange hunting cap that was identical to the ones the rest of us wore. His short black hair stuck straight up off his head like bristles on the back of a wild hog, and despite the cold air, sweat dripped off the ebony skin of his forehead. 

"You mind explaining just why you blew Lee's head off?" Hot Rod asked DJ. 

DJ looked at me, at Weasel, then at Lee's body, laying chest down, a small, ragged stump of his backbone sticking out of the bloody macerated meat of his neck. His arms were spayed out to the side like he was ready to give a grand speech to earthworms if he only had a mouth.      
"DJ!" Hot Rod's deep voice cut thru the air, and we all jumped. When Hot Rod was pissed—as he was now—it was a very good idea to listen to what he was saying. 

"Umm, Umm," DJ said, his voice sputtering like the engine of a beater pickup, "I didn't mean too, I mean, I think I sort of tripped over a rock and I guess I accidentally pulled the trigger and— "

Hot Rod sighed—which I could actually hear now that my ears weren't ringing as loudly—and waved DJ off. "Shut up, DJ. Just shut-the-fuck-up."