Path of a Bullet by Alex Juffer

Kat knocked bumpers with a man in a truck who stopped abruptly, which made her nervous, because she had met enough men with trucks to know that they reacted however they saw fit. 

He got out on the side of the road, all neck and black sunglasses, and started to rummage through his trunk. Anger made his movements rigid.

Kat fished her Glock 42 out. She had never fired it before, so she stored her gun as simply as possible: loaded, in the glove box. 

He came to her passenger side with a woodgrain Louisville Slugger, head of the bat caressed by his shoulder. Kat rolled down her window. When he saw the gun, he looked betrayed, and Kat glimpsed how he had looked as a boy. Kat knew if she heard him speak, she would lose her nerve.

The bullet went through his outstretched hand, clean, and ricocheted into a Big Gulp cup on the nearby sidewalk. When the cops came, both drivers had fled the scene, and there was Thursday Night Football on soon, so they begged off a search.

Lo had an art history degree, a boyfriend with cheekbone ledges and too many damn allergies, one pair of jeans, a holographic first edition Charizard to sell in case of an emergency, and a barista job, although he hated coffee. 

He walked a lot, just to stay in motion.

Lo kicked the Big Gulp cup and discovered the spent bullet. He meant to drill a hole in it and fashion a necklace, although he knew he wasn’t tough enough to wear a bullet necklace. At the same time, he wondered if he could become tough enough, if wearing such a thing (tucked into a white T to start) might not be the first step. A transformation—a way to steer an implosion into a controlled demolition.

 The boyfriend broke up with him before he had a chance to make the necklace, so Lo walked down to the bridge that crested over the Mississippi, the water wide and deep enough to swallow up every regret, fear, or dream he could ever hope to conceive of.

He hurled the bullet towards the water but lost sight of it as soon as it left his hand.

The bullet bobbed along the bottom of the river. It came close to reuniting with a gun but glanced off a fish and careened along. Eventually, the river siphoned into a small town and the bullet lodged between two rocks.

Two boys walked along the disintegrating riverbank, searching for stones to skip: anything to kill an afternoon so hot time turned to molasses. Ryan spotted the tarnished gold glint, picked it up, and cradled it in his hands. JB claimed he saw it first. He kept repeating this, shoving Ryan closer to the edge of the river, until he finally gave it up. 

JB traded the bullet for nudes of a girl. He got mad when he found out the nudes were readily available, jumping from phone to phone. Pleas for it back were rejected. JB showed up on the lawn to confront his peer. It was the principle of the thing, he kept telling himself, along with anyone else who would listen.

They threw wild, looping punches back and forth, connecting with the sides of their fists. One got a concussion, the other a bloody nose.

Mom stormed out to stop the fight. She grabbed the bullet and threw it in the trashcan, but it slipped out of a hole and sat in the street.

Nevaeh, second-grade Student of the Month for April, found it. She didn’t have pockets, so she gripped it tight until it got so hot that she worried it might melt. It ended up buried in her makeshift jewelry shrine, where she kept it hidden from friends and family. From its crumpled, battered nature, she could tell it had been fired before.

She liked that it had a history; she liked that she’d never know it.

Alex Juffer is a graduate of the MFA program at Southern Illinois University. Recently, he has worked at Southern New Hampshire University, the Loft Literary Center, and the University of Minnesota, teaching literature, creative writing, and public speaking. His work has been previously published in Epoch, Cleaver, Monkey Bicycle, Hobart, Maudlin House and more. 

16 September 2022