Pieces by Peter H.Z. Hsu

Penny Leong is 8-years-old and home by herself. At the kitchen table, she is playing at organizing a large extended family of toys. She arranges them with the strong toys along a perimeter surrounding the gentler ones. As she plays, a loud knock from the front door startles her. Penny freezes. She stops in mid-motion. She holds her breath and stretches out her hands across the table hovering over the toys like a protective mother blanketing her children from harm. Just out of her reach is a Yellow Power Ranger action figure. The Yellow Ranger stands still. It is stationed on the furthest edge of the table, the strongest of Penny’s toys. The Ranger’s form is feminine like a Barbie doll. It is dressed in a comic book superhero costume. It wears a mask. It holds a laser rifle. It has a missing leg. It starts to teeter.

Penny shushes the Ranger, “Stay still.”

But it falls. Penny gasps. Then another knock at the door.

Another gasp. She stumbles to her feet and then is still again. She places both hands over her mouth. The knocking stops. She takes a deep breath and decides that, despite being scared, she should investigate. She exhales and makes her way to the front door. She steps only on the floorboards that don’t squeak. At the door, she peers through the scratched and foggy peephole. The features of the person on the other side are blurred, but Penny can tell who it is by his bulk and his slouch. It’s Gerald. Gerald is her mother’s ex-husband. Gerald is Penny’s ex-stepfather.

“Lucky,” he says, his voice booming, “I know you’re there. I can see you through the peephole.”

She thinks that he probably can’t see her through the peephole. She doesn’t know this for certain. She ducks down. She puts her hands on the doorknob, not yet turning it. Gerald knocks again.

“Come on, girl. It’s baba. Open up.”

“You’re not my baba.”

“Oh come on,” Gerald laughs, holding up a large rectangular case, “Look here. I got something. I promise, you’re gonna like it.”

Penny peers through the scope of the peephole. One eye closed. One eye open. She focuses between the scratchy lenses to find a small clear window. She looks at the case. It’s long and black with chrome trim. On the front is a small brass plate bolted onto the black plastic. The plate has a lightning bolt on it. It looks like the Power Rangers logo. Penny knows Gerald used to be some kind of ranger. He could have been a Power Ranger. But that’s stupid. But still, maybe.

She turns the knob slightly. Gerald pushes through as soon as there’s give in the door. He does this with authority, but not with violence. Penny is moved aside. Gerald walks in. As he passes, he pats her on the head. He says, “There we are, how’s my Lucky Penny, huh?”

Her hair is mangled. It is tied into two uneven pigtails. Gerald grabs one pigtail and tugs on it. Penny relaxes a little bit, remembering how kind he could be. He puts down the long, rectangular case and squats next to her. He looks at her. He opens his arms. She hugs him. His shirt smells like dirt and cigarettes. His skin smells like beer.

Gerald lets Penny go and heads into the kitchen. He picks up a bowl of cereal. It is one of three that Penny has rationed for the day. He scoops two spoonfuls into his mouth. It crunches as he chews. Still holding the bowl, he rummages through the refrigerator. He complains that there isn’t anything decent to drink, and then returns with a mostly empty 2-liter bottle of store brand cola and a mostly full bottle of Tom Araby’s London Dry Gin. The gin is kept in the freezer. It has frost on its label.

Gerald sits down at the dining table. He pushes aside Penny’s toys. He puts the bottles and a plastic tumbler down next to the Yellow Ranger. Gerald picks the Ranger up, running his thumb over the female anatomy of the plastic figure. A bolt of protectiveness jolts Penny. She wants to rescue the toy. She wants to snatch the figure out of Gerald’s hand. She doesn’t do it. She is scared to provoke him. He looks up from the toy. He looks at Penny. He smiles, putting the figure down, carefully bending it at its one remaining knee, adjusting it so that it balances on its one remaining foot. He then fixes himself a gin and coke. He takes a sip.

“Bleh, tastes like shit,” he says with enthusiasm, before drinking the rest and then pouring himself another.

“Mama’ll be back soon,” says Penny, even though she doesn’t know when her mother will return.

“No, she won’t,” he says, his head bobbing in small circles. “Your mama’s working. Right? Your mother, the worker bee. And she’s working today. And tonight. All night. Right?”

Gerald grins and raises his eyebrows.

“No,” Penny says, “She’ll be back very, very soon.”

“Quit. Ain’t no secrets between us,” he says. “Or maybe she’s got secrets from you. But Baba Gerald knows all.”

Penny purses her lips, angry that she doesn’t know how to respond to this, and afraid that it’s true.

“Besides,” Gerald continues. “I am not here for your mom. I am here for you.”

He taps his forefinger on the table as he says this last part. I. Tap. Am. Tap. Here. Tap. For you. Tap. Tap. Tap. As he does this, Penny watches her toys jostle on the table with each tap. They bounce, jarred as if caught in a tiny earthquake. At the last tap, the Yellow Ranger falls over. Penny reaches out and grabs it. As she clutches the toy, Gerald reaches out and grabs Penny’s hand.

“You still playing with dolls?” he asks, holding her hand. She can feel the Yellow Ranger’s pointy foot dig into her palm. Gerald shakes his head as if to clear his eyesight and then nods towards the case. “I think it’s time to grow up. Put aside childish things.”

Gerald takes another moment to focus and then gets up to retrieve the case. He yanks it off the ground, flinging it through the air and then uses it to swipe everything off the table. The bottles, his cup, and all of Penny’s toys. Everything lands on to the kitchen floor with a clatter. Gerald laughs and fumbles with the combinations on the case latches. He turns the wheels over and over. Penny is tentative, but she leans forward. She’s still holding the toy in one hand, but places the other on Gerald’s shoulder. He undoes that last latch. He throws up the case. He shouts, “Voila!”

Penny crowds in. She’s smushed into Gerald’s side. She drops the action figure and places both hands on the edge of the case. Her eyes are open wide and her jaw slackens. Inside the case, surrounded by fitted green velvet is a long, black rifle.

Penny nods and looks at Gerald. She says, “Wow.”

“Yeah,” says Gerald. “You like it. Course you do.”

“Mama won’t like it.”

“Well good thing she ain’t here then,” he says.

Penny takes a small step backwards, away from the rifle. “Where did you get this?”

“Bought it.”

Penny knows that this shouldn’t be true. She knows Gerald isn’t allowed to do certain things, like vote or work in a casino or re-enlist, or buy a gun.

He takes the rifle out. He now seems much more sober. His movements seem controlled and deliberate. He holds the rifle with his right hand, his palm on the grip, his forefinger resting on the outer rim of the trigger guard. Penny stares at the rifle. She takes in its insistent simplicity. It is different from her toy guns that are ornamented with endless buttons and switches, lights and speakers, plugs and attachments. Gerald’s rifle is smooth and clean and singular in purpose.

He holds it out to her. “Go on, girl. Take it. It’s fine. It ain’t loaded.”

She takes the rifle with both hands. From stock to barrel, it is just a tad shorter than she is. She seems to have a general sense of how to carry the rifle. She holds it with great balance, as if it is an extension of her arm. Gerald nudges her. She pulls the rifle up, resting the stock in the crook of her shoulder. Gerald starts to help her position it, but then stops, saying, “You done this before, Lucky?”

The rifle is light in her arms, far lighter than she would ever have imagined a real gun would weigh. She stares down the sight, closing one eye.

“Both eyes open,” says Gerald. He places a hand on her shoulder. “You need to see everything.”

She opens both eyes and adjusts her vision. She lines up the rear sight to the front. She aims at the broken toaster across the room. Pow. She aims at the stack of bills on the counter top. Pow. She aims across the living room at the television. Pow. She aims at her torn up backpack. Pow. Her mother’s high-heeled cowboy boots. Pow. The upright fan. Pow. The dusty faux sunflowers. Pow. The cracked frame with the old picture of Gerald and her mother standing on the steps of some fancy brick building, Gerald thin with crew-cut hair and a heather gray Army of One T-shirt, Penny’s mom young and clear-eyed and ready to make a difference in the world, the two of them not yet aware that their love will sour, and that their lives will soon spiral out of control. Penny pulls the trigger. It’s soft and doesn’t click. But in her head, Pow. Pow. Pow.

Penny stops and looks at Gerald.

He says, “Better days, right, Lucky?”

He walks across the room and takes the picture off the wall. He opens the back of the frame. He takes the photograph out. He looks at it for what seems like a long time before easing it into his jacket pocket. He finishes the rest of his drink and claps his hands together. “Get your coat. Let’s go shoot.”

§

Gerald drives her out a long way. They go through the city and up into the mountains. They pass at least one shooting range on the way. Penny can see it from the freeway. She asks why they don’t go there, but Gerald brushes it off as “regulations.” Penny thinks this is related the Gerald’s probation. She is concerned that they might get in trouble. She worries about being caught by the police or by her mother. She worries about Gerald himself.

They get into the winding switchbacks of the mountains. Gerald rolls down the windows. The air is cold and bites at the insides of Penny’s nose. She takes a breath as big as she can. She exhales unevenly. She’s afraid. She doesn’t like this feeling of being afraid. It’s confusing. She’s not sure what she’s afraid of. She is afraid of Gerald. But she’s also glad to be with him. She’s afraid of her mother. She’s afraid that her mother will be angry with her when she finds out she went with Gerald. She’s also afraid her mother will be sad and that Penny will feel like that is her fault, that the sadness is her fault. She closes her eyes. The sadness seeps into her. She doesn’t resist. Her head feels heavy. She lays her head down in Gerald’s lap. As she starts to fall asleep she says in a voice that is not audible in the noisy cab of the truck, “Night night, Baba.”

“Wakey wakey,” says Gerald when they arrive at their destination. “We’re here.”

Penny is already half-awake when she hears his voice. She pops up and flings open the door to Gerald’s pickup truck. They’re parked in a dirt clearing. There aren’t any other cars. There are tall pine trees and large boulders in the distance. Closer is a fallen tree trunk. Gerald is opening the gun case and taking out the rifle. He removes the bolt from the rifle and looks down the bore and then through the open sights and then through the bore and then the sights again. He makes adjustments in between views. He does this several times and then reinstalls the bolt and places the rifle back in the open case. He then begins filling the cartridge with rounds of .243. Gerald explains this caliber is light enough for a child to handle, but strong enough to bring down a deer with a single shot. An important feature, he insists, so that the wounded animal doesn’t run off into the woods to bleed out over the course of hours, or worse, to be maimed but not killed, becoming some kind of aberration, ostracized, starving and alone.

“Decisive,” he says, a brightness in his voice. “Like flipping a switch. No questions. No take backs. No negotiations. No hesitations, consultations or explanations. Just wham, bam, thank you ma’am.”

Gerald seems mostly sober now, as if the drive and the fresh air rejuvenated him. But he’s brought the bottle of Araby’s. It protrudes from Gerald’s back pocket. Gerald inserts the cartridge and shoulders the rifle. He takes a plastic garbage bag full of recyclables. Penny recognizes the bag from the apartment. Gerald walks into the distance. He walks towards the fallen pine tree. There he arranges the cans and bottles along the top of it. He puts up five targets, one for each round in the magazine. He drops the bag with the remaining targets. He walks back to Penny. There’s a bit of a spring to his step.

Penny remembers Gerald arguing with her mother about guns. There had been a shooting three cities over. Gerald had been drunk and in tears watching the television reports of children being gunned down in a cafeteria. He’d said, “Those poor bastards hadn’t had a chance.” Gerald wanted to buy a gun in case anything like that happened around them. Her mother said it wasn’t a good idea. Gerald said they need protection. He said the world is gone to shit. Her mother called him a drunk and an idiot. Gerald warned her to not antagonize him. She said she wasn’t. Gerald said she was, she always was.

Penny had then changed television channel. She didn’t want to see any more about the shooting. Gerald yelled at her for changing the television channel because isn’t it obvious that he was still watching that. She changed it back. He kicked a hole in the wall. Her mother screamed at Gerald to leave Penny alone. Gerald knocked her mother down and kicked her. Penny hid in her room, in the dark, in the corner of her closet. She thought about the kids who’d been shot.

“Okay, this is 25 yards,” says Gerald, marking the ground with the heel of his shoe. “Follow me.”

She follows him to the next marker. “This is 15.”

Then to the next. “This is 10.”

With that, Gerald pivots on his heel, pulling the rifle up to his shoulder as he does. He lands on both feet, turning to face the targets. He fires in one fluid motion. The rifle cracks with a loud pop. Penny covers her ears and closes her eyes. When she opens them, she sees Gerald. He is frowning.

“Shit,” he says. “Missed.”

He takes the rifle up again. He steadies himself. He takes his time to line up this next shot. Penny can hear him breathing. He inhales a gulp of air. He exhales. He pulls the trigger. He misses again.

“Holy fuck,” he says, as if surprised. “Hold on. One more.”

He tries again. He misses again. He props the rifle against his leg and takes the bottle of Araby’s from his pants pocket. He uncorks it and takes a steady sip. He wipes his mouth with his sleeve. As he puts the bottle back, he picks up the rifle and hands it to Penny.

“Whattaya say, Lucky? Give it a shot?”

Penny takes the rifle. She lowers it, barrel pointing to the ground. She places her right hand on the small metal ball of the bolt, lifts it and pulls a round into the chamber. She brings the rifle back up, up to the crook of her shoulder, like she did at the apartment. She does this with quiet seriousness. Gerald doesn’t need to warn her not to point that thing at him or to keep her finger off the trigger until she’s ready to shoot. It’s as if she knows these things already. He helps her with her stance. With a couple of taps on her feet, she balances her weight and levels the rifle steady, its 22-inch barrel parallel with the Earth. He stands behind her. He tells her to brace herself against him. She leans on his hip. He says, “Try to stay loose. This shit gonna kick.”

Penny fixes her eyes on the fallen trunk. She thinks about which target she wants to shoot. Roving from a soda can to a wine bottle to an unopened can of soup or enchilada sauce. She imagines the cans and bottles as villains. She imagines them lurking in the distance, advancing on her. She imagines them close, very close, at her front door. There you are. She looks into the eyes of her adversary. She imagines herself as the Yellow Ranger. The strongest. She takes in an even breath and pulls the trigger. There’s a flash in her retina, a searing pain in her shoulder. A tin can explodes.

“Holy shit!” exclaims Gerald. “Oh my God, Lucky, you did it! Try again!”

Penny doesn’t respond to Gerald’s praise. She cocks the rifle and braces herself against his leg again. She aims and fires. The wine bottle shatters. Gerald taps her shoulder and motions for the rifle. She gives it to Gerald. He reloads the cartridge. He does this quickly. He hands the rifle back to her.

“Okay, baby girl. Back up to the 15.”

She backs up. He follows but stands a bit away.

“Now, you don’t need me. Go on. Do it.”

She does. She fires. Her small frame adapts quickly and absorbs the kick without much fanfare. Over on the log, the soda can is knocked off. She continues: a blue water bottle, a row of three empty cans of light beer. Bam. Bam. Bam. Gerald applauds after each. When they’re all knocked off, he hurries back to the log and puts more targets up. She hits them all. He reloads the rifle and again sets up more targets. He calls out each, far left, middle, near left, far right, last one. She hits each, on demand, as called. They move back to the 25-yard mark. He calls out the targets again. She hits them all again.

Gerald is beside himself. “A natural, baby! You are a bona fides natural! Goddammit I gotta take your ass to the county fair.”

He continues to drink from the bottle of Araby’s. It still looks halfway full. He laughs and hugs Penny. She doesn’t hug him back. She can feel the ache in her shoulder and the fatigue in her arms and her legs. But she doesn’t want to stop.

Gerald loses his balance. He falls to the ground. He pulls Penny down next to him. He says, “Why you,” and tickles her. She’s not ticklish. He stops. They lie on their sides, facing each other. She looks at Gerald. His hair is in his eyes. He is smiling and looking back at her, staring really.

“You’re beautiful, Lucky. You know that?” he says.

She looks away, neither glad nor embarrassed.

“For real. You are. Jesus, I wish I could see you grown up.”

“I’ll be grown up soon,” she says.

“Yeah, but if your mama has her way, I won’t be around to see it,” he says.

Penny looks at him, studying his face. His smile fades and his eyes drop.

“Why?” she asks, but she already knows why.

“I’m sorry, baby,” he says, “But she’s right. I’m no good for you. I haven’t been good. I haven’t been around, when you all needed me. You did need me. You needed somebody to look after you. Keep you safe.”

Penny doesn’t respond. She thinks about being safe. She’s surprised at how odd that word lands on her mind. Like a leaf from a strange tree from a very far-away place.

Penny looks at the rifle. It’s propped up next to them, against the fallen trunk. Gerald reaches over and brushes the back of his hand against Penny’s cheek. Penny flinches just a little bit. Gerald puts his hand at the back of her neck. She pulls away, scrambling to get her footing.

“Hey, Whoa, Lucky,” says Gerald, sitting up fast, holding his hands out. “Whoa. What’s happening, kid? I ain’t gonna hurt you. I wouldn’t ever hurt you.”

Penny backs up.

“Come on, Lucky. Don’t be mad at me.”

“I’m not mad,” she says. She turns and looks at the rifle again. Gerald watches her. She wonders if she can reach it before he can stop her.

“What are you thinking, Lucky? What’s in that head of yours?”

“Nothing,” she says.

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“Okay, now come on,” says Gerald, his hands still up and open. “You wanna be the hunter now, little miss Earn’st Hemingway? You wanna hunt? Waddaya say I take you on safari?”

The idea attracts Penny’s attention. Gerald gets on to his feet and tucks the bottle away. He picks up the rifle and holds it out to her. She takes it. He says, “I didn’t mean nothing,” and adjusts the rifle strap on Penny’s shoulder. She nods. They go forward into the woods.

Every few minutes Gerald stops and makes a show of tracking something. He picks up a broken twig or sniffs at brush or checks out what might be a paw print in the mud. Each time he finds a clue, he takes a slow and focused sip from the bottle and, with dramatic seriousness, waves his hand at Penny and points forward, deeper into the trees.

Some short time later, Gerald and Penny come into a grassy clearing in between a stretch of brush and an array of big southern live oak trees. Gerald drops onto the ground, flat on his back. He stares up into the atmosphere. It’s close to dusk. The sun is still lighting up the sky in a full blue, but the shadows are long. The temperature is starting to drop. Penny lays down next to Gerald. She can smell the sour sweat on him along with the oddly clean smell of the gin. He puts an arm over her and says, “Jesus, Lucky. I think I’m drunk.” Penny lets the weight of his arm settle. It’s heavy. It crushes her a little bit. But she doesn’t mind it.

As she lies beside him, Penny sees something. It’s in the distance. It’s a small stout figure. She pulls away from the crook of Gerald’s elbow. She sits up cross-legged. She takes the rifle off her shoulder. Gerald turns to look in the direction Penny is looking. “What is it, Lucky?”

She points to the brush, to a large oak standing out in front of it. The tree’s trunk looks as thick as Gerald’s pickup. Seven large branches reach out and up from the base. A shadow the size of a large dog moves slowly in front of the tree.

“Oh dang,” says Gerald. “A bear cub? What the hell’s she doing out here?”

Penny lifts the rifle to her shoulder. She bows her back to hunch over the sights. She aims at the baby bear. Gerald grabs her leg.

“Lucky, wait. Wait.”

Penny steadies herself. She hears Gerald but doesn’t lower the rifle. She sees the cub’s head. She lines up the front sight with the rear, aiming at the animal’s forehead. She inhales and rubs the trigger guard with the pad of her forefinger.

Gerald pats her on the leg. “Lucky, wait.”

She exhales, keeping the rifle steady.

Still on his back, Gerald eases himself up onto one elbow. “Now look. You cannot shoot that cub.”

“Why?” asks Penny.

“Because it’s wrong, baby girl. That cub’s just a kid, like you.”

Penny thinks for a second. “But that doesn’t matter. That cub’s a bear. Bears are strong and mean. They kill people. We need to stop them.”

“Well, now. Maybe. But there’s something else.”

Penny takes one eye off the sights and looks to Gerald.

He continues, “That cub, she’s supposed to stay there by that tree, close. The tree’s supposed to be her sitter.”

“Bear cubs have baby sitters?” asks Penny.

“Well, yes they do. Their mothers leave them by these trees,” Gerald’s voice drops. “But I’m telling you, you fire that gun, that mother bear’s gonna be on us quick. Maybe we’ll have five minutes. But maybe we won’t have even one. And an angry mother bear, shit, girl, you can pump that Remington empty into her, and she’d still tear us both to pieces.”

“I’m not afraid,” she says, pulling the bolt and bringing a new round into the chamber.

“It’s not about being afraid, Lucky.”

“It is,” she says.

Gerald scoots a little further back. He places one hand softly on the top of the rifle, over the barrel, covering the rear sight. He says, “You gotta trust me on this, kid. A mother bear’s not fucking around when it comes to her babies.”

Penny stares through Gerald’s hand. She can see a line from the rifle’s sights across the field and into the cub. The line is clear, as if drawn with a ruler across a long sheet of vellum. She thinks about the mother bear. She imagines it. It is covered in bristled fur and thick sinewy muscle. Penny imagines it standing tall on its hind legs. It towers over Penny and over Gerald too. It towers over the trees, over the mountains, over the Earth itself. Penny imagines it snarling, its teeth long and sharp with foamy spit dripping off. She imagines it growling. The growling like a language. It is a language that only a few know. The language of the strong directed at the weak. The language that burrows into the skulls of the vulnerable, echoing against the shone alabaster walls of dark closets and tightly shut eyes. Penny moves her forefinger from the guard onto the trigger.

“Hey, hey,” says Gerald, his hand still laid on top of the rifle. “Come on, girl.”

She blinks. Tears welled in her eyes drop onto her cheeks.

“No,” she says.

“Lucky,” he says. “Whatever you’re thinking.”

Penny squeezes the trigger. The rifle fires. Gerald screams. He pulls his hand off the barrel. In the distance the bear cub falls. Penny rises to her feet. She reloads the rifle. From the brush, a frantic rustling.

Peter H.Z. Hsu is a 2017 PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellow, the 2017 Artist in Residence for PEN in the Community, and the awardee of F(r)iction Magazine’s Spring 2017 Short Story Contest. For a complete list of Peter’s publications and events, please visit www.peterhzhsu.com.