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My Weakness

Ed Kearns

    Dad took me hunting with him on my tenth birthday. Mom never would’ve allowed it, but she died six months before.
    “See those elk over there ‘cross the meadow, Mark, grazing by the treeline? You can just make out their antlers through the bush.” He pointed for me as we glassed the expanse around us.
    My binoculars were smaller than his.
    “No, I don’t see ‘em.”
    “Come on, boy!” He grabbed the top of my head by the cap and turned it. “Right there, by the treeline!”
    Sure enough, two massive pairs of antlers were grazing on berries behind a bush between the forest and the creek.
    “Okay, I see ‘em.”
    “Alright,” he spoke through squinted eyes, “now what we’re gonna do is circle around back, tuck into the trees a bit, come up from down wind, and take ‘em from that outcropping. Lucky they’re on our side of the creek.”
    He picked up his rifle and started off crouching.
    I followed and did the same.
    “This is stalking. Once you identify your prey, the only tool to your advantage is this,” he held up his rifle, “and the element of surprise. A good stalker can take down any prey, son, anything at all.”
    “Like those lions that killed the elephant.”
    “Exactly.” He was whispering now.
    A branch snapped beneath my feet.
    “Shhh!”
    We didn’t say a thing until we reached the outcropping. There were casings littered everywhere, and a rain-soaked box half-buried in the earth.
    “Filthy sons-a-bitches.” Dad looked at our feet with disgust and started picking up the shells one at a time, collecting them until each of his hands were full. Then he pulled up the box from the mud and put both handfulls quietly in it.
    The whole time he cleaned our perch, I think he forgot what we were doing. “Now listen here,” looking up, he remembered, and brushed pine needles off the rock before us. “Hunting’s natural. It’s life. Predators prey upon the weak, ‘cause they’re the surest kill. Man, on the other hand, preys upon his surest challenge. We kill not only for food, but to prove ourselves able – that we’re more than just animals. Man is an ambitious killer by nature, Mark. You understand?”
    “That’s why you don’t hunt birds, right?”
    “Exactly. Now scope up.”
    I lifted my rifle and rested my arm on the rock.
    “I want you to shoot first. If you miss, I’ll have ‘em in my sights, alright? Otherwise, I’ll take the big guy.”
    I tried to find the elk in my scope, but everything was blurry and green, so I twisted the dial and adjusted it to my sight.
    “C’mon, boy. Forest’s a funny place. Anything can spook ‘em.”
    Panning the creek to the right, I found the elderberry bush and centered my crosshairs on the chest of the smaller elk feeding there.
    Its ears twitched.
    Dad set his arm on the rock and aimed his rifle.
    “Remember, aim for the shoulder or chest. It’s a cleaner kill. Once you’re set, chamber your round.” Dad slid his bolt back slowly.
    I did the same.
    CRACK! CRACK!
    My elk stumbled two steps to the side before falling to its knee and tipping over. Dad’s fell immediately.
    “Nice shot, Mark,” he patted me on the back. “Nice shot.”
    There was so much blood it was amazing. It did something to me. For a second I felt sick, standing over my kill still twitching with its tongue out.
    “You wanna bleed ‘em?” Dad asked as he handed me his knife.
    It felt like I was dreaming.
    I knelt beside him in the mud and he pointed at the wheezing neck. All the sounds around me hummed as one. I put the point of the blade next to his finger, pressed hard, and pulled.

•

    That night by the fire, Dad wiped the blood from his hands and put his arm around me. “You see boy, now that is a beautiful sight.” He pointed to the flickering orange dancing across our pair of elk hanging. It took us just shy of three hours to clean them and work the winch on the truck to get them up there. “I’m proud of you, son.”
    I was cooking beanie weenies over the fire. “Thanks, Dad.”
    “You know why we were so lucky today, Mark?” He sat back and opened a beer.
    “Because we know what we’re doing.”
    “How do you figure?” He was testing me.
    “Well,” I stirred the steel spoon in the pan, “we’ve been scouting this ridge for a month now, camping, glassing, and tracking the herd. Last week we found scat by the creek, and those two,” I whipped the spoon out with a few beans and pointed at our catch, “wandered into our trap.”
    “We set no trap, son. They fell into their own. That’s the beauty of it. Routine. Routine’s what gets you killed. Remember that. We’re hunters – don’t ever make the same mistake as your prey. Tomorrow, we leave at sunrise.” He drank his beer until it was gone. “How long for dinner?”
    “It’s ready.” I pulled out two paper bowls and filled each with half the pan.

• •

    He was right. Hunting is life, and I fell in love. Animals became too simple. They always follow routine. They lack free will. And I just don’t like the taste.
    When I became a vegetarian, I needed something else.
    I started hunting in my truck. It was Dad’s old ’61 Apache, and after a week, I decided it was a little too obvious.
    Now I park far enough away to scout on foot. I still stalk in the truck, but I execute in a rental. At home, I have my way, make the kill, and contain the cleaning.
    Like I say, I had to find something else, something better tasting. Every predator hunts the weak, even Dad. Birds, elk, bear – all animals are weak, even man – but not me.
    The weak wear short skirts they’re always tugging at to cover more.
    It’s the same thing everytime. I roll down the window, lean across the seat, and ask if they want a ride. If I’ve done my homework, they climb inside.
    At home, I prey while they’re still alive and tied. They’re noisier, that’s all, but much more fun. When I’m done, I bleed them in the bath and hang them up to dry.
    Everything downstairs is covered in plastic. When I started, I tore out the concrete in the basement to hide my collection.
    “Never leave a trace,” Dad would always say, and I don’t. Whenever I clean up, I see him with the moist, muddy ammo box, and his hands full of shells.
    “Filthy sons-a-bitches.”
    I follow no routine until I get home. Outside, I never hit the same school twice. Once I find the weakest, I wait. When I follow them home, I go slow, let them round corners, even park and walk a ways behind them. I inspect their houses, follow their families to work, learn their routines – dance recitals, cheer practice, boyfriends – everything.
    But it’s getting too easy, like hunting quail. I feel like an animal. Dad would be very disappointed. So, to prove myself a man, I have to hunt one.

• • •

    It’s been six years since his surgery.
    “What do the doctors think? Did they catch it in time?”
    “For Christ’s sake, Mark, I don’t know. Goddamn,” he shifted his weight off the catheter, “this fucking thing...”
    “Why don’t you just lie down?” I asked as I reached for the buttons on his bed.
    “No,” he shoved my arm and pushed himself up. “Quit being such a pussy. I’m fine. Why don’t you go grade some papers or something? Maybe we’ll catch-up next month.”
    It got a lot worse before chemo, but I hear he’s in remission. When he got sick, he stopped calling. Now I get postcards and pictures of his kills.

• • • •

    He’s always out the first day of season, always hunting the same ridge.
    After a seventy-five mile drive, I pull into the clearing and see his truck.
    Routine.
    I find him from the top of the ridge. Glassing the same meadow we worked when I was a boy, I spot him cleaning a carcass by the creek. He looks older, thinner, and it makes me sick.
    Leaning against a rock, I steady my hand, find his chest in my scope, slide back the bolt, and pull the trigger.
    CRACK!
    He looks up the ridge, tries to stand, then falls to the creekbank.
    It’s been years since I last fired a gun, and my accuracy astounds me.
    I run through the trees to the meadow like a ghost. I can’t feel my feet or fight my smile. As my legs tear through the tinder, I start sobbing and laughing madly until I lose control of my speed, trip and tumble down the hill into a tree. There, I wipe the brush from my hair and run on, leaving my rifle somewhere behind.
    At the creek, he’s still breathing, wheezing like an elk. The carcass he was cleaning looks more alive than he does.
    He watches me with wide eyes, clutching his belly and whispering through the blood he spits-up, “Mark... I miss you, Mark.”
    I take off his cap and grab the back of his head. “Sorry, Dad. I’ve been busy.” Then I roll him over. It must hurt like hell, because somehow he finds the strength to scream before I push his face under water. I hold it there until the bubbles stop – just like with my girls.
    When I’m done, I sit him up against a rock and finish cleaning his kill before sundown.

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