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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “Renegade Winter” Down in the Dirt, v154 (the February 2018 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

Order this writing in the issue book At Midnight the Down in the Dirt Jan.-Apr. 2018 collection book		get the 418 page Jan.-Apr. 2018 Down in the Dirt issue anthology 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Sniper

Gale Acuff

I’m about to pull the trigger that kills
my father. I’m three years old. He’s sitting
in his easy chair in the corner of
the living room. It’s Christmas morning. One
of my presents is a toy rifle which
clicks when I pull the trigger. No ammo
with it, though, so I improvise: I jam

a short green Tinkertoy stick into it
and, on a long diagonal across
the room, I aim at him, aim carefully,
because he’s wearing glasses, and a corner
of the newspaper wafts with the warm breeze
from the steam heater against his wall. I
don’t know what I’m doing and nobody
ever taught me to shoot and I don’t know
why I’m bearing down on him but then I
fire and the Tinkertoy catches him right

below the right eye. This is my first time
shooting with a real projectile, though I
don’t know that word yet. I do know hungry,
thirsty, sleepy. I know what anger is.
I know the body language, though I don’t
know what body language means, of my hand
on my fly, trying to choke off the pee.
I know please and thank you but I don’t say them.
When my plate’s empty and I want more I
scream Meat! or Potatoes! or French fries! though
they’re curing me of that. Pass them pork chops,
I might say. I wan’ mo’ red stuff, I’ll say.
Sauce, I mean, but I don’t remember that.
Milk I know. Water. Kool-Aid. Ice cream. Pie.
Cake. Cookies. Candy bar. My c is bad
—Take. Tookie. Tandy. Sometimes I get them,
sometimes I don’t. When I don’t, look alive.

I never fired a gun before without
my mouth blasting the appropriate sound,
accompaniment for people I’ve clipped
—sisters, brother, mother, grandmother, dog,
cat, goldfish, invisible (but I see
them) soldiers, Indians, aliens, thieves.
Sometimes Pow. Then there’s Bam, Blam, Kapow, Boom,
Ping-ping-ping, rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat-tat,
and other sounds even grownups can’t spell.
And when I’m dead I always rise again,

if not as the same person then one life.
No one can touch me even if they do.
Except for being spanked—that makes me mad,
I cry and crying makes me furious.
They lock me away. Sleep it off, they say.
I lie there and make plans and sniffle and
choke my teddy bear ‘til his rubber nose
and jowls protrude and scare me then I hurl
him against the wall and leap on him where
he’s landed, my boots on his stupid face
which never breaks expression unless I

force it and then (except for one crack where
I stabbed him with a flathead screwdriver)
it always pops back into shape. I hate
that—he’s cuter than I am and will out
-last me. Father puts the news down, rises,
pads past me like I’m one of those zombies on
Saturday afternoon TV movies
I’m not allowed to watch. I follow him
into the kitchen. I have learned to say
I’m sorry then, without being told to.
I’m thorry, Daddy, I cry. I dint
mean it. He’s bathing his eye at the sink.
You not crying, is you, Daddy? He says,
It’ll be alright, Son. He doesn’t
hit me. He doesn’t lecture me. What’s more,

he doesn’t take my Christmas gun away.
He just returns to his chair and paper
and crosses his right leg over his left
but it’s usually left over right
so maybe he’s just protecting his whizzer
from me in case I should try to outdo
myself. I’ve killed him—that must be his ghost
sitting there. I’m not sure who’s won. I feel

cheated. It isn’t fair. I wouldn’t be
happy with him dead but living kills me.

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