Saturday Morning in the Meadow

A man's routine of shooting aluminum cans in the morning

I ride to this place every morning. On my dirt bike I ride here after breakfast. It takes me a couple cups of coffee to leave the cabin and it takes several pumps from my boot on the starter to get the cold engine purring, but I get out here before the dew disappears. It’s a short ride, and I like the feel of the new air and rejuvenated sunshine. Riding my bike here in the morning is what I do, there is not much else to say, me coming out here to shoot my .45 is as much a part of nature as the birds singing in the treetops.

I prop my bike on the side of the dirt road by its kickstand and I hang my full-face helmet by the bars. That bike on the side of the road is as much a part of the nature of things as the trees in the Earth. Where I stop is the meadow, the ground under the grass is a mush, but it keeps the green alive and my boots like a little dirt on their sides. I’ve got a log settled in the grass. I chopped it from a fallen tree and rolled it there years back. Back when that b*****d Neil claimed the camp ground his own and set all those regulations on shooting. I couldn’t shoot cans in my backyard without some rangers coming round back and fining my happy a*s.  That Neil had no right; the logging property was the property of his wife’s folks. And we pay for these cabins; I shouldn’t have to ride my bike a mile up gags trail to shoot my hand canon. Shooting is as much a part of nature as the pinecones dropping from the branches.

             I rolled that log years back and I’ve been shooting it for years. I prop up empty aluminum cans and I take aim. Some of them are just twangs of shredded metal. If I were one those half-a*s artists, I could open an exhibit of my own and call my garbage high-art. All those artists would sip at their wines and the air would smell of pot smoke and highly held opinions. “Commercialism” no no “Capitalism” no no “The war in the Middle East and America’s blood soaked hands,” they would bicker about the meaning and I would say, I go out early in the morning and I shoot at aluminum cans because that b*****d won’t let me do it on my property, that b*****d. 

I trudged through the mud and set the cans in a line along the log. Wood splintered inward and outward where rogue bullets had passed through. I needed to bring a new set of cans, these ones were rusting over and I’m not looking to get another case of lockjaw and another case of quack doctor. One by another, the cans were aligned and then I took my appreciative glance around at the things I never wanted to take for granted. I looked around at the grass field and those little purple flowers that sprouted alongside. I looked beyond the grass and into the grayness of the sleeping forest that surrounded. The sun was still rising, still pushing over the eastern horizon; it was still draining the moon’s darkness into the light blue of the daytime.  The woods were still yawning and I was here to wake them up.

I paced backward, my boots sunk into the ground and made a plodding noise. I haven’t mentioned it yet, but I keep my .45 in a pouch around my waist. I started carrying it with me at all times after the boys and I saw a brown bear and her cub sprint in this same meadow. My boys poke fun at me about it. They tell me it’s a fanny pack, but I say to them that a fanny pack with a high-powered handgun nestled inside is no longer a fanny pack, but a holster with a zipper. I unzipped the pouch and clutched the handle of the silver colt. The metal had retained the chill of the morning. To my right, the gun hung by my side and to my left I checked the time on my worn wristwatch.  It was a minute ‘til. I  would shoot the gun when the thin needle poked at the seven and when the thick needle overcasted the twelve. Me shooting at seven A.M. was as much a part of nature as a bear wiping its a*s with a white bunny rabbit.

            I readied my right eye down the barrel of the gun, placing the first can in between the sights. The clock changed, the hour changed and my index finger tugged at the trigger. The recoil shoved my hands back and after my jowls retracted, I could feel the smile stretching my face. Birds darted from the tree branches in retreat from the explosion, but didn’t know which way to fly seeing as how the gunshot filled the sky. The can sprang from its resting place on the log and somersaulted through the air. And then I tugged the trigger again. And again and until it clicked empty.  Each can had exited the stage, they flew from the log with a metallic rattle. The last echo of the gunshots became the whisper of the breeze through the trees. The forest was waking up to my call.

            There was a stomping from behind, I could feel vibrations from my boots, and it quivered in my shins. Heavy breathing warmed the top of my head. I turned on my heel and looked up to her snout. The brown bear standing tall at seven feet looked down to me, wincing her eyes open and shut. I stood, my feet pressed into the grass, my breathing tightened, “well good morning to you.”

            The bear caste a shadow over me and in huffing, showed its yellowing teeth. A paw pushed the pistol from my hand. The gun sank into the grass and where it would surely leave a stamp into the ground, green slits of grass rose from the trigger guard. I looked from the gun at ground level to the thick, cranky animal leaning over me. “Sleeping in today?”

          The bear retracted onto all fours and lugged away from me and towards the shade of the woods. It was Saturday morning in the forest. Sleeping in on the weekend was as natural as shooting tin cans from a log. I waited for nine minutes to pass on my wristwatch before I fired at the cans again.

Reviews

[LuLuIcey]

I like the last paragraph,"sleeping in on the weekend was as natural as shooting tin cans froma log". You really interrupt others if you shoot on Saturday morning...
I am a bit confuse in the first half of the story, maybe my vocabulary isn't great. Last, you discrib the scene well, good job!

[Marie]

Not a lot of plot here, but it's very well told. You capture the feeling of that morning in the meadow perfectly.