The Gunfighter’s Child
The bullet went precisely into the ear canal of his mother’s lover
When he was five years old, Memphis shot his mother’s lover in the left ear. He’d assumed she was being hurt when he heard her cry out.
His father wasn’t home, so he took it onto himself to defend her. He had watched his father breaking down the pistol, cleaning and oiling it, putting it back together, saddle soaping the holster, and he’d seen him cock it and fire it, over and over again, the bullets nesting together in the target’s paper heart.
His father’s face showed a pleasant and cultured respect for everyone. By being the equal of those who thought him superior, he became also the equal of those who thought him inferior. By maintaining this balance, the gunfighter was seldom forced to use violence, as even those who surrendered to him felt no loss of self-respect in doing so. He was a lawman.
Memphis was almost six. His father often talked to him when he was oiling a pistol or loading shotgun shells, cleaning fish, or planing lumber. He talked to him about respect. “It’s watching yourself from the other person’s eyes,” he said. “You need to look through two sets of eyes at the same time.” Memphis only vaguely understood this, but his father told him not to worry, it would be stored for later use and when he needed it, it would be there.
The investigators assumed it was a fluke that the bullet went into the ear canal. His mother had been remarkably calm when she realized Memphis had shot dead the man on top of her. She even laughed her small hand over her mouth to soften it with charming modesty.
There was the loud mechanical click of the hammer locking back again. “Give mama the gun, sweetheart. Please?” She was afraid he’d shoot her, too. That was why she was so calm. She wanted him to calm down. He smiled back, deciding to not shoot his mother out of respect.
When his father returned from Salinas the next day, he was told his wife was attacked by an intruder, and that Memphis had killed him. He knew this was not true, that the man was in his wife’s bed when Memphis shot him. He was quiet for a long time. Then he said to his brother, “Chuco, that kid isn’t even upset.”
“I see that,” Chuco said. “He scare you a little?”
“Yeah.”
“Me too.”
It was after that day that the bullets began to disperse, back away from the paper hearts, when his father was shooting. He began to shoot at the head, and they clustered again. While he was reloading, he would look at Memphis and suddenly begin to laugh to himself. Memphis watched him from the calm place with respect.
When he was six, and started school, one of the other boys asked why he was named Memphis. When he asked his father, he said, “Ask your mother.”
He asked his mother and she said, “You may as well ask why my mother named me Shabaka. We are descended from Mexican Egyptologists. Memphis was the heart and the tongue of the nine great gods of Egypt.” She smiled and touched his long dark hair. “You must love me very much,” she said. He didn’t answer her. He was remembering the sound the gun made when he’d cocked it the second time. His mother was thinking the very same thing.