he was on fire. At the time, Fitz judged Mr. Weber: to be so hateful was unattractive. Fitz must have thought he was somehow exempt from that kind of thing, above it.
“Walk toward the water,” Fitz tells his father, and he does as he’s told. Steps over the curb onto the grass, walks along at a nice clip, not too fast, not too slow, Fitz following behind, his eyes on the back of his father’s head, the gun now tucked in the pouch of his sweatshirt. If his father takes off running, if he makes a break for it, Fitz wonders, can he pull the trigger? Does he have it in him?
They stop at the water’s edge, under the cover of a couple of trees. It would be a good spot for a picnic. There are little ripples in the water, fish coming up to the surface to feed on insects. Fitz can see the granite bullfrog in the middle of the pond, sitting on his concrete slab, looking, as he always does to him, Buddha-like, serenely calm and self-contained. Fitz used to skip rocks at him. Now the bullfrog looks on, a silent witness to the drama being played out in front of him: a boy, a gun, and a man, two wildly beating human hearts.
They stand together for a moment, not speaking, hypnotized a little maybe by the water, feeling it, thinking their own thoughts. And then his father makes a slow pivot with his shiny black shoe, starts to execute an about-face.
“Don’t,” Fitz tells him. “Don’t turn around. I don’t want to see your face.” He takes the gun from his sweatshirt.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” his father says. “We should have talked a long time ago. I know. It’s all my fault. I don’t know if I can make it up to you. But I can try. Let me try. Give me a chance. That’s all I’m asking. A chance.”
The possibility that now—now!—his father might be offering what he’s longed for his whole life—it’s too much to bear. It’s not to be endured. Fitz has heard that a starving man offered a big meal will choke on it. What you most need, too much, too late, it could kill you. It makes perfect sense to Fitz. Of course.
“I promise,” his father says. “I swear to God.”
Promise? What good is a promise made at gunpoint? Fitz knows if they’re scared enough, if they’re terrified, people will confess to anything, promise anything.
“Shut it,” Fitz says. “Shut your lying mouth.”
“Hurting me,” his father says, “isn’t going to make you feel any better, Fitzgerald.”
Now, now Fitz feels it, the real thing, no rah-rah, pep rally synthetic. The genuine article. Hate. He can feel it, he can practically hear it sizzling in his blood. He hates his father’s know-it-all psychology. He hates his white shirt and the smell of his cologne. He hates that he is still calling him Fitzgerald, and he hates that even now, he’s still talking, still pleading, still litigating. And deep down, probably, Fitz knows his father is right, and that makes him hate him even more.
“Shut up,” Fitz says.
“Listen,” his father says.
“I don’t want to listen to you.” Fitz raises his arm and points the gun at his father’s head. “I want you to shut up.”
Fitz can imagine it. Not just see it but feel it. A loud report, the gun’s kickback, this man crumpling, blood on his beautiful white shirt.
It sickens him. He’s always been squeamish. Blood, cuts, wounds, his own or in movies, it turns his stomach. He has to look away. In his whole life, Fitz has been in all of one fight, a stupid altercation over a Pokémon card with a kid from down the street, and when Stuey first shoved and then punched him in the stomach, he hardly fought back—the kid was an idiot, but Fitz didn’t want to hurt him.
Killer instinct? He doesn’t have it. As an assassin, he’s a complete failure.
“Bang,” Fitz hears himself say. “Bang-bang.”
9
The world seems to resume now, at full speed. For a moment, it slowed and then stopped. Fitz has almost done something, but the world hasn’t noticed. Fish are still feeding in the pond. The lawn mower is still rumbling in the distance. There’s a woodpecker somewhere jackhammering a tree. The Buddha-bullfrog is still looking on.
His father has turned around, and Fitz is down now, on one knee. He can’t remember dropping, but here he is, kneeling. It feels like a