Fiction from Brett Biebel

Photo: Oleksandr Akulenko

Song of Myself, Six Months Postgrad and Still in Moline

I heard about a gunfight, and I went. It was one of those old-fashioned ones. Ten paces. Turn, draw, etc. They held it in a basement, and the second you walked in you could feel the radon. There was a lot of concrete. I saw people I recognized but didn’t know. Most of them were men. Maybe women who looked like men. Nobody said a fucking word, but they glanced around, and the organizer came down the stairs in a Bugs Bunny robe, and everybody clapped idiosyncratically. He said, “Welcome. Each competitor will fire one shot and one shot only. The winner will be the one who inflicts the most damage. If both fighters die, the bout will be declared a draw.”

Each fighter was allowed to introduce himself. Their names were Tex and Denver. It was understood that these were not what you would call Christian names. The air was full of possibility. No one knew if the bullets would find hearts or skulls or if the fighters would turn their weapons on the spectators. I suppose this was all part of the appeal. Bugs played that Old West riff. The fighters stood back-to-back. The rest of us crowded the side walls. When they reached opposite ends of the basement, we all stared at the drain in the middle of the floor. They must’ve been 40 feet apart. Bugs said they could begin when the music stopped, and then he turned it off.

It was over faster than you’d think. You saw it before you heard it, and you’ll never understand it. Not even now. One shot missed, and the other grazed a deltoid, and Tex, I think, he laughed at the sight of his own blood. Everyone laughed. Somebody picked up shell casings. We formed a line and put our fingers in the walls, and there was a soft and rhythmic grunting, or I guess it was more like a simultaneous throat-clear. I sat there becoming ugly and sexy and barbaric. I gave a silent yawp and wondered if I wanted the world to hear.
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Brett Biebel is the author of three collections of flash fiction: 48 Blitz, Winter Dance Party, and Gridlock. His fourth book, A Mason & Dixon Companion, was released by University of Georgia Press in June. His work has appeared in many magazines and been selected for Best Small Fictions and Best Microfiction. He lives, writes, and teaches in Illinois.