The Latchkey Kid

While Dad was off at one of his three odd jobs and Mom was busy securing the family’s wealth, Carlos was at home playing with bullets. It was the summer of ’93, three summers away from puberty and discovering the pleasures of tongue kissing and fingering eager hormonal-equivalent girls. Carlos’s neighborhood cronies, Justin and Matthew, often came over to explore Carlos’s dusty garage and cobwebbed attic to find antique trinkets of his father’s forgotten past. An old rotary phone, a rusty typewriter, some smut form the 70s stained with rains of yesteryear, anything worth investigating and destroying.
It was the hottest week of that mid-summer when Carlos discovered a moldy cardboard box the size of his father’s abounding leather wallet in the attic.

“Hey, guys! Look what I found,” Carlos whinnied as he climbed down the ladder leading into the attic. When he landed his feet on the concrete garage floor, he opened the lid already falling off the box. The smell of old water and dust filled the boys’ nostrils. There in his hands were 24 shinning 9X919mm Parabellum bullets.

“Awesome,” said Justin.

“Where’s the gun?” quizzed Matthew.

“I don’t know. Go up there and see yourself. It’s too hot to go back,” Carlos complained, sweating through his Los Angeles Raiders grey t-shirt.

“You know if you hit a bullet on the head, it’ll explode?” Matthew informed.

There were only three things that caught boys’ attention back in those days: trading cards, wrestling, and explosions. The boys experimented with the latter in many ways. After watching one episode of Mr. Wizard, Matthew dared Justin to mix Alka-Seltzer in his mother’s birdbath. Justin refused, fearing his stay-at-home mom would see him through the kitchen window and ground him for a weekend.

"Cool!” chimed Matthew and Carlos.

“Too bad we don’t have the gun to shoot it with,” Matthew continued, trying to persuade Carlos to venture back into the 105-degree attic.

“My dad’s got a hammer around here somewhere,” Carlos answered, handing the box to Justin and climbing over the piles of boxes and gardening tools strewn all over the back of the garage.

Justin was a couple years older than Carlos and Matthew, but his portly figure made him an easy target for the kids his age to bully. So, he spent most of his weekends and summers hanging out with Matthew and Carlos. That is when he wasn’t on a Boy Scout camping trip. His father tried to convince Carlos’s dad to enroll him. “He’d be in good hands,” Justin’s dad assured. Justin’s dad was a bear of a man, towering 6-feet 5-inches, enjoying his recent retirement from the Army by growing a thick handlebar mustache. He’d spend mornings on waxing to look like Grover Cleveland. Carlos’s dad always appreciated the suggestion, but Carlos’s family was too broke to afford an inessential organization like Boy Scouts. Carlos’s sister had once joined Girl Scouts, but after Carlos’s parents bought their new two-story home, money was tight and Carlos’s sister lost interest anyway. She now spent her summer skipping her summer job to hang out with her dope-smoking boyfriend her father disapproved of… because he was black.

“Here’s a mallet. Will that work?” Carlos asked, coming back from the rubble.

“Let’s find out,” Matthew replied, running to the back concrete patio.

Carlos took out one of the bullets and stood it upright on the patio as he squatted. Justin and Matthew stood back a few feet back, waiting curiously. “What are you guys doing?” Carlos asked, holding the mallet above his shoulder with his fist choked beneath the mallet’s head.

“Are you a stupid shit or what?” Matthew laughed. “I said it’ll explode.”

Matthew was the slim, blonde hair blue-eyed boy-next-door that parents loved as your buddy. He always said “Please” and “Thank you,” “Ma’am” and “sir,” exhibiting his good upbringings. But when out of authoritative hearing and vision, Matthew was a cursing kid, always coaxing Carlos and Justin into daring feats.

Carlos held the mallet a few more seconds before yelling back, “Well, then you do it! It was your bright idea.” From the back patio, Matthew’s mother called him in for “supper.” In Justin’s house, they ate dinner, in Carlos’s house they also ate dinner. In Matthew’s Southern Baptist home, they ate supper.

“You coming back later?” Carlos asked.

“Fuck no. It’ll be too dark and the bugs’ll be biting by then. See ya’!” Matthew replied as he scampered through the two backyards that separated his house from Carlos’s.

“I better go home, too. I gotta help my dad roll sleeping bags tonight,” Justin complained as he walked in the opposite direction to the house next door.

A few minutes after the boys were gone, Carlos could see their dining room lights come on anf families gathering. He looked back to the windows in his house, which were still dark. His parents wouldn’t be home for another hour and dinner wasn’t usually until 8 at night. As the sky quickly grayed overhead, still squatting, Carlos could see the flashing bulbs of the lightening bugs all around. He looked back at the bullet. He lifted the mallet and gave it a smack.

“So whadya do with the bullets, Chico,” Matthew questioned the next afternoon. Matthew always called Carlos Chico because he was the only Latin kid he knew. He figured giving Carlos a stereotypical pet name was cool, and Carlos didn’t mind.

“I hid them in the hallway closet,” Carlos answered.

The boys had just finished playing kickball after three hours; one hour of actual play and two hours of arguing whose “ghostman” was safe, and whose was out. Carlos ran inside his house and came back with the same corroded box with all 24 bullets incased. “You wanna know what else I found in my dad’s closet yesterday?” Carlos asked the boys. “A shotgun! You think it’ll fire these bullets?”

“You’re a fucking moron. These bullets are for a pistol, a small gun. Why’s your dad got a shotgun anyway? Does he hunt?” Matthew inquired.

“I don’t think so. He did go kill a deer with his friend a few months ago, behind the landfill, but I never knew he had it,” Carlos said.

“My dad goes hunting and bowhunting all the time. That’s why we got all them stuffed birds and raccoons in our den, “Justin confessed.

“Birds and raccoons? That’s not hunting, that’s stupid. Is your dad some kinda faggot?” Matthew teased. Matthew’s dad was an avid hunter, taking trips into the mountains of West Virginia one week a month. He’d bring home deer and bore heads often. Once he even brought back a stuffed brown bear, strapped to the top of his jeep. Carlos thought about the reason his dad had the shotgun. He figured it was for protection considering he had grown up in the rough neighborhoods of Miami; or so he claimed. It would be three years later that Carlos would place that same shotgun’s barrel in his mouth, a few months after his dad’s death, only to find out the lock and bolt were taken out.

“Hey, I asked my dad to leave out his hammer so I can nail some wood to the holes on our doghouse,” Carlos chimed in. He ran back into the house to fetch the hammer. When he came out, Matthew had set up a row of eight bullets standing upright on the patio waiting for Carlos.
“You can try it this time, Justin,” Carlos offered.

“No way, man!” Justin stammered.

“You guys are faggots,” Matthew harassed. “If you don’t want to do it ‘cause your scared, we can always leave them sitting in the sun. I heard that’ll make the bullets explode, too.”

“Let’s put it in the street. The sun is attracted to black asphalt,” suggested Carlos.

“It’s gotta get real hot though,” replied Matthew.

“You can put them in a tin can,” Justin suggested. “That’s how we warm up our beans at camp so that we don’t have to wait for a fire when we come back from our compass exercises.”

Carlos ran back inside the house.

Matthew stared blankly at Justin. “You’re such a fag, man,” Matthew giggled, punching Justin in the stomach. Justin fell to the ground, winded.

Carlos came back with an apple juice can and slid right next to where Justin rolled around on the grass. “How about this?” Carlos asked Justin. Justin nodded, smiling now, feeling pride over his valid suggestion. Carlos ran into the garage and the boys could hear clanging as he looked for a screwdriver. He came back with holes mutilating the top of the tin can. “Oh, wait,” Carlos scurried back into the garage.

Justin stood up and raised his arms over his head, trying to catch his breath. Matthew shook his head at Justin, feeling almost ashamed to call him his friend.

“I got some black spray paint to make it hotter,” Carlos panted, running back from the rubble. After Carlos spray-painted the can, he dropped three bullets into the holes. CLANG. KLINK. CLANG. The boys took the can and ran to the street, quickly placing it in the middle of the road.
It was almost one in the afternoon and the boys figured it was the hottest point of the day.

“C’mon, let’s go play some football or something while we wait. We’ll know when they go off,” Matthew suggested.

The boys returned to the street an hour later only to see the can flattened in the street. Four houses down, the garbage truck was shaking a trash bin overhead, causing papers and other bits of debris to float aimlessly around the cab like tickertape. “Awh, fuck,” Matthew moaned.

“I’ll get the hammer,” Carlos uttered. The boys ran back to the patio where Carlos pulled out five bullets.

“You gonna bust them all?” Justin asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Carlos said matter-of-factly.

He stood one bullet up and made sure it was stable before raising the hammer high over his head, choking it right under the head and bringing it down with all his force without a second to think, without a second for Justin and Matthew to move for cover. The hammer skidded across the concrete patio, making bright yellowish-orange sparks, jolting Carlos’s arm to the elbow. Justin and Matthew dove to the ground.

No loud pop or bang like in the movies. Only a knick, thud, and clinking sound and the boys were looking around for the bullet.

“Here it is,” Justin said, picking up the shiny copper bullet from the grass between his Doc Martins. “At least you bent it. Must be old.”

“Bullets don’t get old, you idiot,” Matthew replied.

“I hit it on the head, Matt, why didn’t it work?” Carlos questioned.

“You had your eyes closed,” Matthew answered back. “Why don’t you try it again without being such a pussy? Pussy.”

“Here, you try it,” Carlos said, pushing the hammer in Matthew’s gut.

“Fuck right I am. I’m not blowing my arm off!” Matthew shot back.

“Who’s the fag now?” heckled Justin.

Matthew put Justin in a headlock and wrestled him to the ground. Justin was giggling at first, until Matthew’s face gnarled. His teeth clenched and his brow wrinkled to the center of the top of his nose. His face turned red and Justin’s giggles turned into whining, begging Matthew to stop. After rubbing Justin’s face into the grass a few seconds, Matthew let go, pushed Justin over, and stood up. Carlos ignored them and was in deep concentration, trying to figure out how to make the bullets explode.

“Guns don’t fire backwards, right? Maybe I should lay the bullets down and squeeze them out from the side like toothpaste,” he muttered under his breath.

He laid the other four bullets on their side, pointing each one in a different direction; north, east, south, and west.

Matthew dusted his shorts off and started towards Carlos, “What now, Chico?”

Justin rolled in agony for a few seconds before popping up and lunging towards Matthew. He let out a vicious growl and tackled Matthew to the ground. Pinning his shoulders, Justin threw wild open-fisted punches at Matthew’s face.

“Get the fuck off before I really break your face,” Matthew threatened, blocking every other punch.

“Shut…the…fuck…up,” Justin belted out in between sobs.

Meanwhile, Carlos hit the first bullet that pointed west, towards the house. A heavy THUD on the patio, and the same jolting ring up his arm. The bullet only dented.

“Don’t…ever…touch…me…again,” Justin cried out.

Carlos smacked the second bullet pointing south, towards himself. Another THUD, jolt, and dented bullet.

“Stop, faggot, before I really kick your ass. I’m not playing around anymore,” Matthew warned.

Carlos brought down the hammer on the third bullet pointing north, towards the house in between his and Matthew’s. THUD, jolt, dent.

By now, Justin grew weak, continuing to sob, and looking up towards Carlos. Matthew held Justin’s arms, taking advantage of his fatigue as he now stopped swinging. He also looked up towards Carlos.

“Hey, Chico!” Matthew yelled. “What are you doing, man?”

Carlos, frustrated, raised the hammer high over his head. All his thoughts of impressing his friends, his absent family (unlike Justin’s), his lack to be a leader like Matthew, his boredom filled summers and weekends, his inability to gain his parents’ pride and affection, his thrive to be a god of power… all of these thoughts ran through his cerebral cortex down to his heart and jolted energy up and through the hammer. A tear ran down the base of his nose. He held the hammer at its base, aiming for the base of the bullet, the bullet facing east. Towards Justin and Matthew.

A THUD. A jolt. A loud POP!