we aren't going to let anybody survive in those tunnels

I gave him a rifle and he took it into the hole in the ground and he started shooting and I think he was shooting with his eyes closed. At first, there was some shrieking, little person shrieking, and then there was a whole bunch of shrieking. Later, he came up all bloody and dirty and his eyes were like little lanterns. It was a good first shooting for the boy and I thought that he had come out a lot older and a lot more mature. It’s about time he learned how to defend himself.

His teacher taught him to multiply four’s the next morning and the next afternoon he learned a new word and the word was stoic: The four men shot little pigeons in the garage and then the four men went into the house and ate and then the four men came out of the house and went into the army and the whole time the men were silent and stoic.

That’s an awfully long sentence but it sure is good. The only problem is that it might be too good and soon Mrs. Teacher is going to be calling the trailer and spouting some bullshit about college and after school tutoring and hell, that is just a little bit too much attention. Attention will probably get you shot.

I have tried to tell the little bugger that a bunch of times and I think he is just starting to get it.

The plan at the beginning of the school year was to be as normal as possible—to sit and not make any noise to not bother anybody and to not get any attention. Any attention is bad, I told him when he was seven. He had been caught shoplifting from Dave’s Fish ‘N Tackle and they had arrested him right away and taken him in the back and beaten him with a blackjack.

He deserved it and I told him as much.

Besides, there is something incredibly wrong with trying to make the teacher smile when she looks at you or trying to make the teacher look at you at all. I used to try to do that but that was before I knew anything about my nature and about my purpose. About ten years ago, though, my guidance counselor set me all straight. He said that I would probably lead an immobile and unvarying existence and that it would probably afford me the ability to avoid all inconvenient responsibility. I thought he gave me a pretty good and sound evaluation. And that was when I started the no-attention getting philosophy.

Since then, things have worked pretty well, for the most part.

The friggin little boy, though, the one that lives next door keeps getting himself in a bunch of fits and struggles and the police keep coming into the neighborhood and asking all sorts of questions about our fences and our storage areas. One of these days I am going to have to send my boy over there and straighten that little boy out.

Beyond all the no-attention teachings, I keep my boy up to speed on all the important happenings in the neighborhood and in our country. I tell my boy the truth about the world. I don’t hide from the boy and that is why I gave him the shotgun, or maybe it was just a rifle. Those people in those tunnels, they come from another country, I tell him. Those people come here because their own country is bad and has no jobs or food or good places to live. Those people are an inconvenience and a nuisance in our country, and probably in their own no-good country too. So they come into this country, all sneaky, and they try to plant themselves here like they always been here. But it's always been just us here and nobody else. All that talk got him pretty excited and he had to get into that tunnel. And I let him go.

And the first time he came up from the tunnels I noticed that he had sort of accidentally pissed himself and he was a little bit frightened. I figured the next time he went down in that tunnel he should take a shotgun because then the little escapees won’t be bleeding and rolling in the mud after they are shot. Hell, they’ll probably be dead right away.

Besides, the boy is done real good this year at keeping out of sight. I haven't gotten any phone calls from Mrs. Teacher or any of those other whores. In the end, all the good behavior makes for a mighty good summer and we indeed celebrate.

On the fourth of July, my wife gives me a gas grill and we cook burgers and celebrate the great land that has always been America and we celebrate about how good we are at keeping those stupid bastards out of our country. Later that night some man in an American flag t-shirt says that there are some silly men on the news who think they can blow us up. I’ll blow them right back up after, my son says and my wife is happy to know that I have raised the boy right in the ways of protection.

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