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1.27.01 - 11:26:30

the thing about bill was that he really hated guns. it was funny because you'd walk into the house and the first thing you see is the glass cabinet full of shotguns. six of them, all with polished wood and shiny metal and the little scars that come with years of use. the cabinets were tall and the guns were lined up, vertically, one next to the other. it was kinda freaky, really, to walk in and say hello to a wall of shotguns. so you'd probably get the wrong idea at first. bill hated guns. but they'd belonged to his dad and getting rid of them was out of the question. he thought putting them away, out of sight, would be some sort of slight, so he left them there, in the foyer, in the glass cabinet. the first thing you'd see.

bill's hair went gray the year he turned 25. it was fun at first because the gray was actually more like silver, and the streaks of silver looked dramatic in his black hair. sorta made him feel like clark gable for some reason. but the year passed and things happened, bad things, and by the end of the year, there wasn't any black hair left to make the silver so dramatic. it just made him look old. he wasn't going to do anything about it, though. men don't color their hair.

bill makes his own beer out of plums and peaches. yeah, i'm not really sure how that works. he's got all these fruit trees out behind his house, and i guess you can only eat so much of it. before sandy left, she used to make jams and jellies and stuff like that, but now she's gone and bill never learned how to make preserves. oh well. sandy never learned how to make the beer, either. all i know about it is that there's some sort of shed involved, and some barrels, and he mixes things and lets things sit and two or three weeks later he's got this plum/peach beer. he calls it beer, anyway. i took a sip once and it tasted, hmm, not bad, i guess, but not good enough to want more. he loves it, though. i'm the same way about cottage cheese. everyone i know hates it, but i think it's great.

he's got one of those cars out in his front yard. you know, the oldsmobile with places where the primer shows through. i'm not even sure if it still runs. i know i've never seen him drive it, anyway. it's got one of those hood ornaments you can twist around. or maybe that's just how all hood ornaments are. i haven't really had enough experience with them to tell you one way or another.

bill likes to write when it gets cold outside. mostly because there's nothing else to do besides sleep, and he says sometimes he's just not tired enough to sleep. one time he got really pissed and drank a bunch of nyquil and passed out right away, but then he woke up in the morning with this terrible headache and the worst fake cherry taste in the back of his mouth and he decided he'd never try that again. he doesn't drink during the week anymore. he thought it would be nicer to become a writer than an alcoholic. i told him i thought that was a pretty good call.

the funny thing about bill is that he loves to write hunting stories. he's only been hunting once, when he was seven and his dad took him out during goose season. he said he was just crazy excited, getting all dressed up and ready to be outdoors all day. his dad bought him a new canteen so he could carry his own water around all day. man, a new canteen, his OWN canteen...he was ecstatic.

that was before tv, you know.

anyway, so he got all dressed up and slung his canteen around his neck and laced up his hiking boots and ran to his room one last time to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything. and then they got in the jeep and drove out where his dad always went goose hunting. there was a little shack way off in the distance, but other than that, it didn't look like anyone lived within 30 miles of the place. it was nice. some hunter probably built that shack at some point. didn't look like anyone had ever lived in it, anyway.

bill said the air smelled clean and exciting and he was almost giddy, creeping along behind his dad. but then there was a gunshot and bill saw smoke and later blood and a white goose and it was dead and he started to cry without knowing it. he ran back to the jeep, got in, and sat down. locked the door. he wasn't coming back out. so his dad ended up turning around and taking him home. the goose, too. he wasn't just going to leave it there.

i wonder how he comes up with all his hunting stories when he's got exactly one experience to draw from. but i guess even if we mostly write about the things we know, it's probably just as easy to write about the things we don't know. like fantasies.

i didn't really write about things i didn't know before bill and i got to be friends. but before anything ever happens to you, there's a moment when it hasn't, you know. and who's to say that makes it less real?

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