The Devils Teardrop

to the Digger.
    The pictures are from the theater. The place where he was supposed to spin around like he did in the Connecticut forest and send bullets into a million leaves. The theater where he wanted to spin, where he was supposed to spin, but he couldn’t.
    The theater where the . . . click  . . . where the scary man with the big jaws and tall hat came to kill him. No, that’s not right . . . Where the police came to kill him.
    He watches the boy as the boy watches TV. The boy says, “Shit.” For no reason, it seems.
    Just like Pamela.
    The Digger calls his voice mail and hears the woman’s electronic voice say, “You have no new messages.”
    He hangs up.
    The Digger does not have much time. He looks at his watch. The boy looks at it too.
    He is thin and frail. The area around his right eye is slightly darker than his dark skin and the Digger knows that the man he killed had hit the boy a lot. He thinks he’s happy he shot the man. Whatever happy is.
    The Digger wonders what the man who tells him things would think about the boy. The man did tell him to kill anybody who got a look at his face. And the boy has gotten a look at his face. But it doesn’t . . . click  . . . it doesn’t seem . . . click  . . . seem right to kill him.
    Why, it seems to me that every day,
    I love you all the more.
    He goes into the kitchenette and opens a can of soup. He spoons some into a bowl. Looks at the boy’s skinny arms and spoons some more in. Noodles. Mostly noodles.He heats it in the microwave for exactly sixty seconds, which is what the instructions tell him to do to get the soup “piping hot.” He sets the bowl in front of the boy. Hands him a spoon.
    The boy takes one bite. Then another. Then he stops eating. He’s looking at the TV screen. His small, bullet-shaped head lolls from one side to the other, his eyes droop, and the Digger realizes he’s tired. This is what the Digger’s head and eyes do when he’s tired.
    He and the boy are a lot alike, he decides.
    The Digger motions to the bed. But the boy looks at him fearfully and doesn’t give a response. The Digger motions to the couch and the boy gets up and goes to the couch. He lies down. Still staring at the TV. The Digger gets a blanket and drapes it over the boy.
    The Digger looks at the TV. More news. He finds a channel that has commercials. Selling hamburgers and cars and beer.
    Things like that.
    He says to the boy, “What’s . . .” Click  . . . “What’s your name?”
    The boy looks at him with half-closed lids. “Tye.”
    “Tye.” The Digger repeats this several times to himself. “I’m going . . . I’m going out.”
    “Butyoubeback?”
    What does he mean? The Digger shakes his head—his head with the tiny indentation above the temple.
    “You comin’ back?” the boy mutters again.
    “I’m coming back.”
    The boy closes his eyes.
    He tries to think of something else to say to Tye. There’re some words he feels he wants to say but he doesn’t remember what they are. It doesn’t matter anyway becausethe boy is asleep. The Digger pulls the blanket up higher.
    He goes to the closet, unlocks it and takes out one of the boxes of ammunition. He pulls on the plastic gloves and reloads two clips for the Uzi and then he repacks the silencer. He locks up the closet again.
    The boy remains asleep. The Digger can hear his breathing.
    The Digger looks at the torn puppy bag. He is about to crumple it up and throw it out but he remembers that Tye looked at the bag and he seemed to like it. He liked the puppies. The Digger smooths it and puts it beside the boy so that if he wakes up while the Digger is gone he’ll see the puppies and he won’t be afraid.
    The Digger doesn’t need the puppy bag anymore.
    “Use a plain brown bag for the third time,” the man who tells him things told him.
    So the Digger has a brown paper bag.
    The boy turns over but is still asleep.
    The Digger puts the Uzi into the brown bag, pulls his dark coat and gloves on and leaves the room.
    Downstairs he gets into his car, a nice Toyota Corolla.
    He loves those commercials.
    Ohhhhh, everyday people . . .
    He likes those better than Oh, what a feeling . . .
    The Digger knows how to drive. He’s a very good driver. He used to drive with Pamela. She’d drive fast when she drove and he’d drive slow. She got tickets and he never did.
    He opens the glove compartment. There are several pistols inside. He takes one and puts it in