Meet Mr. Duck

Mr. Duck
moves slow. His Cadillac stops inches from the building, and he takes fifteen
minutes to turn it off, unbuckle, lock up and walk inside the store. He makes
me think of George Romero zombies.....


Mr. Duck tells me that he was born in "Nineteen and twenty
eight." He looks good for his age, preserved in alcohol. I smell it
rolling off him in waves that make my head spin.....


When Mr. Duck is low on
funds, he pawns his daddy's ruby ring. When times are really bad, he brings me
the Browning A-5 shotgun he bought in "nineteen and forty seven," and
the Glenfield rifle he uses to hunt squirrels. His eyes are bloodshot and
droopy.....


"I seen bad times afore," Mr. Duck tells me. "I
see bad times on our horizons. I-I-I lived through what they call 'The Great
Depression,' you know what I'm talking about?" I nod that I do. "Them
times were hard, folks didn't have no food, no work, just scratchin' in the
dirt. I-I-I-I see it in our future, you understand what I'm sayin'?"....


I look at his wrinkled black face, and am inclined to believe.....


Mr. Duck
needs forty-five minutes to fill out the background check form required when he
picks up his shotgun. He shakes, so he holds the pen in his fist, guides the
fist with his right hand. His letters are still jagged, like an EKG reading.....


When the background check is complete, Aunt Cheryl offers to
help him load his guns in the car.....


"That would be nice," Mr. Duck says.....


When Aunt Cheryl picks up the cracked vinyl case that holds the
Browning shotgun, the gun slides out through the busted zipper, and hits the
floor, butt first.....


"Oh NO," screams Mr. Duck. "I don't do my guns
like that."....


"I'm sorry Mr. Duck," says Aunt Cheryl. "I don't
normally do guns like that either, but the zipper on your case is busted."....


"Oh no, I don't need your kinda help, 'cause I-I-I just
don't do my guns like that. You just keep your hands offa them. I'm just fine
without that kinda help."....


Aunt Cheryl apologizes again, but Mr. Duck ignores her, tucks a
gun case under each arm and begins his slow exit.....


Mr. Duck
comes in to pay the interest on his daddy's ring. When he sees that Aunt Cheryl
is not working, he shuffles to the coffee stand to make himself a cup. His
shaky hands spill sugar and creamer on the table. When he is done mixing, he
forgets to take out the communal stirring spoon and I watch the stem press flat
against his forehead when he drinks. He settles down on the stool that sits
across the counter from my register and looks at the Osama Bin Laden shooting
target that is stapled by the front door.....


"I reckon they ain't never gonna find him. Whatcha
think?"....


"I think you're right, Mr. Duck."....


"Mr. Clinton had the opportunity to kill him, and he
didn't do it. Then Mr. Bush let him get away. See, i-i-if a dog goes mad, you
got to shoot him down. It don't matter how much you loves that dog, when he
goes bad like that, he got to be shot down. You understand what I'm saying.
I-I-I see you know what I'm saying."....


“I do,” I say.....


“As far as I can tell, we don’t even know what them folks is so
mad about, what makes ‘em wanta kill us Americans.”....


“Well, Mr. Duck, as far as I can tell, until about a hundred
years ago, them folks just wandered the desert, doin’ as they pleased, and then
a buncha white men showed up and started tellin’ them what to do and where to
live. They didn’t take kindly to that, and I cain’t say I blame ‘em. If some foreign
sumbitch with a gun walked up to my house and started bossin’ me around I’d be
awful inclined to wanna shoot ‘em.”....


“Well I know that’s right,” says Mr. Duck. “If anybody knows
that, it’s what they called the red man. I-I-I’m trying to say Indians, you
know. They was just fine afore we got here. But you know what? They wouldn’t
have ever developed nothin’. They still be wearin’ a piece of leather in front
and a piece of leather over they behind, livin’ in a teepee. They never built
nothin’ up, you see what I’m sayin’.”....


“Actually, some Indian tribes had sophisticated architecture,
but the pioneers leveled most of it in the westward migration. There are lots
of settler accounts of destroying pyramids and large buildings as they came
across ....America.....
In the southwest, there are archaeologists excavating the site of a four-story
structure that they believe is the one of the earliest apartment buildings.”....


“Is that so,” asks Mr. Duck. “I never knew that. I always
thought Indians lived in teepees and hunted buffalo with them bow and arrows.
But that makes sense, because the Mexicans are just a mix of Indians and the
Spaniards, and them Mexican Indians were Aztecs, and they had some big ol’
pyramids… I never knew that about American Indians. They didn’t tell me at
school.”....


“I think it was because no one really knew, because it was destroyed.”....


“Well don’t that figure. That’s what men do. Build and destroy.
It’s like in the time of Moses, when he led the Hebrews out of ....Egypt..... They
went to the Promised Land, where God told them not to put a king before Him,
but people want a king, and they got Solomon, and the people broke apart and
were lost. But then Jesus came, and he changed everything, and I like that… Do
you know why Jesus died,” Mr. Duck asks.....


“Romans? And my sins?”....


“Naw. What Jesus did, see, was change it to where you ain’t
responsible for nothin’ but your own garbage. You ain’t responsible for your
neighbor or your sister or your mama. When you come to Jesus, he just want you
to carry your own weight. That’s what he said. And I like that. Well, it was
real good talkin’ to you ma’am. I be in to pick up my daddy’s ring next week.”....