In the Blind
Jason Schiren


We wake at three in the morning, pull on our insulated camo, and pile into the Ford 150. Dad and Uncle Skip ride up front, while I sit in the back with my little hand-warmers. With the hum of the engine as my lullaby, I fall asleep to the smell of fresh coffee. My dad startles me and I get the decoys out of the trailer and set them around the blind. We work by the truck’s headlights, haphazardly erect the plastic Canada geese. Their oval-shaped torsos do not balance well on their skinny legs. Each of their black heads are cocked in awkward directions, their bulging and innocent eyes blank, as if they question what they are doing out in the dark.
*
Delaware is like my Maryland home, just more fields of dead corn stalks. We are visiting my Aunt Nootsie and Uncle Skip—this is before she dies of bladder cancer, and before he gets a new girlfriend. It is Thanksgiving. I am excited to go hunting for the first time. I want to fit in, to do a masculine activity for once: to obliterate a poor creature out of the sky with a 12-gauge semi-automatic shotgun, camouflaged just for looks. Uncle Skip says I can’t shoot anything because I need a hunting license: “All we need to do is get you enrolled in a Rifle Safety Course at the Bass Pro, and then you can shoot.” He says I only need one class. That’s how easy it is. They will hand me a gun at 10 years old to take a life.
*
My childhood and teen years: if everyone else was happy, I was happy. If someone was upset, all I wanted was to make them happy. I didn’t care much about the belts and the early beatings. They subsided as I got older. Afterwards, I lashed myself with thoughts like What did I do wrong? How can someone do this to something they created? What can I do better? I weathered my mind as much as they did. I talked to myself as a form of self-soothing. But I could not control when and where—under the school lunch table; in the recesses of a pillow at two in the morning; while hiding tears in the shower before my birthday party. I was haunted by the most trivial failures, torn apart by the most world-shattering criticisms.
*
I cowered. My first “D” in seventh-grade math. I was corrected.

“Get your fucking head up! You’re not a damn dog.”
*
I move pretty quickly in my oversized boots and three layers of long johns. With my extra hand-warmers in my gloves I feel pretty smart, while I waddle around crunching the frost-covered dirt beneath me.

We finish, there are a couple hundred of the lifeless birds surrounding our little fort. We lay extra decayed stalks and hole-ridden leaves across the blind, leaving a slim three-foot opening to enter through. We aren’t supposed to go in and out of the blind, so we all cram inside on a ten-foot wooden bench.
*
Uncle Skip and his son, Justin, sit on the left side of the opening. Justin is six years older than me. He plays sports—something I envy but don’t have the confidence to do.  My dad and I sit peacefully in the center, on opposite sides of the entrance.  His chest, which is twice the size of mine, isn’t puffed out. His beer gut isn’t noticeable under his camo jacket, which pictures dead leaves and sticks. Then a friend of my uncle’s sits to the right. He’s just another middle-aged family man who hunts as a hobby. I don’t know much else about him, only that he sits to my right, and that his shotgun rests directly in front of me, pointed toward the pitch-black sky.
*
There it is, you can end it all right here. You can get rid of all the pain right now, Jason. Why won’t you do it? Because . . . I don’t feel all that bad right now. I feel good sitting here with my dad and uncle in this cramped duck blind. Even though it’s freezing and I have to be quiet, waiting for the geese or ducks, or whatever they’re hunting. Even though no one is shouting at me. Even though no one is making me feel like a disappointing mistake that will never be good enough to make them happy. I actually don’t want to grip that shotgun and blow my head off right now. I don’t want to gaze at my dad and utter, I love you, and I’m sorry I couldn’t make you happy, but I love you Dad, just so that I can make sure my final words are "I love you." 
But the fact that I’m questioning it right now, I have to take into consideration: there is hope.
*
We wait out the remaining hours of darkness, whispering and sipping our hot chocolate and coffee. I don’t care that I’m cold and bored. I am bonding with my Dad. I love his smile, where his top row of teeth show and his left cheek, dimpled—the egg-shape of his bald head through his knitted hat.

It is when daylight grays, and silence befalls us, that I am trapped with my thoughts.
*
“You really are worthless, aren’t you?”

A batch of his sweet tea ruined. I added more sugar than he wanted.
*
I thought I would take the class, get the certification, and if the torment ever got worse then I would kill myself. I thought my suicide would make up for all my flaws.

But, I wanted to make them proud. I knew that I could fix myself; be smarter, be more caring, be a better son. My desire to love them overpowered their rejection. I stayed positive. I knew that they loved me, they just had the shittiest way of showing it. By cussing me out, they decreased my negative behaviors, as long as I listened. I knew there was more to their love. I just had to work for it.
*
We hear the geese. Finally. Uncle Skip has blown his simulated duck call all morning. Finally. We hear them. Everyone gets quiet real quick. We crouch and hide under the dying foliage with weapons raised and ready to kill. One more blow of the duck call and they are upon us. Their silhouettes blur across the sky, a faint series of popping follows. The sound is muffled. The shots don’t ring, like everyone said they would.
*
“Who the fuck do you think I am, you stupid bitch?”

Beat to the kitchen floor for disobeying an order—I’m sure. Our German Shepherd, Angel, or I—I don’t remember, but it doesn’t matter—all dogs go to Heaven.
*
I crawl out of the blind to fetch the downed bird. Because I can’t shoot, I do my part by retrieving the carrion. I know they will be impressed with my efforts.

I am excited, it is my turn to help. I run as fast as I can over to the black and white lump of feathers. Still. The goose honks at me. A startled cry for help. Fixated on the bleak eyes, I approach slowly, as if to give my respects.
*
Its neck is rough with dirt, the feathers are disheveled. I can’t see the wound, but I see blood dripping from its beak. It’s a slow, meaningful drip. The red is so clear against the black rim of serrated teeth. The rest of its body lays crooked, its chest facing me.

I want to help this creature, but they’re watching. Watching me become a man. I just need to grab it below the head, and whip the body around in circles to break its neck. That shouldn’t be too painful. I’ll be ending its misery.
 









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About the Author: Jason Schiren is a poet, essayist, barista, ex-soldier, and full-time soul-searcher. He is a senior undergraduate at the University of Maryland, College Park. This is his first publication.

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