Draw Shot
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"Draw Shot" by Chey Dugan
Issue 3.3 | Fiction
Pocket Change is a classic hole-in-the-wall bar—dim and slightly smelling of men’s piss. The overhead Budweiser lamp throws off odd shadows of red that mingle with the green carpeted table and I’m reminded of a heavily decorated Christmas tree, watching the snow blow outside. The snow is blowing outside. The snow is blowing outside. Manny walks in.
His clothes are dry, there isn’t snow outside. I think I smell pozole, but it’s June. Manny smells like pozole. He smells like my brother. He smells like the pozole we ate around the tree as kids. He tucks a wallet-sized photo into my purse. I'll look at it later.
I load the juke with quarters and I’m the DJ for the evening, alternating between Fleetwood Mac and Kendrick because the machine is jammed. Both are mood-fitting depending on how the night progresses. He looks happy, I think. I ask if he remembers the album he gave me when he moved out. He doesn’t. Kendrick. He racks the balls on the table. I’d help, but I never understood the pattern. Is it solids? Numbers? My brother Manny is eleven years older than me. It doesn’t matter where the eleven goes.
I list off recent life events. He asks about our parents. I’ll send his apologies. “They miss you. They wish you’d visit,” I say, choosing my words carefully. He keeps his focus on the rack, says he’s clean now, in therapy. His eagerness to play is how I persuade him to meet, check up on him, be his little sister. It’s snowing outside.
I pretend to forget the draw shot he taught me last time so he’ll teach me again. My stomach rumbles and I could go for some pozole. There’s a present with both our names on it waiting under the tree. We have to share, Mom and Dad couldn’t get two. We tear at our gift—one pool cue—but he pulls off more wrapping paper than me and this makes me mad. The snow keeps us stuck inside, so we argue. I hit him with the stick. He still teaches me how to play.
The snow is sparse. The string lights cast a nice bokeh on the wet window. Red and green melt into the amber last swig of beer. I hit the object ball with enough backspin for the cue ball to return to its original spot—the draw shot—moving forward, but forever staying in place.
“Just a little longer?” I ask, and he tells me they need him home. His family. I want to tell him how we need him home. Remind him we forgive him. “We shouldn’t go out in this snow,” I say. He holds the heavy door open and gives me a side hug, a kiss on top of the head. “Snow?” he asks.
He has a ride waiting and I walk soberly to my car. I’m proud of who he’s trying to be for them, for himself. I text him:
Tell me when you get home safe.
No reply. I sit in my idling car and wonder where home is for him, which roads to turn down. I look at the wallet-sized photo of his daughter that I’ve met once. On Christmas they sit around the tree and eat pozole. Inches of snow on their sill. If I squint I can see it; she looks like me. If I squint I can see how the cue stood taller than my childish frame.
How angry I was that I had to share with my brother. A silly thing to be mad about.
It's June. I wish it was snowing.
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Chey Dugan attended the 2024 summer Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has been recognized as a finalist in fiction from The Adroit Journal, Southeast Review, The Plentitudes Journal, Cult Magazine, and Midway Review. She was awarded the 2024 SmokeLong Quarterly Fellowship for Emerging Writers. Her work has appeared in TriQuarterly, phoebe, and elsewhere. Chey lives in Albuquerque with her family.