MICHAEL LOYD GRAY

Michael Loyd Gray, a 2025 Subnivean Awards finalist, is the author of eight published books of fiction and more than 50 published short stories. His novella Busted Flat, winner of a Literary Titan Gold Award, was released in October 2024. Gray's novella Donovan’s Revolution, winner of a 2025 International Impact Award for Contemporary Fiction, a Literary Titan Gold Award, and a 2025 Book Excellence Award for Historical Fiction, was released in June 2024. Just released in February 2025 — Night Hawks, a novella. He earned his MFA from Western Michigan University and a bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois. Gray lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with three cats and twelve electric guitars.

HUNTERS

They were listening to Johnny Cash on the jukebox, those hunters, those fat men in camouflage clothes and silly-ass hats and a pinch of Skoal in their gums, men who’d never served a day in the Army, but men with rifles and shotguns out in the truck and killing in their hearts.

The song playing was “A Boy Named Sue.” I’d heard it before but never really listened to it until now, sandwiched in the café booth between the haunches of my father and another hunter, a big man named Red. I don’t know who played it, that dumb song. But I listened because it was a distraction from all the bragging about money and pussy and what they’d shot lately and whatnot that passed for conversation among those hunters.The song playing was “A Boy Named Sue.” I’d heard it before but never really listened to it until now, sandwiched in the café booth between the haunches of my father and another hunter, a big man named Red. I don’t know who played it, that dumb song. But I listened because it was a distraction from all the bragging about money and pussy and what they’d shot lately and whatnot that passed for conversation among those hunters.

When they talked about pussy, my father, not quite as big a man as the others wedged tight in the red booth, put a finger to his lips and winked at me.

“Now, you know better than to repeat anything here to your mama – don’t you, boy?”

I nodded energetically. That was what he expected. I wasn’t sure what pussy meant. I’d heard it in a hallway at school from some older boys, tough boys who’d punch you if you looked cross-eyed at them. I was pretty sure it wasn’t anything to do with cats, or anything I could ask Ma about.

     I’d never seen a girl naked – well, briefly once, when my sister came out of the bathroom and her towel slipped. She shrieked and grabbed it off the floor and ran into her bedroom, calling me a pervert. I had a tough time relating the word pussy to her naked body, which I’d barely seen anyway. I wasn’t sure what to look for before the towel was back over her.

  A waitress, a teen girl with a swishing blond ponytail, brought our breakfasts, huge plates of eggs over easy and slices of thick ham and sausage links and patties and hash browns and wheat toast with those little containers of jelly and butter on the side. She topped off their coffees and the hunters all grinned and glanced at each other and snuck looks at her butt when she left. She was sixteen, I reckoned. My sister’s age.

The song ended and a few lines stayed in my head:

                    Son, this world’s rough

                    And if a man’s gonna make it, he’s gotta be tough

I didn’t care a whit about Johnny Cash, the so-called man in black. The Beatles had just come to America, and I saw them on Ed Sullivan and that was more to my liking, but I couldn’t admit that in our house. My dad said The Beatles were degenerate longhairs. I told him they all wore nice suits and ties and seemed to shave regularly, and he just glared at me, that look of his that always signaled no more words were welcome. At home, it was his way or the highway.

“But I don’t get that song,” I said and all the hunters, my dad included, stopped chattering and stared at me.

“What song?” my dad said.

“That one just played. That Sue boy and all that.”

“We didn’t play it,” my dad said. “Just forget about it.”

The oldest of the hunters, Red, smiled and draped a meaty arm around me. I hated when he did that. When he leaned close, his breath smelled of Skoal and coffee and I worried I might throw up.

“No real boy ever got named Sue,” he said, grinning and baring broken teeth and then ruffling my hair with a dirty paw.

“It’s just a song, Everett,” my dad said quietly.

I hated the name Everett and preferred Ev, though I was always Everett to my dad. His father was Everett, too, but had died before I could know him. My mom called me Ev when it was just the two of us in a room. I knew my dad sometimes put the back of his hand across her face over some perceived slight or mistake. So “Ev” made me wince a bit too. I didn’t know what could be done about it. Maybe nothing. That simmered inside me.

“Maybe it’s just a song,” I said, “but why’d he go and name him Sue?”

“Maybe he was queer,” one of the hunters said and they all laughed.    

“That’s right,” another said. “Sue, the little queer.”

“What’s queer?” I said abruptly, and they all laughed again, except for my dad, who frowned. Those hunters all laughed so loud that people in other booths turned to glance. That girl waitress looked petrified to approach the booth but finally got up her nerve and brought more coffee. After she was gone, Red took a flask from his jacket pocket and poured amber liquid into his coffee and passed the flask around.

After a sip from his cup, Red said, “Queer’s what you never want to be boy. Trust old Red on that.”

I glanced at my dad, whose frown had deepened. He glared at me. I’d embarrassed him in front of his boys.

“Does it got something to do with pussy?” I said, and they all – except my dad – erupted into laughter again.

“No, boy,” Red said. “It ain’t got a thing to do with that and that’s a natural fact. Am I right, boys?”

“Hell of a fact,” one of the other hunters said, sipping, and they all raised their cups. My father shot me his you’re on thin ice look.

“Why can’t I have some coffee, too?” I said, glancing at my dad, who tapped a finger on the Formica tabletop like he was a drummer.

“Ain’t the boy old enough for coffee by now, Simmons?” Red said to my dad.

“He’s just eleven.”

“Hell, by eleven, I’d already got laid,” Red said, drawing chuckles and snorts while my dad sat stonily.

“A real child prodigy – that’s you, Red,” one of the other hunters cackled. “The pussy prodigy.”

“Damn straight I was. I learned to plow the fertile field and never stopped.”

The whiskey in their cups had taken effect and they laughed around my old man again. I half expected smoke to pour out of his ears.

When the wary girl waitress came back, Red ordered me a coffee. My dad didn’t say anything. Red was a big man. All those hunters deferred to him. They feared him. When the coffee came, Red poured some whiskey in it and slid it over to me.

  “There you go, boy. Now you’re a man. It’ll put lead in your pencil.”

I had no idea what he meant by that and didn’t care. I sipped my coffee. The whiskey hit my throat and burned a little, then bottomed out in my stomach and I felt a glow tumble throughout me.

I coughed a couple times but smiled bravely.

“I warned you not to do it, Red,” my dad said. “He’s just a boy.”

“Not no more he ain’t, Simmons. You don’t want him to grow up to be some queer Sue, now do you?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your damn concern.”

“Oh, you don’t, do you?

I sipped some more whiskey coffee and felt a little woozy.

My dad scratched the back of his neck. “You just never know when to quit.”

“Well, I ain’t no quitter, Simmons. Maybe you are.”

My dad’s eyes narrowed. He stared at Red. Then he thrust a hand at Red’s throat and tried to clutch it, but Red’s reach was longer, and he batted my dad’s hand away and it struck the table, spilling coffee cups.

“Take it outside, gents,” one of the hunters said and my old man got out of the booth and went out the door. Red and all of us followed him out, to the gravel parking lot. They circled each other, fists raised.

“I’m going to teach you a lesson.” Red was grinning.

“Over my dead body.”

“Have it your way, Simmons. I’m happy to oblige.”

My dad, smaller and faster, snuck a glancing blow to Red’s face that didn’t do much. Red felt his cheek and grinned again.

“That all you got, Simmons? Queers punch harder than that.”

“More where that came from—”

“You hit like a girl,” Red said. “Like a girly queer.”

My dad lost control and rushed him, and Red caught him and tossed him to the ground hard. I sensed that my father had made a great mistake. I didn’t even understand what he was fighting about exactly. But later in life, I’d realize that these men, these weekend hunters, were violent dinosaurs in a changing world.

My dad got to his feet but Red punched him back down to the ground, towering over him. Red bent, grabbed him by a jacket collar, pulled him up a little and punched him and blood erupted from my dad’s nose in a shower of red. The other hunters closed the circle around him a little tighter and egged Red on, beasts without reason, devouring their own.

I slipped over to the truck and reached for a shotgun from the rack and loaded three shells into it and went back. I watched my dad absorb blow after blow. His face was ruined. I waited until Red had beaten my dad into senseless pulp and let him flop to the ground before firing into the sky.

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