There’s Always a Bigger Dog by Boudreau Freret

A young man blocked a doorway with the door partially open. When he saw I wanted by, yet refused to yield, I waited a little longer then made an obviously playful gesture: I pretended I was going to shut the door on him. The young man’s eyes widened and his mouth followed suit. “Dude, I’m half your age-” His first mistake. Panic spread across my friend Mike the Marine’s face. Let it go, his eyes shouted to me. Just walk away. “- and I’ve been shot before.” The kid emphasized the word shot, then waited as if the matter between us was now closed, resolved in his favor. His second mistake. “Shot?” I asked. “Yeah.” He lifted his shirt to reveal a scar about the size of a pencil eraser just below his sternum, dead center of the celiac plexus. “Really.” I said softly. “Yeah.” “I see.” I looked up from his scar and into his eyes. “Well, I’ve been shot, too.” Without blinking, I slowly began to raise my shirt and revealed an entry scar. I raised my shirt higher and revealed another. Then another. And another, still. All stragglers that had spread from the main cluster. When the fist-sized main scar was unveiled, the color ran from the kid’s face. I turned to show the exit wounds, and when I turned back, the kid was gone. My friend Mike the Marine laughed. “I guess he thought yours was bigger.”

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