Portrait of a Killer as a Young Man

A massive bison skull hung grandly in the back room
Overlooking a dirt-caked, ripped to shit couch from 1976
The year of the bicentennial
The same year he first killed something
It was a deer he shot twelve times on a hunting trip with his grandfather
But when his grandfather inspected the kill, he swore he'd never take him hunting again

After that he had to resort to setting traps
Little wooden cages with trip wires he made himself in his room
Wittling away with the Bowie his father kept in the shed
And he heated up wads of cheddar cheese in the oven until it stunk to high Heaven
Put the cheese in his cages and set them up in the woods behind his house
Then he'd sit behind a big boulder and watch silently
Barely blinking, heart racing
For hours
Until a rabbit or a cat or a raccoon caught the scent of the cheese
And zip inside the cage
Trapped and zipped up up forever
Because he'd take his catch back home
And with the same Bowie knife he used to make the cage
He used to cut the animal's head off
And arms and legs
Heart
And
Brain

Eventually his father caught wind of what he was doing
And his father asked him to come into the garage
He asked why and then his father dragged him
By the back of his hair
Like one of the many rabbits he plucked from his cages
And his father took that same Bowie knife
And then took his hand
And sealed it tight into the bench clamp
With the Bowie knife
His father sawed his pinky and ring fingers
Off his right hand
Slowly
Blood spurting all over both of their faces
As he screamed and cried
His father spat his blood
Right in his face
And told him
"That's for stealing my knife."