Besides the funeral, where we all confirmed our father had definitely been put in the ground, my brothers and I hadn’t been together for dinner since Christmas. That was because Macon had been in Cabo with his mistress and the only time the guys came to the house was when he was gone.

The last time they had slept beneath the roof was the night before each of them went to college. They’d gone off and never come back.

Yeah, it had been that much of a shit show.

We talked on the phone, at least once a week, and I saw West and South about once a month, either at one of their places or in town. Never at the house.

“Who wants another?” East called out, holding up the whiskey bottle in one hand and had a shotgun hinged open and tucked under his other arm.

“Me,” South and West said at the same time.

West pulled the string on the trap and a glass ashtray went flying. South aimed and fired his own weapon and blew the ashtray to pieces over the field.

We were wearing hearing protection, so they shouted.

I’d been out here shooting the longest, somehow returning from the office before any of them arrived. The helicopter was sitting in its usual spot on the west lawn.

I’d gone inside to change my clothes as usual, passed a wall of all of Macon’s trophies and other memorabilia. I’d stopped, realized I hated every piece of it. The gloating, the self-adoration. I’d grabbed as much as I could carry off the wall and took it out back, only returning for the shotgun, some shells from his office and trading my heels for a pair of rain boots in the mud room.

I’d set the items on the top of the split rail fence at the back edge of the garden and took aim. That was where my brothers found me. They’d collected more of his things and an extra shotgun and decided to make it more fun by using the skeet trap, so we’d moved to the field. East had also grabbed a bottle of whiskey.

He passed the liquor and grabbed a silver plate, read the inscription. “Man Of The Year 2011. More like Asshole of the Year,” he added.

He glared as if it held all the shitty memories of that time, then walked over to the trap, set it in place, then loaded shells into the gun.

I moved to take his spot, waited for him to get in position and give me the nod. I pulled the rope and a split second later, he fired. The plate pinged in the air, then went flying like an out of control UFO in the direction of the stables.

“Fuck you, Macon!” he shouted.

Yeah, fuck you.