The father took his boy hunting though he was no hunter. I can take a son hunting, too, he thought, surveying the men and their boys. But the shotgun did not fit the boy's shoulder, and the boy could not raise the barrel, and when he pulled the trigger the shot went wild. Why doves? the boy asked his father, and why did the other boys, kicking through fields of grass to find them, break the doves' necks before throwing them in the black plastic bags? The father held himself proud and tucked his son under his arm. When the men laughed together and the other boys fought with branches snapped across the knee, the boy opened the bag and looked inside. The birds lay in a heap, heads cocked, eyes blank like black stones.

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