SHOOTING SKEET IN SAUGERTIES
ALM No.91, July 2026
SHORT STORIES
“Pull!” Raoul mouthed so softly that Wilmer looked up to see if he’d actually heard something. On Raoul’s laptop, Wilmer saw an animation of a skeet pigeon loop across the screen and land as the dot of the “i” in the website logo then shatter and disappear to reveal the homepage. Wilmer thought it looked cheesy. “I’ll stick with the plain logo like you had before,” he said to Raoul. They were sitting on Wilmer’s porch, iced tea glasses sweating onto the table and a plate that had been crackers and cheese reduced to bits of cracker.
“Maybe watch it again?” Raoul’s tone was hopeful.
Wilmer knew Raoul wanted an animation he could add to his portfolio. There’d been that slideshow of sample animations when Raoul started work on Wilmer’s website. That was in March when there was snow on the ground and no promise the world would ever turn green again. Now it was June and Wilmer’s yard was so overgrown that Raoul had complained the house oozed a haunted house vibe. “Trolled by that mower,” he indicated the decrepit Toro standing sentry by the driveway.
“Oh yeah? It’s that no mow May thing,” Wilmer laughed. “For the bugs and the birds?”
“For real? It’s almost July and it creeps me out worse every time I come. Respect the mower, okay?”
They gotten comfortable saying things like that, not friends exactly but more than acquaintances. Raoul knew to seem sympathetic whenever Wilmer launched a new permutation about what had happened between him and Brenda. How they were happily married in February when the Studebakers left on their US tour. But that she called on April first and left a message saying she and Dougie Studebaker (real name: Calvin Pennewine) were in love and she was taking Cal to Indiana to meet her parents on the tour off-week and wouldn’t be back in Saugerties until September when their European concert dates wrapped up.
Raoul had sympathy for the dynamic. His parents had divorced when he was 7. He mostly stayed clean, only slipping once when he said Brenda should really love Copenhagen, that he always had when he visited with his Mom.
Ha ha, Lucky Cal! April Fools! Heart, Wilmer texted when he picked up Brenda’s message. But Brenda texted back that they could settle the things that needed settling in September, and she’d stopped picking up when he called or answering his texts or emails after that. So anything current Wilmer knew about MaryAnne Studebaker (married name: Brenda Wollhauser) was what he read in Pitchfork and Spin.
What he knew about Raoul was Raoul grew up in Oswego, and his father was Brazilian and his mother was Danish, and they met as students at RIT. Wilmer had learned that when he remarked that Raoul didn’t look like a Raoul, and Raoul said, “For real man? What does that even mean?” When Wilmer started to explain, Raoul had interrupted, “You do know it’s a big, amazing world out there?”
What Raoul didn’t share was that the things that bonded his parents at RIT, finding their way as outsiders in an unfamiliar world, were no longer there a decade later in Oswego. By then his father was a Brazilian American and his mother was a Danish American and their charm era had endedS.
Wilmer hadn't asked Raoul any other personal questions, although he still wondered—about Raoul’s coloring, for instance, which was so light Wilmer suspected albinism. And was there any supporting evidence for that in Raoul's family, or in his slender frame and angular face, his narrow nose, pale lips, his hair like unripe corn tassels and eyes a milky blue color Wilmer identified as a color of surrender.
Raoul dressed in a continental casual style, long-sleeved shirts with the cuffs unbuttoned and rolled back to reveal a contrasting color, linen slacks, suede slip-ons and sunglasses reversed to the back of his head when they weren’t in use.
Wilmer and Raoul were the same height, but Wilmer had a body built for suspenders and the beefy, flattened face of a cartoon bear. He didn’t own any clothes that would handle suspenders though, preferring Hawaiian shirts and gym shorts, and Adidas so ancient that one of the uppers had separated from the sole.
“So we agree? Props to the mower before I’m back,” Raoul settled his computer bag over his shoulder and adjusted his sunglasses.
“I think I might sell it,” Wilmer said.
“I don’t see how that helps.”
After Raoul left, Wilmer drank another iced tea and was thinking about finding something more substantial for food. He was also thinking he would just tell Raoul to make the website live and that would force them to identify what really needed doing. Anything else could wait. Stay parked with the rest of Wilmer’s life, which seemed to have suffered a phase change and become an unfocused foam, with the same consistency as the filmy blue of Raoul’s eyes. The only exception was Saugerties Skeet, the business the website was for: Saugerties Skeet was on fire.
Which left Wilmer feeling even worse because at root Saugerties Skeet was a joke that had morphed into a business. Like the convention in the party game charades to signal a book made into a movie. Wilmer needed a signal for snark made into regret, then mime money and cue remorse.
Wilmer and Brenda had come to Saugerties because of Woodstock, summoned by the allure, by their iconic devotion to an image they believed was the essence of Woodstock. They were too young to have been at Woodstock the event, but enthralled by their beliefs about what Woodstock represented, and primed to make the pilgrimage as soon as they were adult enough to pursue their dreams.
Brenda had an amazing singing voice and Wilmer was passable on rubboard and played a high school level clarinet. As importantly, they were musicians in their souls, to their cores, and they vibrated—physically, spiritually and emotionally with the animating spirit of Woodstock.
In Saugerties, Brenda’s singing was immediately in demand and her calendar filled with rehearsals and gigs. At first, she reserved time to sit in with every jug, zydeco and brass band that Wilmer joined, but it got to be too much. She was on her way to financial viability in music and he wasn’t, and what became Saugerties Skeet got manifested from a joke about managers and venue operators after one of Brenda's gigs. The joke was it would be funny to put their maleficent images on skeet pigeons and gun them to bits, and the interjection ‘Pull!’ elicited sniggers and calls for bottom’s up the rest of the night.
Still chuckling about it the next day, Wilmer researched what it would take to create the business. He thought it might be his side hustle, still believing he’d find work in music if only through Brenda.
And it wasn’t clear there would be an audience for Saugerties Skeet, although Wilmer thought he could pitch it to sales teams in competitive niches: Rah, rah, blast your rivals! Now go out and sell! Or political fundraisers or corporate team-building events or maybe just snarky birthday parties. So he was both surprised and saddened when Saugerties Skeet was a hit from jump and the bookings were divorce celebrations and retirement parties. And when the clientele did broaden, it was therapists and ministers’ groups who booked events.
Even without a website, and with only the minimal publicity of business cards and flyers spread around town, Saugerties Skeet was up and humming and on Wilmer’s to-do list was a decision about whether to lease or purchase a second printer and finding a supplier who would offer a discount on ammunition if Wilmer agreed to automatic reorder.
“Hello Mr. Wollhauser!” It was Jimmy, one of the neighborhood kids, waving from the driveway.
Jimmy and his family were summer people, a group Wilmer bucketed as the other Saugerties. Their home was a second home or possibly a third and they were only in Saugerties a few months each summer. Wilmer thought they were a different sort of pilgrim than himself and Brenda, not believers summoned to Saugerties by music, or creatives who lived by the ethos that your passion should be your vocation and the dues you paid for that choice conferred cachet.
Wilmer and Brenda had busked in supermarket parking lots in Valparaiso and on ‘L’ platforms in Chicago before coming to Saugerties. But there was no defining ethos Wilmer could identify that had brought Jimmy and his family to Saugerties, and no animating passions he would ascribe to them. They moved through the world like automatons, like pale motioneers. “It’s Wilmer, Jimmy. Call me Wilmer,” he said.
“Sure enough, Mr. Wollhauser. Did you decide about the mower?” That was right. Jimmy had asked about using Wilmer’s mower to mow lawns and Wilmer had said he would think about it. But he hadn’t. “What if I add another point to your side of the take?”
Another point? To the take? Wilmer grimaced. He couldn’t remember discussing anything about money, and certainly nothing about points or takes. “Sounds good, I guess,” Wilmer said. Whatever that made their agreement. “You have a deal on mowing lawns as long as you start with mine.”
Jimmy looked dubious, “That’s going to be a really big job, Mr. Wollhauser. It doesn’t look like you’ve mowed all summer.”
“How much?”
Jimmy brightened, “So you’re going for it?! Yippee okay! Alright!” But as quickly as it had formed, Jimmy’s enthusiasm slumped into a frown, “Wait, does your mower even work? You’re teasing me.”
Wilmer thought the mower would start. It had started in April when he moved it out of the garage. “Oh, it works. Here, I’ll show you.”
“Can’t! Not today! Sorry! My Aunt Helene is here and I have to get home. How about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow is fine,” Wilmer smiled. Jimmy’s enthusiasm was winsome. And familiar, Wilmar had mowed lawns a few summers before music and girls stormed through his world.
In the morning Wilmer was surprised to hear a knock on the door. Jimmy was on the porch with another tow-headed kid who was way overdressed.
“This is my aunt, Mr. Wollhauser.”
“Helene Rossi,” she extended her hand. “I was delegated to make sure Jimmy can handle everything.”
“Call me Wilmer.” She was tiny.
Jimmy had moved to the mower and was pushing on the controls.
Wilmer stepped off the porch, but Helene Rossi got to Jimmy first. “Careful or you’ll flood it. Remember? Prime, choke, pull taut then pull hard.” The lawnmower sputtered several long seconds before catching and coming up to speed. Jimmy pushed it into the lawn. The mower stalled and stopped.
“He won’t be able to cut that,” Helene Rossi said.
Jimmy restarted the mower and managed a few more inches before it stalled again.
“You need to have a lawn service do it first.”
“Jimmy, do you have other customers?” Wilmer asked.
“Yes sir, Mr. Wollhauser!”
“Okay, maybe we’ll start with those.”
“I’m planning to go with him,” Helene Rossi said. “There’s no need for you to come too.”
“Oh. But—I thought, you know. An unfamiliar mower, and everything.”
“Everything what?” Helene Rossi asked and before Wilmer could answer she added, “I’ve used a lawnmower before.”
“That isn’t what I meant,” Wilmer said. Then what did he mean? He frowned at the tableau in his yard, a very short woman who was more-or-less his age and a pre-teen, two sides of a family coin flanking his mower and waiting for what he had to say. “Okay. I’ll see you when you get back,” he nodded.
Jimmy and Helene Rossi were hot and rumpled when they returned, and grateful for the iced tea, soda and cookies Wilmer had set out. “We ran out of gas,” Jimmy said.
“We put some in at Bob and Eileen’s,” Helene Rossi said. Jimmy’s parents, her brother and sister-in-law.
“Good that someone was there to help,” Wilmer was replenishing the cookies.
“No one was there. Bob’s on his boat and Eileen was running errands.”
“Aunt Helene knows how to do everything,” Jimmy said.
“Jimmy?” Helene Rossi prompted.
“Oh yeah! Here you go, Mr. Wollhauser,” Jimmy pushed some bills and coins onto the table. “That’s your take for today. I think we're going to do really well with that piece of junk.”
“Jimmy!” Helene Rossi said.
“It's the same thing you said.”
“I’m sorry,” It was Helene Rossi’s turn to be embarrassed.
“Another two lawns tomorrow Mr. Wollhauser, is it okay if I start early?”
In the morning, the mower was at the end of the driveway and there was a can of gas on a wagon next to it. Wilmer had changed the oil and the spark plug but he didn’t say anything about that.
“Jimmy’s mowing project is taking up a lot of your visit,” Wilmer was sitting on the porch when they got back.
“I was hoping to spend time poking around Saugerties, but Eileen and Bob have been busy. Jimmy took me out last night though, so I saw the Arcade and the ice cream shop.
“Arnold’s is the best,” Jimmy said.
“It is,” Helene Rossi agreed.
“Only one customer tomorrow, Mr. Wollhauser. It will be a thin day for you.”
“And for you. You know, if you’re ready to mow on your own, I could show your Aunt Helene around while you’re working,” Wilmer’s voice trailed off at the end. He was reconsidering even as he offered.
“I’d like that,” Helene Rossi smiled and Jimmy beamed.
Wilmer was relieved when she chose a walk in the Arboretum from the options he offered. It meant less chance of running into anyone who would need an introduction.
“Bob told me you’re a musician,” Helene Rossi said.
Wilmer had been lost in remembering how wonderful he and Brenda had thought the Arboretum was when they discovered it. He stopped walking. He was surprised anyone in Jimmy’s family knew anything about his life. “I’m a businessman now, my wife is the musician. Well, sort of.”
“A sort of musician?” She laughed,
“A sort of wife, Brenda’s a real enough musician.” Wilmer told her about coming to Saugerties and exploring the music scene, then Brenda joining the Studebakers. And Cal Pennewine.
“That sounds painful, and sad. I’m sorry. When you got here you had a musical partner and a life partner and now you have neither.”
“Before Saugerties it was always just the two of us.”
“Until Brenda started playing with other people.”
“And got offered a chance at big success. She saw that and jumped.”
“What might have happened if it had been the other way around?”
“Before Saugerties, success was the adventure. We weren’t playing for money or fame. Which was good because we weren’t getting either.”
“Does it hurt any different to lose a life partner or a music partner?”
“Everything changed the day we got here.”
“But it is pretty hard to imagine that being prince of the blue-eyed rubboard was ever going to be a thing.”
Was she intentionally not understanding what he was trying to say? “What do you do for work?” Wilmer changed the subject.
She studied his face before she answered. “I’m in food.”
“In food what?”
“Food writing. Here, I can show you,” Helene Rossi took out her phone and scrolled. The screen she held up was a restaurant review with her name in the byline.
Wilmer snorted. “Wow! You’re famous! I wouldn’t have guessed that, not in a billion years. You don’t look like a food critic.”
“No? What does a food critic look like?”
“You know,” Wilmer gestured an arc around his stomach, “Bigger, I guess.”
“M god, I don’t know whether to be amused or offended. And if I say you don’t look like a businessman—you know,” she waved her hand like she was wiping at something, “A food stained shirt and sneakers full of holes.”
Wilmer frowned. “I’d say it’s that kind of business.” He told her about Saugerties Skeet.
“That’s funny. You know, I’d order an event if you had them in LA. I’m leaving my job next month and I’d absolutely have an event.”
“Leaving to do what?”
“It’s not all worked out yet. But something less demanding. With plants, or maybe even food again, but only if can be small and manageable. A pocket nursery or a hole-in-wall cafe. And niche, like sweets only, the Just Desserts Cafe.”
Wilmer kicked a stone off the path. Had he ever been that comfortable with uncertainty? When he and Brenda moved from Valparaiso to Chicago? Or when he arrived in Saugerties with his rubboard and his dreams? Would he ever have left a job where he got paid to eat? He couldn’t make that work in his head. “So you’re planning to open a specialty cafe in Los Angeles.”
“Oh no, not LA, never. In Savannah. I’m going home.“
“You’d leave a newspaper job in the city of angels to start a dessert cafe in Savannah.”
“Exactly!! I can’t wait to be someplace that’s not all freeways and concrete. And where things are familiar. Even someplace as wonderful as this, I recognize the Sycamore and Hickory, but the Oaks are all different. And where are the Pecans? If this was home there’d be Pecans. I really need to be somewhere that feels like home.”
The next day they walked again in the Arboretum. “I was thinking about what you said about the skeet orders making you sad,” Helene Rossi said. Wilmer didn’t remember talking about that. “Why do you think that is? I’m excited about making a change and I’d love to have an event. And my friends are excited for me too. Especially at the paper, and they’re the ones whose pictures would be on the discs. Is that what you call them, skeet discs? Plates? Except Benny.”
“Benny?”
“The mailroom guy,” she bit her lip and shook her head. “I shouldn’t do that. It’s our private joke—that every office has a Benny? The person where enthusiasm goes to die.”
Wilmer exhaled. At Saugerties Skeet, Trish and Mason were unfailingly upbeat, he was the one who was usually morose. And every office has one. Meaning if he couldn’t identify the Benny, it was probably him. Wilmer tried explaining again that it was the giddy delight people took in hammering to bits images of ex-spouses and former bosses that depressed him.
“But it’s not really about shooting them, is it? It’s more like punching a pillow and screaming when you’re upset, a healthy release.”
“Really? Maybe I should show you the belly of the beast to see if anything there changes your mind.”
“Actually, I was hoping you’d suggest a good place for me to hear some music before I leave.”
“Okay,” Wilmer said. “How about we do both? We can go over in the afternoon, then grab dinner and find some music.”
“Deal,” she nodded and held out a hand for him to shake. They were standing near the Arboretum gate. She gestured at the trees. “You know they talk to each other? Like we do. The big ones there and the scrawny ones in front, they’re talking to each other.”
“Settling dinner plans?” Wilmer said.
“What? No, they’re sending messages out through the air. And underground their roots are entangled and coated with fungi, and they’re exchanging messages about their environment, what they feel and what they need, and then they work to make it happen.”
“Sounds pretty great,” Wilmer smiled. Actually, it sounded woo-woo but at least it was entertaining woo-woo.
“It is. It’s absolutely wonderful,” she said.
When they got to Saugerties Skeet, Mason was supervising a print run and Trish was at her computer. Mason had on a flannel shirt, cargo shorts and Birkenstocks, and Trish was wearing a tennis dress. Merengue music blasted from the office speakers.
“Hey boss,” Mason shut off the printer. He removed an earplug and pointed with his phone to lower the volume on the music.
“Jesus fuck, what’s this?!” Wilmer held up a skeet pigeon with an image of Brenda on it.
“Oops,” Trish made a face at Mason.
“Raoul’s order. It was supposed to be a surprise,” Mason said.
“Jesus Christ,” Wilmer said again. There were also pigeons printed with the Studebaker’s logo and others with pictures of the band and their albums.
“Can I see how the printer works?” Helene Rossi tried to change the subject.
“Sorry?” Trish pulled the same face she’d made at Mason.
“Not your fault,” Wilmer shook his head. “But I need to talk with Raoul. This is not happening.” He threw the disc in the trash.
When they were back outside, Helene Rossi asked Wilmer how he was feeling. “Fucking Raoul,” he said.
“Was that Brenda? She’s really pretty.”
“Fucking Raoul,” Wilmer said again.
“You do know he was trying to help? To be a friend and do something good for you.”
“On what planet is that helping?”
“No, it’s a miss. I get it. He doesn’t understand that it’s all still really raw for you. But he was trying.”
Wilmer scowled.
“I’ve been where you are. Believe me, I know how it feels. It sucks. And it feels like it will forever. But it won’t. Your feelings will change. You will get to the place where you’re waking up smiling and excited about what comes next.”
“I must have missed the part of your story where your whole world got blown apart.”
“Or maybe I just got tired of talking about it.”
“And now everything is puppies and wonderful.”
“No, not at all,” she shook her head. “I’m sorry about Brenda. And I’m sorry about Raoul. And I’m really sorry about the way everything feels for you. Okay? I am. But if you can’t find a way to let go enough that we can enjoy the rest of the evening, I should just take a raincheck.”
The conversation over dinner went just as poorly. Helene Rossi kept trying to draw Wilmer out and Wilmer continued to deflect her. She did elicit a laugh when she suggested he could make her a regional manager when he took Saugerties Skeet national. “So you could run it out of the Just Desserts Cafe,” he said.
“I would run it out of Just Desserts. I think that’s a perfect fit,” she said. But the conversation closed down again after that.
After dinner, they stopped at a bar to hear a jug band Wilmer had played with. They had one drink each and left at the set break. The next day Jimmy came alone to pick up the lawnmower, and he came alone again the following day. Wilmer didn’t ask about Helene Rossi and Jimmy didn’t volunteer anything.
That evening Jimmy knocked on Wilmer’s door. “I forgot to give you this Mr. Wollhauser,” Jimmy put money on the table. “And Aunt Helene said to give you this,” he held out an envelope.
“She didn’t want to come herself?”
“She’s already gone. Dad drove her to Poughkeepsie so she could catch the train and fly back to Los Angeles.”
Wilmer set the envelope on the table and didn’t open it until Jimmy was gone. Inside was a card with a picture of a slice of cheesecake. On the inside it read: Thanks for showing me around the Arboretum, I had a wonderful time. If make it to Savannah I can return the favor. Look me up at Just Desserts. And remember I have dibs on a franchise when you do that with Saugerties Skeet. Wishing you luck and success in everything you do, personally and professionally. Helene.
Wilmer set the card on the table. Outside there was early darkness. The moon was full and later it would be bright, but for moment the light was caught below the treetops. Wilmer could see stars dotting the sky.
He picked up the card and read it again. Then he slipped on his shoes and walked down the steps into the yard. Grass brushed against his shins and poked through the holes in his sneakers. He raised his arms like spokes in the wheel of the universe, and spread them as far as he could reach. He arched his body up and willed his thoughts down, willing himself to root, to become like a tree, entangled and attached. He wondered if trees were ever confused or if they always knew exactly what they needed to say. He was working out messages he wanted to share. Confrontational messages for Brenda and for Raoul, and a softer, conciliatory message for Helene Rossi. He wanted to put them into the air and sink through his roots. This is what I feel. This is what I think. This is what I need. Then he intended to stop and listen. There’d be other messages to craft and share, but first he needed to wait for the messages coming back in return. He needed to send his messages and wait and listen, just listen, listen.
Ric Nudell lives in rural Western Massachusetts. His stories have appeared in Modern Fiction, Lunch Ticket and the San Antonio Review. His story The Cartoonist was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
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