Philip, he wanted to shoot right for the head. He wanted to split that deer’s face or splatter it. Or otherwise deface that deer in the most literal and irreversible way. Philip didn’t give a damn about trophies or mounting any ten-pointer. He wanted the small proud center of that head to accelerate evenly across a whole arc of sky and forest, to settle or rain onto that tawny strong back.

Andrew wanted to stuff and mount and look deeply into deep marble replacement-eyes. He said, “Shoot him right in his heart!” He thought, what a funny thing to have said! If we own this dead animal, it will be our hart. We will have shot our own heart. Our hart’s heart! “Shoot him right in my future heart!”

They were covered proper with deer urine and dark green blotches. The stag looked at them straight on like the logo for the Hartford Group. The stag knew what was up; those boys were firing at will. This was quite a bachelor party.

-Ben Segal