Times Like This a Boy needs his Mother

I wanted to take the pistol out of the box today, just to look at it, make sure it's there.

But I’m still afraid. It's a nice one, a .45 automatic--seven in the clip and one in the chamber, a stainless steel shine, and a starring role in the movie Desperado. Paid almost four hundred for it, brand new, back in October. Only fired at the factory, they told me.

I asked for the biggest, baddest handgun they had ("for personal protection"). They recommended the .357 Magnum, like the one I learned to shoot with when I was 13, but I didn't want another revolver. And I didn't want to go deaf if it ever went off. So the guy recommended the .45 auto. Holds more rounds, fires just as true, easy to reload, if necessary (just drop the clip and pop in a new one), and it doesn't blow up walls. He didn't tell me how far the bullet would go.

I almost killed my neighbor with it just last week, and I've kept it locked up ever since. I was playing. That's the facts. I was playing. I might've looked like DeNiro in Taxi Driver . I cocked it and uncocked it. Emptied all the bullets from the clip and reloaded them. Pulled the slide over and over again, spilling live rounds all over my bed, just to hear that ch-ching sound you hear in the movies, when the actors start to panic and the ladies scream. I filled the clip again and I reloaded. I was pointing it at the wall then, the clip full, a live round in the chamber. And not just any round, a high grain hollow-point, the strongest shot they had for the .45, the salesman said. They say once it hits it expands to three-quarters of an inch. Guaranteed. Perfect for home defense, the salesman assured me. My uncle used to make a visual for me about how hollow points worked by showing me his pinkie finger "this is how small the hole is going in" and then two fists balled up "and this is how big the hole is coming out."

So I was in my bedroom, just standing there, the hammer pulled back, my finger resting gently on the trigger, pointing it at the wall, as if it was my greatest enemy. I had no intention of firing it. Maybe I muttered something. Maybe I had a mental picture. Maybe I muttered something at the mental picture. And then it just went off.

I saw a flash of white-hot light, heard the shot crack against the walls of my little bedroom. Saw the hole the bullet made in the wall. Watched the expended shell dance along the carpet and then set to rest, standing straight up like a soldier.

I dropped the pistol and then it was quiet again.

I prayed to God, Please, Father! Let it have hit a stud or something! Don't let it penetrate the wall! As if He could undo such an accident. I walked carefully over to the hole, self-conscious of my steps, and peered. The drywall had fallen to cover the bullet's path, and I rapped with my fist a couple of times to see if it was, in fact, a stud it hit. I poked my finger into the hole, almost a half-inch wide, to find the round.

There was no round. And there was no stud. I ran to the bathroom to find some white toothpaste to cover it up, but all I had was striped gel. Apart from panic, and crawling into a hole and hiding, I knew I was exhausted of options.

I quickly ran over to the apartment next door and knocked.

Yes? I heard a voice from behind the door, a female voice. I’d only spoken with my neighbor once, a long time ago, the day I moved in, in fact. Even then she spoke through the door; I’ve never seen her. All I wanted was to use her phone to have my sofa delivered.

Are you okay ma'am? I asked. I feared for my life more than hers, in all honesty. I just wanted to get out of this.

What happened? she asked, and her voice was more angry than frightened, more concerned than pleading.

I was cleaning it and it went off, I lied quickly. What happened in there? Are you okay?

It came through the wall and into my closet, it went through my clothes. She still wouldn't open the door. I didn’t blame her. I was going to call the police!

I ignored that thought, for the moment at least, and told her to do what she had to do. I told her I just wanted to make sure she was okay, and then I left and came back to my apartment. I disassembled the gun, partially, assembled it again, ran some silicon over it to convince the cop I was really cleaning it, switched the rounds from hollow point to standard round-tipped--I don't know why--and laid it to rest, un-chambered, where it always rested. Beside my bed. Then I crawled into a corner, popped a little yellow pill, opened a beer and lit up a cigarette, and waited for the inevitable.

The policeman showed up an hour later, and he was very kind. I invited him in head bowed, and showed him to my room. Showed him the .45. He pointed to the hole in the wall and handed me the bullet. The bronze thing in his hand was caked with drywall in the center. It didn't expand. If it had . . .

You're very lucky, he told me, after I gave him the story I’d created in that hour, even to the last detail. I explained how I had to load the clip in order to reset the ejector pin, and then pull the slide to set the piece in order again. I said I’d left the safety off on accident, and was rubbing it down with the silicon cloth, standing, facing the wall, when it went off.

She declined to press charges, he told me, this nice man who told me what a nice gun I owned. He looked no older than I did. Wanton Endangerment is a class A felony, he said. I nodded. I was ready for that one, too. I had a story for it. If it went to trial, I would request a jury. And then I would tell them I was going to commit suicide and simply missed. I'll take a psych ward over prison any day.

Before he left, he suggested I bake her a cake. I wrote her a detailed letter, explaining my apologies, and never heard from her again. I never did bake her a cake.

The .45 had passed through three walls, including a closet door, before it finally came to rest--in a stud, I was informed--in the back of my neighbor's bedroom closet. It only ruined one dress, and the officer said she wasn't worried about it. I seemed contrite enough, she had told him. And a funny thing followed. Before the incident, every damn night in fact, I heard the stomping on the floor from the woman above me, complaining of the noise the Bose makes, as I leave it a bit loud on occasion. But I haven't heard her stomping since.

Not even once.

Men aren't allowed to be afraid, and that's hard for me. My life is built around fear, and not by choice. It was fear that led me to the gun store that day, fear that drew me to that shiny, hard-hitting Ruger .45 automatic. And before that one, it was a .32 H&R Mag, manufactured by New England Firearms in the late seventies. Just a little guy. My old boss sold it to me for eighty dollars. He told me it was the same gun the Panthers used to shoot up all those people in LA way back when.

There really is no comparison. The Ruger is a Ferrari, the .32 was just a Yugo, from point A to point B. Aim. Shoot. Hope you hit. And then keep shooting. Because the bullets are so goddamn small, it takes three or four to knock down a good-sized man. It will rarely kill, except from long range, when the bullet slows down enough to start spinning, to ricochet inside the body or the skull. But the range was horrible. It was more a toy than a gun. I used to shoot textbooks in my old apartment with it; the blast was so short and quick, lacking the bass thump of the Ruger. It sounded like a small firecracker when it went off. The neighbors never complained. All accounted for, before I sold my little .32 and the remaining ammunition to a new boss, I'd expended almost fifty rounds in my apartment alone. But it was there for me in time of need.

The phone woke me up at close to two. I knew who it was before I answered. There was only one person in the world that would call me that late. I knew Kim was drunk.

"I'm sleeping," I answered.

"It's Becky."

"What about her?"

"We went dancing and some big black guy started hitting on us and wouldn't leave us alone. He followed me home."

I wiped the sleep from my eyes and sat up in bed, wishing away whatever nightmare or heavenly dream (I can’t remember,but nightmares were much more common, so it’s safe to assume . . .) I was lost in. Out of habit, I reached for the pill bottle beside my bed.

"You're home, aren't you," I said more than asked. "Isn't that where you're calling from?"

"Yes, but Becky's still out there. He won't let her leave."

Kim was never quite acquainted with any emotion. In the four years I'd known her, not a tear was ever to be seen. She laughed plenty, but I was wise enough to know it was mostly a front. God only knows what skeletons are knocking at her closet door; I, for the life of me, can see none of them, and that’s rare. Apart from that, she simply looks at you with glazed eyes, mysterious and unreadable. She’s a preacher's kid. Wildest one I ever met.

But tonight she sounded sincerely afraid, and that was what caused me to swing my legs over the bed and put my feet on the floor. I woke up rather quickly.

"Where is she?" I asked, and, to hear my voice, I'm sure it would’ve been dry as a corpse. I didn't feel anything myself in those days. I was no different than she was. Concerned, of course, but flat as a pancake.

"I got away," she said, remarkably calm given the circumstances. "I came in and she's still in the parking lot. I can't see her from here."

"Sit tight, lock your door," I reassured her. "I'll be over in a few minutes."

I hung up the phone and tried to stand. Just another night, another time to bail out a chum. I was a long time hero for them by that time, the one who went to bat. It was automatic. The room was cold, I noticed. And it was chilly outside, being late autumn, year of our Lord 1996. I dressed myself in the pile of clothes I threw to the floor before climbing into sleep: a pair of cut off jean shorts, some T-shirt or other, old socks I hated to wash, and my red bandanna on my nappy head. I decided to wear the black Nazi style boots (for effect), but the man’s race was irrelevant. I don’t discriminate. An asshole is an asshole.

I checked the revolver beside my bed, my little black .32, but it was unnecessary. I knew it was loaded. Five little starlets winked at me, and I winked back, I really did. I tucked it into my belt and covered it with a jacket, grabbed my house keys and headed out the front door. Kim lived directly behind me, in a large apartment complex that bordered my own. Becky would have been no more than fifty yards from my front door.

There was Becky. And there was the big black guy. I watched as she tried to walk away, but he tugged on her arm and talked her back. I could hear his words across the parking lot, calm and soothing, charming. He was good, and Becky needed a good sit down chat about how to say no and mean it. She kept going back to him. I admired him for all his persuasion, like a kid from the same class. But for now, all chivalry was off. I've known Becky as long as I have Kim, and her face is far easier to read. Her cheeks red and flushed, partly from the alcohol, partly from the embarrassment, I can assume, were shaking, trembling. She was on the verge of tears. Irredeemable as I was at times, it was my creed that no one should ever fuck with my friends. Sometimes I think that paints a big red target on my chest.

I really didn't know what to do. Flash the gun? What if he had one? I didn't want bullets or blood, but I would gun him down in a heartbeat if he tried to hurt her. I really had nothing to lose, the motto of a lifelong scapegoat. I remembered two weeks before; I got a call just like this one.

Only it was Becky on the phone, and she was crying. She told me to come and get her, and never told me why. She cried and cried, but never said a word as we drove, never told me where to go. I knew she’d met a stranger at a bar that night and guessed she’d been raped. I swore to her that morning, as she sat in the passenger seat of my Oldsmobile, quiet as a mouse, her lips sealed, and I left only to guess, that I would never let anyone hurt her again. Tonight I had a loaded gun tucked in my waistband, and I had every intention of keeping my promise. Promises are sacred to me.

I hopped over the fence coolly, and with mock pride. I held my head high and strolled casually, slowly and with deliberation. The man noticed me first; Becky was huddled against his car, an earlier model Nissan Z. I locked eyes with him, probing, feeling him out, checking out the best angle to handle the situation. Because of the gun I was not afraid, a remarkable thing. He stared back and nodded, as if to say hello.

I held out my hand to the man and smiled.

"Howya' doin' tonight?" I asked. I'd lived only a year in New York, just long enough to pick up the accent when I needed it.

"Cool," he said, and he looked confused.

I looked down at Becky, my face set in stone.

"Hell of a night, eh Beck?"

She smiled at me then, a very phony grin, and I could see it all. She was terrified; it was in her eyes. I know fright when I see it and it never fails to unnerve me.

"What's my number?" she asked me playfully.

"Huh?" I asked, and then the cogs clicked. I said the wrong number. Twice even.

"Did you get that?" she asked the man, and he only stood there, staring at the two of us as if watching a funny play (and I guess, in retrospect, that's what it was), probably unsure of what was happening to his intentions.

Are you two brother and sister or somethin'?" he finally asked. I had some empathy for him; he wasn't a perpetrator yet. He was just a guy trying to get laid, and I could relate. He didn't seem violent, but I kept my hand in my right pocket, close to the gun all the time.

"We go a ways back," I said without looking at him. And then the gut took over, smart thing that it was. "You look like one stupid drunk ass bitch, Becky," I said coldly.

Just as planned, she gasped and looked in my face (I know now there was thankfulness in her eyes), and with a start and a huff, ran off across the parking lot towards Kim's section of the apartment complex. She may have muttered a curse word or two, I can’t remember.

Meanwhile, the man only stood there, expressionless now. Perhaps my actions startled him into a slight shock. I took the opportunity."This is one nice ride, man," I said to him, my hand still in my pocket. "What year is it?"

"'85," he said.

"I had something like it once. Same year, different car. Ever hear of a Dodge Conquest?"

"I think so," he said, scratching his head and looking off in the direction Becky ran.

"It was a good car. Had to sell it though. Turbo went bad. This car turbo?"

"Yeah," he said, and then he was looking at me again. I dare say he looked a little spooked, but that may be arrogance on my part. I was tempted to tell him to turbo his ass right on outta' here, but the gut said it wasn’t necessary.

"So did you get her number?" I asked the man, seasoning my voice with charm and precision.

"I think so," he said, sounding unsure of himself. I must have looked like some character to him. Nazi boots and a red bandanna on my head, like a new branch of a gang that blended the Bloods and the KKK. I was standing next to him now, and he wasn't so big after all.

"Well it was nice meeting ya'," I said, slowly leading him, just by walking, to the driver side of his Nissan. "Are you okay to drive?"

"Yeah, man," he said, "I'm fine. Does she have a boyfriend?"

"Don't know," I told him. And I waved and walked off, but just a few steps, pausing to watch him step into his car, shut the door, start the engine, drive down the parking lot, out the drive, and onto the street, then around the corner and out of sight. That done, and half of my work was finished.

I found Becky by a parked car down by the entrance to the building, huddled in standing yet fetal position, tears streaming down her face. She wouldn't respond to me. I stepped back and lifted my coat, showing her the butt of the pistol. I told her she was safe.

Eventually, she pried herself away from the car and huddled over to me, and I had to half-carry her up the stairs, which was no easy task, as she is a rather large girl. Kim was afraid to open the door, even come near it, she told us later, so we waited a good ten minutes for her to finally succumb. Once safely in the confines of apartment ten, I took Becky into Kim's bedroom and set her gently on Kim's bed, then brushed her hair from her eyes. I told her she was okay now. Nothing was going to hurt her as long as I was there. And I meant it. And then I left her and Kim together in the bedroom, figuring my work was over, and passed through the living room to the porch, to light up a cigarette outside (no smoking in the apartment). I realized, out there, staring out at the parking lot, I was numb the entire time it all went down. Didn’t feel a goddamn thing.

Kim came out onto the porch a few minutes later.

"Remember that guy a couple of weeks ago she met?" she asked.

"Yep," I answered.

"You were right. He raped her."

I nodded. I was numb again.

"That sucks," she said.

"Why’d you take her back there?" I asked Kim without looking at her.

"She said she wanted to go."

"I bet," I said.

I went into the bedroom and smoothed Becky’s hair aside and stroked her face while she cried. Kim kept talking, little clichés and the like, glazing a gaping wound with butterfly Band-Aids. Surely her own method of dealing with reality, a nuisance at best, destructive at worst. I wanted to tell her to shut up, to just let her cry. But it was a girl thing, and I knew I was the bad guy now.

At Becky's request, I slept in the living room on the sofa while the two girls slept in Kim's bedroom together. I kept the gun right by my side.

I never felt a thing. I am just a walking body, a ghost in the streets. My soul has flitted away, with the sparrows. All I can do is try and make things better for others, and keep myself alive and as safe as possible.