On the Exhale (2017) - full transcript
You always imagined it
happening to you.
Some young student, always male,
in your cramped basement office,
twitching with anger, fear about
not getting into med school,
law school, or the like, about
mountains of debt swallowing his
stillborn future, and all
because of you.
Because you dared make him look
outside himself, see past his
narrow experience to the
inherent difficulties that come
with not being male, because,
no, you wouldn't consider
changing his grade, but most of
all, because you dared challenge
him.
Entitlement mixes with
adrenaline, with fear, with
testosterone.
You smell the incendiary
cocktail wafting off him while
his leg twitches wildly, until
he lift the edge of his shirt.
A simple, subtle gesture.
Graceful, even.
He flips up the bottom corner of
his tasteful green button-down,
and there is it, obediently
waiting in its holster, eyeing
you with its obsidian stare.
You slowly raise your hands.
Why?
Instinct, probably?
You've seen it 100 times in
movies.
This is the way you survive when
someone pulls a gun, right?
You slowly lift your empty arms.
The international symbol of
plaintive innocence.
Never mind this young man isn't
a cop, and, even if he were,
raising your hands is far from a
guarantee of survival.
Still, your hands ascend,
weightless, while words tumble
out, heavy and insubstantial,
at once.
They're all that stand between
you and this man, his gun, its
obsidian stare.
Maybe you're right.
Maybe there's something to your
point of view.
Maybe we can take another look
at your final grade --
That's when you feel it.
Warmth.
Takes a moment to register it's
your own.
That you're in shock.
That you never heard the shot or
saw the muzzle flash a few
inches from your face.
The warmth continues spreading
down your face, trickles into
your mouth, and when that first
taste of iron hits your
tongue -- pure rust invading
your mouth -- all your
sensation
floods back.
Burning, stabbing, throbbing
as he blasts and blasts away as
life slowly slips from your
grasp...
And then you wake up.
The first time you have this
dream is the time you ask a
student -- a male student --
to kindly consider the premise
that there just might be some
small disadvantage to being a
woman -- it's a women's
studies course after all -- and
to try to incorporate such a
perspective into his paper
revision.
What you get back is no revision
at all but the original paper
covered in Post-it Notes full of
borderline violent screeds about
your "insidious propaganda," the
college's "inhumane curriculum
requirements," and your
"appalling vendetta" -- three
underlines -- against men.
This is the first time you
entertain the possibility that
it might not be someone else on
the news next time, that next
time it just might be you.
This is when you start locking
your office door even during
office hours --especially
during office hours and post a
cute hand-written sign urging
students to "Please do knock!"
You do it under the excuse of
needing to concentrate on your
research, but what distraction
could there possibly be at the
end of a lonely basement hall?
And every time you open the
door, you hope your students
won't notice how you pause just
a bit to see if you can catch a
glimpse of anything through the
cracked door, see anything
shining before you open wide
with a smile, invite them in,
blame your slowness on your age
and the heavy door.
"Oh, this heavy door,"
you say with a chuckle.
After a few semesters, the young
man in question -- in your head
you call him The Catalyst -- he
graduates magna cum, of course,
and your panic starts to
subside, the dreams recur less
frequently, but recur
nonetheless.
So you still -- you remain
vigilant.
Each new class, you identify a
most likely candidate, just a
minor mental checkmark, and
maybe you start leaving your
office door open again, but this
time with a strategically placed
mirror something tasteful with
a funky frame, something you
"thrifted!" you tell the
students.
You place it right at the spot
where you can see anyone coming
round the corner from your desk,
and maybe you even move your
desk...
Give yourself just enough time
to run to the door and slam it
shut should you need to.
At least this is what you tell
your therapist one Wednesday
afternoon when she remarks that
you seem especially on edge.
The Catalyst of your confession
is not some student this time
but the little stickers that
have suddenly appeared in every
window now that concealed carry
is the law of the land.
Thank you, Supreme Court!
Little stickers with the
silhouette of a menacing
weapon -- a .9-mil, you will
later learn -- with a bright red
line through it.
The stickers people are now
legally required to put up if
they don't want someone bringing
a weapon into their
establishment, as if that's
something one should have to
state aloud.
"No, please don't bring that
thing that's likely to get one
of us killed into my otherwise
peaceful place of work."
It really should be the
opposite, you'd think, an opt-in
sort of thing where those who
truly prefer weapons should be
required to post "Weapons,
please!" or something of the
sort so you and everyone else
who's sane can know exactly
where to avoid.
Because now each time you see
that silhouette, it feels like
an assault.
You sweat, start to palpitate.
But more than that, you wonder
if some troubled young man who
wouldn't otherwise will suddenly
turn to violence precisely
because he has that subtle
reminder, that silhouette and
all its potency -- power, sex --
knocking around somewhere in his
subconscious.
And, well, even though it makes
sense that she of all people
would need one in her window,
the last place you expect to see
one of these silhouettes staring
at you is on your therapist's
door.
So she of course senses your
anxiety, asks an incisive
question and it all comes out --
about The Catalyst, the
recurring dream, the mirror on
your office wall, the many
"minor" precautions you've
taken.
You pretend to laugh it off,
try to make it seem like you
have a sense of humor about the
whole thing because this is the
first time you've admitted any
of this to anyone, and,
naturally, you're worried what
she'll think of you but when
you've finished, you have to
admit that you feel lighter.
Unburdened.
Closer to her.
Until you hear the hint of
skepticism in her voice.
Though she does her best to
conceal it, you still sense it
in the up-glide at the end of
each sentence in her false
affirmation.
You probe her to see if your
intuition is correct, slip in a
subtle "you know what I mean?"
But when her response is vaguely
noncommittal you remind yourself
to never question your intuition
again.
This is the first time you feel
judged by your therapist.
As you drive away from her
office full of shame,
embarrassment at having shared
those thoughts, but most of all
at having thought those
thoughts, you have this sudden
streak of insight and laugh out
loud because of course she'd
judge you.
Of course she wouldn't
understand.
The stakes aren't the same for
her.
If something happens to her, if
some unstable patient walks in
and decides to disregard the
little sticker in her window,
she has a successful husband, a
large and loving family for her
children to fall back on, but if
the same thing happens to you
there will be no one to take
care of Michael.
Yes.
Michael...
who can't wait to start second
grade...
who is the greatest choice
you've ever made...
the most challenging choice
you've made.
Even though, your whole life,
you chose nothing but challenge,
like how you chose to embrace
your love of books, even though
it meant never fitting in with
all the "normal" girls where you
grew up.
Or how you chose to ignore your
parents when they said not to
get your hopes up for a
scholarship, and that college
might not be possible without
one.
Or how you chose grad school
over a more tedious and sensible
career path, but...
All of that just felt like the
bare minimum of what you had to
do to survive.
But, with Michael, you actually
had a choice, and you still
chose him.
Even though it meant choosing
challenge every step of the way.
And not just because you had to
pick the donor yourself, drive
yourself to all the
appointments.
Not just because you had no
relief on diaper duty.
Those are the easy parts.
To choose to have a child by
yourself in the quiet bedroom
community surrounding your
college's campus, it means
choosing the subtle scrutiny of
everyone around you.
Choosing to endure their silent
belief that yours is a place of
yearning, yours is a place of
lack.
At first, the lack of sleep
makes you mistake their pity for
approval -- support, even --
but when the offers of food and
childcare turn to barbecues,
dinner parties, playdates where
some single man is always
present, the smiles on the
cherubic faces of your friends
seem to have something else
behind them some implicit
question like...
"Haven't you forgotten
something, dear?"
And when months of single men
fail to yield any change in your
life, women start appearing in
their place -- these people
aren't prejudiced, after all --
and though you find the women
a...more alluring option,
they are not the option,
not your option, not right now.
So you stop showing up to their
dinner parties, cocktail hours,
start saying you'll be out of
town or "Michael's not feeling
well."
And when it turns out you were
lying, when you get caught in
line at the grocery store or
taking Michael to the park,
well, then their soft-eyed
sympathy turns to resentment,
brittleness of spirit.
How could you be so ungrateful
as to turn down their charity,
after all?
It's the worst thing you can do
to a well-meaning white liberal,
reward their good intentions
with ingratitude.
They'd sooner have a murderer in
their midst.
So you turn even further
inwards, lose yourself in the
oasis of his smile, in the eyes
that seem wiser than they can
even comprehend...
He'll never know how grateful
you are that he never asks why
he doesn't need his babysitter
anymore, why the other parents
are never at his play dates
anymore, that he never asks why
he doesn't have a a mommy and a
daddy, or a mommy and a mommy.
He will never know how grateful
you are that he just seems to
know...
This is how you come to be alone
with Michael.
This is how you come to be
uniquely terrified of what might
happen if a student rounds the
corner weapon in hand and you're
too buried in a book to see it
in the mirror and get the jump
on the door.
Because then who'd take care of
him?
Your sister is 600 miles and a
universe away and absent her
unlikely return to reality --
someone who pities him, that's
who.
Someone who'll silently wonder
whether he's better off, whether
your demise was merely some
small hurdle in his narrative of
triumph.
And pity is no recipe for
excellence.
Those are the first words out of
your mouth when you hear there's
a shooter.
Even before your flash of relief
at how circumstance has
vindicated your paranoia, even
before you wonder whether your
therapist will be forced to
apologize the next time you see
her for doubting you, judging
you, if you even live to see
her!
Before any of those thoughts can
surface, you find yourself
whispering the words as if in a
trance.
"Pity is no recipe for
excellence."
Then you find yourself bounding
towards the door, eyes on your
mirror the entire time, until
you're just about to slam it
shut when you catch your
Department Chair, the one who
came to tell you, looking at you
quizzically.
You always imagined it happening
to you.
So when you hear her say,
"There's a shooter at the
school," you think she must mean
your school.
Nottheschool.
The elementary school.
Next thing you know, you're
standing at a police barrier in
a line of other anxious parents
waiting for some word.
Absent any information, parents
pull out phones, start streaming
CNN, MSNBC to see what they can
tell you.
The absurdity of watching
reporters on your phone who are
standing mere feet from you,
reporters who know nothing more
than you do, is lost in the
upside-down logic of this
moment.
Minutes pass, hours, or so it
seems, without any updates from
police.
Data plans buckle, phones die.
When you hear it.
The sound is so much duller than
in your imagination, yet it's
unmistakable.
So is its direction.
As officers start to pour out of
the building, you know it can
only mean one thing -- the
shooter has become his own
victim.
Answers are now inevitable.
The sheriff separates parents by
classroom and grade, and soon
everyone is lined up like
children anxiously waiting for
their teachers on the first day
of school.
You watch the sheriff work his
way from classroom to classroom,
grade to grade, dispatching some
grades wholesale to the
safe-zone where their
unblemished children wait.
With others, he goes down the
line name by name, some parents
collapsing into others' arms.
When it comes to your grade,
your room, 2C...
he stops short and lowers his
gaze.
Though he soon finds strength
to speak.
By that point, it is
unnecessary.
Still, he stumbles on, unleashes
a stream of information --
How the teacher did her best
to barricade the room...
how the shooter forced his way
in despite her efforts..
how the shooter took his own
life in that very room --
all of which feels painfully
irrelevant when stacked against
the sheer magnitude of the fact
that your son is no longer
alive.
You silently resent that the
sheriff is still speaking, that
he's dared to speak at all,
resent every word that crosses
his quivering lips so you tune
him out only to notice birds
still singing, squirrels
preparing for the
fast-approaching winter, leaves
caressing each other in the cool
autumn breeze, and you resent
them, too, for their casual
indifference.
By the time the sheriff moves to
the microphones, you resent the
sun for giving light enough to
see, the air for giving oxygen
to breathe, anything and
everything that allows you to go
on living while your son is
dead.
Because there you are -- still
alive -- still living, at
least -- and incapable of doing
anything to remedy that most
unfortunate fact.
You glance at your phone, out of
habit or because the body seeks
comfort in routine, when an
alert on your screen warns you
Michael is an hour late for
soccer practice.
You find your thumb sliding
unlock on the screen, starting
to dial your sister 600 miles
and a universe away because
"Sharing your joy multiplies it.
Sharing your pain halves it."
Or so you remember reading
somewhere.
And just as you're about to hit
send on the call, you remember
where it was -- on the wall of
your dentist's office -- and
wonder how something that seemed
so inane in the midst of a root
canal could possibly comfort in
a moment like this before
wondering how your mind can be
so fucking feeble as to think
about a root canal right now.
Then you wonder if your sister,
in her hazy ignorance, could
possibly comprehend what you are
about to tell her.
And even if she could, would she
care?
You suddenly see the virtue in
her philosophy of radical
detachment.
You consider not saying anything
about what's happened but
calling her anyway just to ask
her advice on how she manages to
float through life so
unencumbered.
Instead, you just stand there
while slowly -- or quickly?
You have no idea.
A vigil materializes in front of
you.
Your body soon buzzes from the
hymns all around -- hymns whose
vibration almost swallows you
whole along with candles,
silk-screens, solemn prayers
that all feel so poignant, so
prescient in the moment...
But when they yield to a steady
stream of lunches, potlucks,
support groups, suddenly you see
the latent pathology in this
endless cycle of nurturing,
in meals so carefully prepared
but perpetually uneaten, in
comfort so aggressively given
yet so rarely received...
And all of it focused with
particular intensity on you.
Because you need the nurturing
more than most because Michael
was "all you had" and now that
he's gone, well, what do you
have to live for?
And while you don't disagree,
you still sense a haughty
superiority in their gestures of
support, a message beneath their
Bundt cakes and floral
arrangements --
"If you'd just listened to us,
if you'd taken our advice when
you had the chance, well, you
wouldn't be alone right now,
would you?"
As if another body in your bed
would blunt the pain.
You consider asking them if
their lumpy, inadequate partners
actually bring them any solace.
Instead, you let your thoughts
drift to the shooter's parents,
who you find yourself thinking
about a lot more than the
parents of the other victims.
You imagine the singular depth
of their loneliness and find it
familiar.
Or at least you imagine it to
be.
And maybe you even call a
journalist who wrote about them,
ask him how to reach the
shooter's parents, and when
he says they'd rather not be
reached by you or anyone, maybe
you offer him some cash to make
it worth the effort.
But when he still declines,
emphasizes their overwhelming
need for privacy, you press no
further because you harbor no
anger, no ill will toward them,
even though their need seems
somewhat ironic to you.
Still, you respect it.
Because you can't even begin to
imagine.
Not that.
So you recede back into the sea
of other mourning parents and
tolerate their pity as far as
Michael's closed-casket
funeral -- "the only option,"
according to the funeral
director.
When the intensity of their
grief feels especially false,
you bear it nonetheless so as
not to seem ungrateful.
But when you've put the box that
supposedly holds your son into
the ground, you go home and vow
never to talk to them again.
You shut the door and wonder
if it was all a dream.
Sitting on the edge of his
unmade bed, surrounded by the
puzzles, other toys that
captured his earnest attention
for hours, surrounded by the
sheets that still hold his
smell, you can't help but wonder
how it can be that a mother can
drop her son off at school one
unremarkable September day then
never seen the oasis of his
smile or any part of him again,
as if he disappeared into thin
air.
Yet, when you find your body
forgetting waking up at 6:00 AM
to pack his lunch, making his
morning oatmeal, washing his
sheets.
How can you forget for even a
moment?
You smack yourself so violently,
your skin becomes a canvas of
blue, purple, brown.
How could you be so stupid,
you think.
Did Michael matter so little to
you?
In your darkest moments, you
start to wonder whether your
forgetfulness means the other
parents were right...
and the whole endeavor was
ill-fated from the start.
This vicious cycle -- amnesia,
guilt, swift and brutal
punishment -- continues until
one day, just before sunrise,
standing the kitchen washing
dishes, you swear you see him
out of the corner of your eye,
catch yourself asking him what
he wants for lunch, and start to
pound your thigh over and over
when it suddenly occurs to why
you keep forgetting!
It's that you have no way of
knowing what happened in that
classroom.
No witness, no tangible thing to
grab hold of.
You suddenly regret speaking out
against surveillance cameras in
the elementary school, regret
using the words "police state"
in the PTA meeting.
At least then, you'd have some
access to his final moment, some
contact.
You find yourself devouring
various news reports, series,
speculations on what might have
happened, what might have
motivated the shooter, what path
he might have taken through the
school.
You get DVR just so you can see
all the competing specials,
piece together a composite
picture, and when none of it
works, you go to the police
department to request the
relevant reports.
When the young sergeant working
the desk realizes who you are,
he hesitates, understandably,
but before he can open his
mouth to say, "Um, are you
sure?" or "Maybe this isn't the
best idea," you remind him he
works for you.
And how could he stand between
a mourning mother and what she
says she needs?
Before you know it, you're
walking out of there with a
bundle of paperwork tucked under
your arm, paperwork you spread
across your floor while pundits
blather in the background.
Maybe you even haul all the
furniture out of the living room
and tape out the position of
each body on the floor, in some
feeble attempt to retrace
Michael's final moments.
But even then, as you walk among
the tiny taped out bodies, stand
as they might have stood, crouch
in imagined terror, trying to
conjure the shooter before you,
even as you do it all again with
tape that glows and close the
curtains to block out
distraction, all your efforts
seem so uncertain, so...
speculative.
You will never know
what happened in that room.
So your mind fixates on meaning,
finding somewhere to assign
blame, but all the usual
suspects -- inadequate mental
healthcare, the NRA -- seem so
distant, nebulous, as far beyond
your grasp as the circumstances
surrounding Michael's death.
The only tangible thing you can
think of are the tiny stickers
on every door, the tiny fucking
stickers that don't do anything.
You consider doing a ritual
purge, carrying a razor blade,
scraping them from every single
door.
But what good would that do?
And then, in the midst of your
despair, your salvation appears
in the form of a news report on
the store where the shooter
purchased his weapon.
legallypurchased his weapon.
Before the story's even ended,
you find yourself in your car,
barreling off the highway onto a
lonely state road that will lead
you to where this man, this
mercenary dispenses death.
The entire drive over, you savor
what you will tell this man,
about he murdered Michael, how
he profits, about the
distinction between legality and
morality.
But, most of all, you savor the
clarity of purpose for the first
time since you lost your son.
The give of the gravel beneath
your feet propels you across the
parking lot, through the door,
to your task, when you see it.
The same assault rifle the
shooter used, looking down
imperiously from its post high
above the shop.
You'd recognize that weapon, its
silhouette, both jagged and
supple, anywhere.
You've Googled it so many times,
stared at its image so long,
you can see it on the inside of
your eyes when you close them at
night.
And standing beneath that
silhouette is a man who looks
not at all like the merchant of
death you imagined, but a placid
grandpa, who looks at you with
round, wet eyes that are almost
swallowed by big walrus brows,
and it takes you a second to
even register he's talking to
you, asking you, "Is there
something I can help you with?"
All you can manage is to raise
your arm and point at the weapon
on the wall.
He asks if you'd like to hold
it.
You find yourself nodding.
He asks whether you've ever
fired a weapon.
You shake your head.
And just as you sense he'll
suggest you start smaller, his
doubt seems to strengthen your
resolve.
"I want to hold it!" you say,
with enough force that the words
send him up the ladder with
knowing, probing steps, until he
reaches the top, dutifully
slings the thing over his
shoulder, and descends, before
gently dropping it into your
arms like a small child.
It's lighter than it looks.
"Because the butt's made of
plastic," he says.
And then, ever the gentlemen, he
asks permission to touch you so
he can show you how to hold it,
and you hesitate just a second
before you nod, let him fold his
large, leathery hands over your
own to place you in the proper
position.
But, as he does, as he sets your
arm and shoulder at the proper
angle, you sense something off
in his approach to this machine.
Even then, in all your
ignorance, you sense a lie in
the taught muscular stance he
tells you to take, the delusion
that he or any man can actually
control something so power.
You take the opposite approach,
surrender to its size, weight,
as he steps back to give your
stance a once-over and,
impressed, asks if you'd like to
give it a go.
"We've got a shooting range out
back."
You follow him to the
industrial-sized storage shed
behind his shop, where he
presents you with a pair of
plastic goggles and earmuffs
before warning you to "watch out
for the kick."
He says the same force that
throws the bullet forward throws
the weapon backwards, along with
anything in its path.
Most first-timers of a weapon
this size underestimate the
power, and the force of the shot
sends their shoulder all
herky-jerky, bullets flying
every which way.
So why don't we start with one
bullet and work our way up from
there, okay?
You nod, slip on your goggles,
while he preps the weapon,
places it in your arms, and
counsels you to start by
breathing in and out, deeply,
slowly.
Then, when you're ready, slowly
squeeze the trigger on the
exhale.
He slides the muffs over your
ears.
Suddenly, you're alone with your
thoughts, peripheral vision
sliced off by the edge of your
goggles.
Unable to see anything but the
silhouette straight in front of
you, unable to hear anything but
your quickening pulse.
You try to take the man's advice
and inhale slowly, but the
breath is shallow, sharp, and
panic starts to set in.
You shut your eyes, trying to
nip it in the bud...
when you see Michael...
standing where the silhouette
was.
It's the clearest you've seen
his face since before that day.
And even though he sees the
weapon you're pointing right at
him, he's smiling...
waving...
unafraid.
You blink your eyes to make sure
what you're seeing is real.
Open, close. Silhouette, son.
Still there, still smiling.
Your breath deepens, pulse
slows.
Open, close. Silhouette, son.
Inhale, exhale.
Open, close. Silhouette, son.
Inhale, exhale.
Open, close. Silhouette, son.
Inhale, exhale. Squeeze.
The kick bring such a familiar
jolt.
Just like the way Michael used
to keep you up all night when he
was still inside you.
You squeeze the trigger hoping
to feel the jolt again, but
nothing, and, again, nothing.
And you hardly feel the man
slide the muff off your right
ear and whisper, "Well done."
You open your eyes.
The silhouette wears a
dime-sized hole smack in the
center of its torso.
The man asks if you'd like to
give it another go.
You said you'd like to buy it.
When he warns you this
particular model comes with a
hefty price tag, you assure him
you're prepared to pay whatever
it's worth.
This is how you go from never
having held a gun to owning an
assault rifle in a matter of
minutes.
The ease of the purchase, just a
driver's license and 3-minute
wait both terrifies and delights
you.
In theory, you know full well
you can legally walk out of
there with this weapon this very
moment, but when it actually
comes to doing it, you expect
there to be some catch, some
complication.
So when there isn't, when you're
able to get into your car,
weapon in its pristine case, and
just drive away, you are
instantly consumed with laughter
that carries you the whole way
home.
When you get there, you step
into the living room, still
empty except for the tape
outlines on the floor.
You draw the blinds, close the
curtains again, but, this time,
you stand in the spot where the
shooter was, staring right at
Michael's outline.
Then you slip on goggles, ear
muffs, flip open the case, grip
the weapon in your hands,
surrender to its weight,
shut your eyes...
but nothing.
You try again, this time,
breathing deep to slow your
heart rate, but there's no
tension, no danger.
So you crack open the
complimentary ammo the kind old
man insisted you take, slide it
in the clip, but you keep your
finger clear of the trigger.
Still nothing.
You switch off the safety and
let your trembling finger hover
over the trigger.
Nothing.
Panic starts to set in that you
have done this unconscionable
thing, betrayed yourself by
buying this weapon, and all in
vain.
The panic is compounded by guilt
as your breath grows shallow,
sharp, when suddenly, you feel
the kick, hear the round
ricochet off the far wall.
You study your shaking arms, set
the weapon down, run to inspect
the splintered wall.
and turn around to find Michael
still smiling.
You immediately look up the
nearest shooting range.
Five minutes from campus.
Close enough to slip a session
in between your Tuesday classes,
where you can comfortably
cordon it off from the rest of
your life.
You put it in your calendar and
call it "Centering."
The next week at work, your
Department Chair is shocked to
find you in your office.
She tries to gently bring up the
subject of extended leave, or
maybe taking your sabbatical a
semester early, but you assure
her that's not necessary,
so long as you continue to teach
and teach well, which, you
definitely do.
The second your chair leaves
your office, you feel no shame
in continuing to surf the
Internet for advice on how to
handle your new companion, a
topic on which you soon become
an expert.
It turns out, your initial
instinct when holding the weapon
in that store, your instinct --
that machine is powerful,
machine has a mind of its own,
and the only way for the two of
you to coexist is to align
yourself with its interests,
it turns out, that instinct was
dead-on.
You read biographies of the
world's best snipers, scour
advice blogs of Olympic
shooters, read how they wear
lead vests that slow their heart
rate to the point that they can
shoot between each beat.
Your stomach turns to think that
the shooter might have done it
with such complete calm and
poise.
He might have done it without
feeling anything at all.
Still, you read on, fight the
mounting nausea, do what you
must to be with Michael, to the
hope of seeing him inside that
silhouette.
And when the pain is too great,
the nausea too overwhelming, you
remember when you were in labor
with Michael, how alone you
were.
How you hypnotized yourself
to diminish the pain.
And suddenly you understand.
To shoot a weapon well is to
merge yourself completely with
the needs of another being.
To shoot a weapon well is to
deny the most basic elements of
the self.
It is an act not unlike
parenting.
The only way you succeed is to
surrender.
So surrender you do.
7 days a week.
Because you soon learn that,
like a child, a weapon can't be
cleanly cordoned off between
your Tuesday classes.
Like a child, a weapon won't be
satisfied until it dominates
your every thought.
7 days a week, at the range, you
stare at the black hole of that
silhouette, see Michael inside
it, try to stretch time so you
might live with him as long as
possible in those moments
between beats, in those few
fleeting seconds before you
squeeze off another round.
The bruise that soon sprouts on
your shoulder in gold and purple
tones burns with satisfaction.
each time the unforgiving butt
of your gun assaults it.
You believe this bruise is a
sign that you're siphoning all
of Michael's pain out of him...
and into you.
When you strip to shower at
night, you place a hand on
the bare skin, feel its
throbbing warmth.
But, soon, shoulder numbs to the
pain, the blankness of that
silhouette loses its life, and
you find yourself collecting the
many misshapen rounds you shot,
running your hands over their
smooth, rough surface, trying to
comprehend the kind of power
that could produce such a
contradiction, and maybe you
even...
pound those rounds into your
bare shoulder, make the bruise
blossom anew.
Until one night, when the sharp
edge of one misshapen round
tears into your skin,
coats the cool lead with warmth
that shocks your system.
As you stand there, blood
bubbling from your ruptured
flesh, you suddenly see the
absurdity of your ritual at the
range, see its violence with
frightening clarity.
That night,
you bury your companion
in the backyard.
Only to find yourself unable to
leave it alone the next day.
Unable to even set food outside
your house.
Unable to teach your class
for the first time!
So long as it remains behind.
This is how you decide to join
the group of parents testifying
before the state legislature,
parents whose many overtures
you've ignored until now,
parents testifying on behalf of
a bill that would outlaw your
lone companion, even as you
can't help but let it lead you
to the range every night, or
precisely because you can't help
but let it lead you to the range
every night.
You volunteer your car for the
caravan to the capitol, "to
pitch it," you say, but you
really do it in case the chaos
of the legislative chamber is
too much to bear and you find
yourself needing to escape for
the simplicity and solitude of
a firing range.
You decide not judge yourself
should you feel the need to do
this because who could blame you
for needing a release?
You find the closest range to
the statehouse and memorize the
route.
6.2 miles, a 13-minute drive.
On the drive to the statehouse,
you wonder if any of the other
parents have the faintest clue
they're in a car that's carrying
one of the very weapons they're
coming to decry.
You make it through the
interminable drive by imagining
the look of shock on each of
their earnest faces if one of
them were to discover it while
popping your trunk during a pit
stop to fish out cholesterol
meds or Junior Mints.
The expressions you imagine are
so absurd, you find yourself
smiling in the midst of the
solemn ride.
When all the parents arrive,
you're gathered together in an
antechamber and reminded of the
rules -- two minutes each, no
more.
Do keep track of your own time
so as not to make committee
members look bad by cutting you
off.
Do address the committee
properly and respectfully.
Then the page asks everyone to
wave their phones in the air to
prove they are in fact switched
off.
You eye your carefully scripted
statement, double-spaced, as
you're escorted onto the floor.
The pregnant silence that fills
the chamber as you take your
seat soon yields to a monotonous
rhythm of two minutes,
two minutes, two minutes,
two minutes, two minutes,
two minutes, two minutes --
a rhythm that could blunt even
the most blistering testimony.
A rhythm you think is almost
intended to undermine you.
Parent seem more preoccupied by
the ticking clock, the onerous
and arbitrary rules then the
words coming out of their
mouths.
Not that you blame them!
You soon find your own attention
strained from the stilted
statements to the committee
members who struggle to perform
their earnest engagement.
Their effort is palpable.
Except for a young senator whose
rounded, boyish features are
emphasized by how he expelling
air out of the side of his
mouth.
As parent after parent
testifies, you watch the
senator's gaze drag back and
forth between his watch and
legal pad where his pen meanders
about the page.
You'd pay a fortune to glimpse
the childish doodles you're sure
you caught him drawing and
eagerly wait the moment he has
to flip the page so you can
confirm your suspicions.
But, before he does,
it's your turn.
And as the committee members
commence the perfunctory
shuffling of their papers, crane
their necks when you quietly
clear your throat, you toy with
telling them the truth.
Telling him the truth.
How you've experienced firsthand
the raw power of the weapons in
question, how you can't imagine
what task would demand such
force, how you still find that
force electric.
You feel the need to bear it
all, to show him the bruise on
your shoulder as proof to say
you're the prime example of how
a citizen can't be trusted to
control herself around machines
of such seductive power.
You feel yourself starting to
say all this, starting to reach
for your shoulder, when you see
the pale glow of a screen
in the senator's lap.
He's started texting from his
seat
You're so shocked by what you
see that several gaping seconds
pass before a sound emits from
your throat.
Gaping seconds gone forever from
your two-minute time limit.
It's too late to go off-script,
too late to do anything other
than read the words in front of
you with such ferocity you might
win his undivided attention, or
even just a glance away from
that screen, but neither comes
before someone is tapping your
shoulder to tell you your time
is up.
On the drive to the firing
range, you spend every second at
red lights -- and maybe some
seconds not at red lights --
scouring your phone for
information about this man.
You visit the legislative web
page to pair a name with a face,
and what you find waiting for
you, the well-coifed hair and
easy grin can't help but make
you laugh.
The other parents from your
carpool keep calling and
calling.
You send them straight to
voicemail.
They'll squeeze into the cars,
you think, as you continue
wringing the Internet dry of
whatever it will yield about
this senator.
His personal life -- single,
from everything you see.
His voting record --
aggressively pro-gun.
Awkward photo ops.
A radio interview where he's
skeptical about the number of
children killed by guns, where
he calls those statistics the...
"exaggeration of hysterical
liberals."
You resolve to find some way
to see the senator alone.
So you check into a hotel for
the night.
sit there waiting for the sun to
rise, and, first thing in the
morning, check your trunk, see
your companion still inside it,
and head straight to the
statehouse, the senator's
office, where you say you're a
lobbyist.
But the staffer at the front
desk seems skeptical.
Any lobbyist would know her boss
doesn't do morning meetings.
She starts listing dates and
times you might be able to meet
him, so you say, "You don't need
much time, just a few brief
moments," and you're happy to
hang out here and wait until
he's free, at which points, she
covers by saying, "There's
really nowhere to wait.
He has one of the smallest
offices..."
Seniority, or something.
And as you open your mouth to
protest, you clock the slightest
hint of fear in her eyes.
The same fear you had when that
first student who covered his
paper in Post-Its came to see
you in your office.
So you stand down, for her sake
and yours.
On your way out of the
statehouse, you pass a handful
of reporters.
One of them recognizes you from
your testimony the day before
and asks who you're here to see.
When you say the senator's name,
she can barely keep from rolling
her eyes before scribbling the
name of a bar on a scrap of
paper and telling you he
conducts his business there,
starting at 8:00.
You drive by the bar on the way
to a mall, where you spend hours
searching for the dress you're
sure will catch his eye.
Then you call your department
chair and leave a message
saying, yes, you are going to
need that extended leave after
all.
And thank you for being
so understanding.
Back at the hotel, you hang your
dress out to steam while you
shower, in preparation, before
you arrive a half-hour early and
perch conspicuously at the end
of the bar with a glass of wine.
He arrives 20 minutes late to
his own self-appointed hour,
taking suitor after suitor while
you hang back, nurse your wine,
contemplate your next move.
But something unexpected
surfaces when you're watching
him from across that bar,
watching the compulsive drumming
of his fingers on the tabletop,
the slow sweep of his palms down
his pant legs.
And soon you start wonder
whether that behavior is a sign
of energy or restlessness,
whether that's enthusiasm or
desperation beneath his
too-eager smile.
Whether he's buoyed by a sense
of purpose or leading a life
that's devoid of joy, when,
suddenly, he makes eye contact.
You have a hard time telling
whether he recognizes you or
not, whether he's terrified you
followed him here, or excited at
the chance to meet a lovely
stranger.
But when your eyes meet again,
he suddenly raises his brows, as
if to say, "Yes, I see you,
and, don't worry, I'll
definitely be with you just as
soon as all this nonsense is
over."
Suddenly, you're no longer
content to be the next thing on
his agenda.
You drape your purse over your
shoulder, walk out of the bar,
and leave what happens next to
chance.
You're almost at your car when
you feel his hand on your arm.
Before you can even feign
contrition, having interrupted
his meeting, he apologizes for
making you wait and wonders
aloud if he can't talk you back
into the bar for another drink.
You're now certain he has no
idea who you are, so you suggest
heading somewhere else.
And before you can even wonder
whether you're coming on too
strong, he offers to take you in
his car.
You say you'd feel more
comfortable following in your
own.
As you crawl behind him down
suburban streets, you clock his
eyes in his rearview mirror,
studying you every step of the
way, filling you with the
incendiary mix of giddiness and
disgust.
And when he signals to turn into
a driveway, you pull over a
little up the block, put your
car in park, and find yourself
walking around to the back of it
where you pop the trunk and let
your hands hover over the spare
compartment where it lies in
wait.
You watch your hands hover, see
how long you can hold them there
before they tremble and retreat
or act for themselves.
When you hear his voice call
out, "You coming?" and see him
look at you with his bemused
sort of half-smile, at which
point, you were just making sure
you hadn't forgotten something.
Then ease the trunk shut,
listen to the latch click.
The only touch of personality in
his too-tasteful apartment are
the crude crayon drawings that
line the entrance hall, drawings
you barely have time to take in
before he calls you into the
living room, where he's waiting
with a glass of wine.
A quick scan of your
surroundings reveals no photos
of him hunting, no trophies on
the walls.
None of the signs you'd expect
from someone who boasts his
particular brand of zealotry.
Just a clear glass coffee table
and two black leather sofas.
As you settle on the sofa next
to him, ease into the soft
leather, steal your first sip of
wine, something about the impish
smile that crawls onto your face
makes him ask if you know who he
is, and if you knew he'd be in
that bar tonight.
When your initial laugh doesn't
seem to satisfy him, you say,
"Yes, and no."
Of course you know who he is,
but seeing him in that bar,
that was just a...
happy accident.
"How happy?" he asks,
half-joking.
And you start in, dead serious,
or so he thinks, about how
deeply you appreciate his
tireless fight for your rights.
How hard it must be to hold fast
his principles when everyone
around him is so compromised,
how long you've admired him from
afar.
You're not sure what you expect
when you start in like this.
Maybe you're hoping to expose
his hubris, let his naked ego
soak your righteous rage,
but the longer you go on, the
more you sense his obvious
discomfort, which strikes you as
strange since you've seen plenty
of his kind before, and they've
never been the type to shy away
from praise.
Still, you take a perverse sort
of pleasure in watching him
squirm while you shower him with
adulation.
Until his discomfort is so
overwhelming, you begin to feel
guilty, and you slowly start to
realize that this man doesn't
believe the things you're saying
any more than you do,
that this man is no zealot at
all, but a too afraid to live
the consequences of his
convictions, that his cowardice
is so monumental...
he doesn't deserve
to exist.
But before your rage can amount
to anything, he grabs you
lightly by the wrist and kisses
you.
You let the kiss run its course,
then flash a giddy smile until
confident he's set the encounter
back on track.
He excuses himself to go to the
bathroom.
You say you'll try not to miss
him too much.
But soon after he shuts the
door, you're pretty sure you
hear him turn on the shower.
You do...hear him turn on the
shower.
And find yourself seizing the
unlikely opportunity to move to
your car, pop the trunk, remove
the weapon from its compartment,
slip a single round into the
chamber, and step back inside
where you pause momentarily on
the crayon drawings by the door
before returning the living
room, facing the bathroom,
assuming your stance.
Amidst the sound of cascading
water, you focus on your breath,
try to steady your stubborn
heart, which seems like a losing
proposition, so you shut your
eyes and find Michael,
waiting for you.
Only, this time,
he's not smiling.
He seems...
disappointed that you would take
this sacred thing, this intimate
act between the two of you
and waste it on someone so
unworthy.
That you would let this
stranger, this coward...
diminish it.
It's the first moment since he
was taken from you, since you
first held him in your arms in
the hospital that you wish you
couldn't see your son.
Wish he'd just let you have
this, this one thing!
But even when you open your
eyes, he's still --
He's standing right there.
Staring at you.
You...set the weapon down, tear
your fingers from the cold
comfort of the metal grip, leave
that part of you lying on the
clear glass coffee table, one
bullet still in the chamber,
then you turn and run down the
hall, where you find yourself
frozen on the drawings by the
door.
Whose drawings they are, you'll
never know, but you're stuck
there, staring at them, when you
hear the shower stop, grab the
closest one off the wall, tuck
the frame under your arm, keep
running to the car, start the
engine, and drive...
...and drive...
...and drive.
How far, who knows?
You think of the senator
stepping out of the shower,
your offering on his table, one
round in the chamber, having to
live with that terror -- I mean,
to know how close he came...
until there's nothing in the
rearview, just darkness -- the
same in front -- until the black
smothers you so fully, you can't
tell how fast you're going, or
even if you're going at all.
So you lift your foot from the
gas, let the car roll to a stop,
look down to focus on your
breath, see the drawing still in
your lap.
Its messy lines running off the
page.
Remember how Michael's eager
marker always skipped off his
paper, got on the carpet.
You should go home, you think,
tear up the tape outlines, see
if the marker stains are still
there, run your fingers over
them before they fade.
You catch movement in the
rearview, see Michael in the
seat behind you.
No longer disappointed, but...
You turn around to smile at your
son...
...but he's gone.
Thank you.
happening to you.
Some young student, always male,
in your cramped basement office,
twitching with anger, fear about
not getting into med school,
law school, or the like, about
mountains of debt swallowing his
stillborn future, and all
because of you.
Because you dared make him look
outside himself, see past his
narrow experience to the
inherent difficulties that come
with not being male, because,
no, you wouldn't consider
changing his grade, but most of
all, because you dared challenge
him.
Entitlement mixes with
adrenaline, with fear, with
testosterone.
You smell the incendiary
cocktail wafting off him while
his leg twitches wildly, until
he lift the edge of his shirt.
A simple, subtle gesture.
Graceful, even.
He flips up the bottom corner of
his tasteful green button-down,
and there is it, obediently
waiting in its holster, eyeing
you with its obsidian stare.
You slowly raise your hands.
Why?
Instinct, probably?
You've seen it 100 times in
movies.
This is the way you survive when
someone pulls a gun, right?
You slowly lift your empty arms.
The international symbol of
plaintive innocence.
Never mind this young man isn't
a cop, and, even if he were,
raising your hands is far from a
guarantee of survival.
Still, your hands ascend,
weightless, while words tumble
out, heavy and insubstantial,
at once.
They're all that stand between
you and this man, his gun, its
obsidian stare.
Maybe you're right.
Maybe there's something to your
point of view.
Maybe we can take another look
at your final grade --
That's when you feel it.
Warmth.
Takes a moment to register it's
your own.
That you're in shock.
That you never heard the shot or
saw the muzzle flash a few
inches from your face.
The warmth continues spreading
down your face, trickles into
your mouth, and when that first
taste of iron hits your
tongue -- pure rust invading
your mouth -- all your
sensation
floods back.
Burning, stabbing, throbbing
as he blasts and blasts away as
life slowly slips from your
grasp...
And then you wake up.
The first time you have this
dream is the time you ask a
student -- a male student --
to kindly consider the premise
that there just might be some
small disadvantage to being a
woman -- it's a women's
studies course after all -- and
to try to incorporate such a
perspective into his paper
revision.
What you get back is no revision
at all but the original paper
covered in Post-it Notes full of
borderline violent screeds about
your "insidious propaganda," the
college's "inhumane curriculum
requirements," and your
"appalling vendetta" -- three
underlines -- against men.
This is the first time you
entertain the possibility that
it might not be someone else on
the news next time, that next
time it just might be you.
This is when you start locking
your office door even during
office hours --especially
during office hours and post a
cute hand-written sign urging
students to "Please do knock!"
You do it under the excuse of
needing to concentrate on your
research, but what distraction
could there possibly be at the
end of a lonely basement hall?
And every time you open the
door, you hope your students
won't notice how you pause just
a bit to see if you can catch a
glimpse of anything through the
cracked door, see anything
shining before you open wide
with a smile, invite them in,
blame your slowness on your age
and the heavy door.
"Oh, this heavy door,"
you say with a chuckle.
After a few semesters, the young
man in question -- in your head
you call him The Catalyst -- he
graduates magna cum, of course,
and your panic starts to
subside, the dreams recur less
frequently, but recur
nonetheless.
So you still -- you remain
vigilant.
Each new class, you identify a
most likely candidate, just a
minor mental checkmark, and
maybe you start leaving your
office door open again, but this
time with a strategically placed
mirror something tasteful with
a funky frame, something you
"thrifted!" you tell the
students.
You place it right at the spot
where you can see anyone coming
round the corner from your desk,
and maybe you even move your
desk...
Give yourself just enough time
to run to the door and slam it
shut should you need to.
At least this is what you tell
your therapist one Wednesday
afternoon when she remarks that
you seem especially on edge.
The Catalyst of your confession
is not some student this time
but the little stickers that
have suddenly appeared in every
window now that concealed carry
is the law of the land.
Thank you, Supreme Court!
Little stickers with the
silhouette of a menacing
weapon -- a .9-mil, you will
later learn -- with a bright red
line through it.
The stickers people are now
legally required to put up if
they don't want someone bringing
a weapon into their
establishment, as if that's
something one should have to
state aloud.
"No, please don't bring that
thing that's likely to get one
of us killed into my otherwise
peaceful place of work."
It really should be the
opposite, you'd think, an opt-in
sort of thing where those who
truly prefer weapons should be
required to post "Weapons,
please!" or something of the
sort so you and everyone else
who's sane can know exactly
where to avoid.
Because now each time you see
that silhouette, it feels like
an assault.
You sweat, start to palpitate.
But more than that, you wonder
if some troubled young man who
wouldn't otherwise will suddenly
turn to violence precisely
because he has that subtle
reminder, that silhouette and
all its potency -- power, sex --
knocking around somewhere in his
subconscious.
And, well, even though it makes
sense that she of all people
would need one in her window,
the last place you expect to see
one of these silhouettes staring
at you is on your therapist's
door.
So she of course senses your
anxiety, asks an incisive
question and it all comes out --
about The Catalyst, the
recurring dream, the mirror on
your office wall, the many
"minor" precautions you've
taken.
You pretend to laugh it off,
try to make it seem like you
have a sense of humor about the
whole thing because this is the
first time you've admitted any
of this to anyone, and,
naturally, you're worried what
she'll think of you but when
you've finished, you have to
admit that you feel lighter.
Unburdened.
Closer to her.
Until you hear the hint of
skepticism in her voice.
Though she does her best to
conceal it, you still sense it
in the up-glide at the end of
each sentence in her false
affirmation.
You probe her to see if your
intuition is correct, slip in a
subtle "you know what I mean?"
But when her response is vaguely
noncommittal you remind yourself
to never question your intuition
again.
This is the first time you feel
judged by your therapist.
As you drive away from her
office full of shame,
embarrassment at having shared
those thoughts, but most of all
at having thought those
thoughts, you have this sudden
streak of insight and laugh out
loud because of course she'd
judge you.
Of course she wouldn't
understand.
The stakes aren't the same for
her.
If something happens to her, if
some unstable patient walks in
and decides to disregard the
little sticker in her window,
she has a successful husband, a
large and loving family for her
children to fall back on, but if
the same thing happens to you
there will be no one to take
care of Michael.
Yes.
Michael...
who can't wait to start second
grade...
who is the greatest choice
you've ever made...
the most challenging choice
you've made.
Even though, your whole life,
you chose nothing but challenge,
like how you chose to embrace
your love of books, even though
it meant never fitting in with
all the "normal" girls where you
grew up.
Or how you chose to ignore your
parents when they said not to
get your hopes up for a
scholarship, and that college
might not be possible without
one.
Or how you chose grad school
over a more tedious and sensible
career path, but...
All of that just felt like the
bare minimum of what you had to
do to survive.
But, with Michael, you actually
had a choice, and you still
chose him.
Even though it meant choosing
challenge every step of the way.
And not just because you had to
pick the donor yourself, drive
yourself to all the
appointments.
Not just because you had no
relief on diaper duty.
Those are the easy parts.
To choose to have a child by
yourself in the quiet bedroom
community surrounding your
college's campus, it means
choosing the subtle scrutiny of
everyone around you.
Choosing to endure their silent
belief that yours is a place of
yearning, yours is a place of
lack.
At first, the lack of sleep
makes you mistake their pity for
approval -- support, even --
but when the offers of food and
childcare turn to barbecues,
dinner parties, playdates where
some single man is always
present, the smiles on the
cherubic faces of your friends
seem to have something else
behind them some implicit
question like...
"Haven't you forgotten
something, dear?"
And when months of single men
fail to yield any change in your
life, women start appearing in
their place -- these people
aren't prejudiced, after all --
and though you find the women
a...more alluring option,
they are not the option,
not your option, not right now.
So you stop showing up to their
dinner parties, cocktail hours,
start saying you'll be out of
town or "Michael's not feeling
well."
And when it turns out you were
lying, when you get caught in
line at the grocery store or
taking Michael to the park,
well, then their soft-eyed
sympathy turns to resentment,
brittleness of spirit.
How could you be so ungrateful
as to turn down their charity,
after all?
It's the worst thing you can do
to a well-meaning white liberal,
reward their good intentions
with ingratitude.
They'd sooner have a murderer in
their midst.
So you turn even further
inwards, lose yourself in the
oasis of his smile, in the eyes
that seem wiser than they can
even comprehend...
He'll never know how grateful
you are that he never asks why
he doesn't need his babysitter
anymore, why the other parents
are never at his play dates
anymore, that he never asks why
he doesn't have a a mommy and a
daddy, or a mommy and a mommy.
He will never know how grateful
you are that he just seems to
know...
This is how you come to be alone
with Michael.
This is how you come to be
uniquely terrified of what might
happen if a student rounds the
corner weapon in hand and you're
too buried in a book to see it
in the mirror and get the jump
on the door.
Because then who'd take care of
him?
Your sister is 600 miles and a
universe away and absent her
unlikely return to reality --
someone who pities him, that's
who.
Someone who'll silently wonder
whether he's better off, whether
your demise was merely some
small hurdle in his narrative of
triumph.
And pity is no recipe for
excellence.
Those are the first words out of
your mouth when you hear there's
a shooter.
Even before your flash of relief
at how circumstance has
vindicated your paranoia, even
before you wonder whether your
therapist will be forced to
apologize the next time you see
her for doubting you, judging
you, if you even live to see
her!
Before any of those thoughts can
surface, you find yourself
whispering the words as if in a
trance.
"Pity is no recipe for
excellence."
Then you find yourself bounding
towards the door, eyes on your
mirror the entire time, until
you're just about to slam it
shut when you catch your
Department Chair, the one who
came to tell you, looking at you
quizzically.
You always imagined it happening
to you.
So when you hear her say,
"There's a shooter at the
school," you think she must mean
your school.
Nottheschool.
The elementary school.
Next thing you know, you're
standing at a police barrier in
a line of other anxious parents
waiting for some word.
Absent any information, parents
pull out phones, start streaming
CNN, MSNBC to see what they can
tell you.
The absurdity of watching
reporters on your phone who are
standing mere feet from you,
reporters who know nothing more
than you do, is lost in the
upside-down logic of this
moment.
Minutes pass, hours, or so it
seems, without any updates from
police.
Data plans buckle, phones die.
When you hear it.
The sound is so much duller than
in your imagination, yet it's
unmistakable.
So is its direction.
As officers start to pour out of
the building, you know it can
only mean one thing -- the
shooter has become his own
victim.
Answers are now inevitable.
The sheriff separates parents by
classroom and grade, and soon
everyone is lined up like
children anxiously waiting for
their teachers on the first day
of school.
You watch the sheriff work his
way from classroom to classroom,
grade to grade, dispatching some
grades wholesale to the
safe-zone where their
unblemished children wait.
With others, he goes down the
line name by name, some parents
collapsing into others' arms.
When it comes to your grade,
your room, 2C...
he stops short and lowers his
gaze.
Though he soon finds strength
to speak.
By that point, it is
unnecessary.
Still, he stumbles on, unleashes
a stream of information --
How the teacher did her best
to barricade the room...
how the shooter forced his way
in despite her efforts..
how the shooter took his own
life in that very room --
all of which feels painfully
irrelevant when stacked against
the sheer magnitude of the fact
that your son is no longer
alive.
You silently resent that the
sheriff is still speaking, that
he's dared to speak at all,
resent every word that crosses
his quivering lips so you tune
him out only to notice birds
still singing, squirrels
preparing for the
fast-approaching winter, leaves
caressing each other in the cool
autumn breeze, and you resent
them, too, for their casual
indifference.
By the time the sheriff moves to
the microphones, you resent the
sun for giving light enough to
see, the air for giving oxygen
to breathe, anything and
everything that allows you to go
on living while your son is
dead.
Because there you are -- still
alive -- still living, at
least -- and incapable of doing
anything to remedy that most
unfortunate fact.
You glance at your phone, out of
habit or because the body seeks
comfort in routine, when an
alert on your screen warns you
Michael is an hour late for
soccer practice.
You find your thumb sliding
unlock on the screen, starting
to dial your sister 600 miles
and a universe away because
"Sharing your joy multiplies it.
Sharing your pain halves it."
Or so you remember reading
somewhere.
And just as you're about to hit
send on the call, you remember
where it was -- on the wall of
your dentist's office -- and
wonder how something that seemed
so inane in the midst of a root
canal could possibly comfort in
a moment like this before
wondering how your mind can be
so fucking feeble as to think
about a root canal right now.
Then you wonder if your sister,
in her hazy ignorance, could
possibly comprehend what you are
about to tell her.
And even if she could, would she
care?
You suddenly see the virtue in
her philosophy of radical
detachment.
You consider not saying anything
about what's happened but
calling her anyway just to ask
her advice on how she manages to
float through life so
unencumbered.
Instead, you just stand there
while slowly -- or quickly?
You have no idea.
A vigil materializes in front of
you.
Your body soon buzzes from the
hymns all around -- hymns whose
vibration almost swallows you
whole along with candles,
silk-screens, solemn prayers
that all feel so poignant, so
prescient in the moment...
But when they yield to a steady
stream of lunches, potlucks,
support groups, suddenly you see
the latent pathology in this
endless cycle of nurturing,
in meals so carefully prepared
but perpetually uneaten, in
comfort so aggressively given
yet so rarely received...
And all of it focused with
particular intensity on you.
Because you need the nurturing
more than most because Michael
was "all you had" and now that
he's gone, well, what do you
have to live for?
And while you don't disagree,
you still sense a haughty
superiority in their gestures of
support, a message beneath their
Bundt cakes and floral
arrangements --
"If you'd just listened to us,
if you'd taken our advice when
you had the chance, well, you
wouldn't be alone right now,
would you?"
As if another body in your bed
would blunt the pain.
You consider asking them if
their lumpy, inadequate partners
actually bring them any solace.
Instead, you let your thoughts
drift to the shooter's parents,
who you find yourself thinking
about a lot more than the
parents of the other victims.
You imagine the singular depth
of their loneliness and find it
familiar.
Or at least you imagine it to
be.
And maybe you even call a
journalist who wrote about them,
ask him how to reach the
shooter's parents, and when
he says they'd rather not be
reached by you or anyone, maybe
you offer him some cash to make
it worth the effort.
But when he still declines,
emphasizes their overwhelming
need for privacy, you press no
further because you harbor no
anger, no ill will toward them,
even though their need seems
somewhat ironic to you.
Still, you respect it.
Because you can't even begin to
imagine.
Not that.
So you recede back into the sea
of other mourning parents and
tolerate their pity as far as
Michael's closed-casket
funeral -- "the only option,"
according to the funeral
director.
When the intensity of their
grief feels especially false,
you bear it nonetheless so as
not to seem ungrateful.
But when you've put the box that
supposedly holds your son into
the ground, you go home and vow
never to talk to them again.
You shut the door and wonder
if it was all a dream.
Sitting on the edge of his
unmade bed, surrounded by the
puzzles, other toys that
captured his earnest attention
for hours, surrounded by the
sheets that still hold his
smell, you can't help but wonder
how it can be that a mother can
drop her son off at school one
unremarkable September day then
never seen the oasis of his
smile or any part of him again,
as if he disappeared into thin
air.
Yet, when you find your body
forgetting waking up at 6:00 AM
to pack his lunch, making his
morning oatmeal, washing his
sheets.
How can you forget for even a
moment?
You smack yourself so violently,
your skin becomes a canvas of
blue, purple, brown.
How could you be so stupid,
you think.
Did Michael matter so little to
you?
In your darkest moments, you
start to wonder whether your
forgetfulness means the other
parents were right...
and the whole endeavor was
ill-fated from the start.
This vicious cycle -- amnesia,
guilt, swift and brutal
punishment -- continues until
one day, just before sunrise,
standing the kitchen washing
dishes, you swear you see him
out of the corner of your eye,
catch yourself asking him what
he wants for lunch, and start to
pound your thigh over and over
when it suddenly occurs to why
you keep forgetting!
It's that you have no way of
knowing what happened in that
classroom.
No witness, no tangible thing to
grab hold of.
You suddenly regret speaking out
against surveillance cameras in
the elementary school, regret
using the words "police state"
in the PTA meeting.
At least then, you'd have some
access to his final moment, some
contact.
You find yourself devouring
various news reports, series,
speculations on what might have
happened, what might have
motivated the shooter, what path
he might have taken through the
school.
You get DVR just so you can see
all the competing specials,
piece together a composite
picture, and when none of it
works, you go to the police
department to request the
relevant reports.
When the young sergeant working
the desk realizes who you are,
he hesitates, understandably,
but before he can open his
mouth to say, "Um, are you
sure?" or "Maybe this isn't the
best idea," you remind him he
works for you.
And how could he stand between
a mourning mother and what she
says she needs?
Before you know it, you're
walking out of there with a
bundle of paperwork tucked under
your arm, paperwork you spread
across your floor while pundits
blather in the background.
Maybe you even haul all the
furniture out of the living room
and tape out the position of
each body on the floor, in some
feeble attempt to retrace
Michael's final moments.
But even then, as you walk among
the tiny taped out bodies, stand
as they might have stood, crouch
in imagined terror, trying to
conjure the shooter before you,
even as you do it all again with
tape that glows and close the
curtains to block out
distraction, all your efforts
seem so uncertain, so...
speculative.
You will never know
what happened in that room.
So your mind fixates on meaning,
finding somewhere to assign
blame, but all the usual
suspects -- inadequate mental
healthcare, the NRA -- seem so
distant, nebulous, as far beyond
your grasp as the circumstances
surrounding Michael's death.
The only tangible thing you can
think of are the tiny stickers
on every door, the tiny fucking
stickers that don't do anything.
You consider doing a ritual
purge, carrying a razor blade,
scraping them from every single
door.
But what good would that do?
And then, in the midst of your
despair, your salvation appears
in the form of a news report on
the store where the shooter
purchased his weapon.
legallypurchased his weapon.
Before the story's even ended,
you find yourself in your car,
barreling off the highway onto a
lonely state road that will lead
you to where this man, this
mercenary dispenses death.
The entire drive over, you savor
what you will tell this man,
about he murdered Michael, how
he profits, about the
distinction between legality and
morality.
But, most of all, you savor the
clarity of purpose for the first
time since you lost your son.
The give of the gravel beneath
your feet propels you across the
parking lot, through the door,
to your task, when you see it.
The same assault rifle the
shooter used, looking down
imperiously from its post high
above the shop.
You'd recognize that weapon, its
silhouette, both jagged and
supple, anywhere.
You've Googled it so many times,
stared at its image so long,
you can see it on the inside of
your eyes when you close them at
night.
And standing beneath that
silhouette is a man who looks
not at all like the merchant of
death you imagined, but a placid
grandpa, who looks at you with
round, wet eyes that are almost
swallowed by big walrus brows,
and it takes you a second to
even register he's talking to
you, asking you, "Is there
something I can help you with?"
All you can manage is to raise
your arm and point at the weapon
on the wall.
He asks if you'd like to hold
it.
You find yourself nodding.
He asks whether you've ever
fired a weapon.
You shake your head.
And just as you sense he'll
suggest you start smaller, his
doubt seems to strengthen your
resolve.
"I want to hold it!" you say,
with enough force that the words
send him up the ladder with
knowing, probing steps, until he
reaches the top, dutifully
slings the thing over his
shoulder, and descends, before
gently dropping it into your
arms like a small child.
It's lighter than it looks.
"Because the butt's made of
plastic," he says.
And then, ever the gentlemen, he
asks permission to touch you so
he can show you how to hold it,
and you hesitate just a second
before you nod, let him fold his
large, leathery hands over your
own to place you in the proper
position.
But, as he does, as he sets your
arm and shoulder at the proper
angle, you sense something off
in his approach to this machine.
Even then, in all your
ignorance, you sense a lie in
the taught muscular stance he
tells you to take, the delusion
that he or any man can actually
control something so power.
You take the opposite approach,
surrender to its size, weight,
as he steps back to give your
stance a once-over and,
impressed, asks if you'd like to
give it a go.
"We've got a shooting range out
back."
You follow him to the
industrial-sized storage shed
behind his shop, where he
presents you with a pair of
plastic goggles and earmuffs
before warning you to "watch out
for the kick."
He says the same force that
throws the bullet forward throws
the weapon backwards, along with
anything in its path.
Most first-timers of a weapon
this size underestimate the
power, and the force of the shot
sends their shoulder all
herky-jerky, bullets flying
every which way.
So why don't we start with one
bullet and work our way up from
there, okay?
You nod, slip on your goggles,
while he preps the weapon,
places it in your arms, and
counsels you to start by
breathing in and out, deeply,
slowly.
Then, when you're ready, slowly
squeeze the trigger on the
exhale.
He slides the muffs over your
ears.
Suddenly, you're alone with your
thoughts, peripheral vision
sliced off by the edge of your
goggles.
Unable to see anything but the
silhouette straight in front of
you, unable to hear anything but
your quickening pulse.
You try to take the man's advice
and inhale slowly, but the
breath is shallow, sharp, and
panic starts to set in.
You shut your eyes, trying to
nip it in the bud...
when you see Michael...
standing where the silhouette
was.
It's the clearest you've seen
his face since before that day.
And even though he sees the
weapon you're pointing right at
him, he's smiling...
waving...
unafraid.
You blink your eyes to make sure
what you're seeing is real.
Open, close. Silhouette, son.
Still there, still smiling.
Your breath deepens, pulse
slows.
Open, close. Silhouette, son.
Inhale, exhale.
Open, close. Silhouette, son.
Inhale, exhale.
Open, close. Silhouette, son.
Inhale, exhale. Squeeze.
The kick bring such a familiar
jolt.
Just like the way Michael used
to keep you up all night when he
was still inside you.
You squeeze the trigger hoping
to feel the jolt again, but
nothing, and, again, nothing.
And you hardly feel the man
slide the muff off your right
ear and whisper, "Well done."
You open your eyes.
The silhouette wears a
dime-sized hole smack in the
center of its torso.
The man asks if you'd like to
give it another go.
You said you'd like to buy it.
When he warns you this
particular model comes with a
hefty price tag, you assure him
you're prepared to pay whatever
it's worth.
This is how you go from never
having held a gun to owning an
assault rifle in a matter of
minutes.
The ease of the purchase, just a
driver's license and 3-minute
wait both terrifies and delights
you.
In theory, you know full well
you can legally walk out of
there with this weapon this very
moment, but when it actually
comes to doing it, you expect
there to be some catch, some
complication.
So when there isn't, when you're
able to get into your car,
weapon in its pristine case, and
just drive away, you are
instantly consumed with laughter
that carries you the whole way
home.
When you get there, you step
into the living room, still
empty except for the tape
outlines on the floor.
You draw the blinds, close the
curtains again, but, this time,
you stand in the spot where the
shooter was, staring right at
Michael's outline.
Then you slip on goggles, ear
muffs, flip open the case, grip
the weapon in your hands,
surrender to its weight,
shut your eyes...
but nothing.
You try again, this time,
breathing deep to slow your
heart rate, but there's no
tension, no danger.
So you crack open the
complimentary ammo the kind old
man insisted you take, slide it
in the clip, but you keep your
finger clear of the trigger.
Still nothing.
You switch off the safety and
let your trembling finger hover
over the trigger.
Nothing.
Panic starts to set in that you
have done this unconscionable
thing, betrayed yourself by
buying this weapon, and all in
vain.
The panic is compounded by guilt
as your breath grows shallow,
sharp, when suddenly, you feel
the kick, hear the round
ricochet off the far wall.
You study your shaking arms, set
the weapon down, run to inspect
the splintered wall.
and turn around to find Michael
still smiling.
You immediately look up the
nearest shooting range.
Five minutes from campus.
Close enough to slip a session
in between your Tuesday classes,
where you can comfortably
cordon it off from the rest of
your life.
You put it in your calendar and
call it "Centering."
The next week at work, your
Department Chair is shocked to
find you in your office.
She tries to gently bring up the
subject of extended leave, or
maybe taking your sabbatical a
semester early, but you assure
her that's not necessary,
so long as you continue to teach
and teach well, which, you
definitely do.
The second your chair leaves
your office, you feel no shame
in continuing to surf the
Internet for advice on how to
handle your new companion, a
topic on which you soon become
an expert.
It turns out, your initial
instinct when holding the weapon
in that store, your instinct --
that machine is powerful,
machine has a mind of its own,
and the only way for the two of
you to coexist is to align
yourself with its interests,
it turns out, that instinct was
dead-on.
You read biographies of the
world's best snipers, scour
advice blogs of Olympic
shooters, read how they wear
lead vests that slow their heart
rate to the point that they can
shoot between each beat.
Your stomach turns to think that
the shooter might have done it
with such complete calm and
poise.
He might have done it without
feeling anything at all.
Still, you read on, fight the
mounting nausea, do what you
must to be with Michael, to the
hope of seeing him inside that
silhouette.
And when the pain is too great,
the nausea too overwhelming, you
remember when you were in labor
with Michael, how alone you
were.
How you hypnotized yourself
to diminish the pain.
And suddenly you understand.
To shoot a weapon well is to
merge yourself completely with
the needs of another being.
To shoot a weapon well is to
deny the most basic elements of
the self.
It is an act not unlike
parenting.
The only way you succeed is to
surrender.
So surrender you do.
7 days a week.
Because you soon learn that,
like a child, a weapon can't be
cleanly cordoned off between
your Tuesday classes.
Like a child, a weapon won't be
satisfied until it dominates
your every thought.
7 days a week, at the range, you
stare at the black hole of that
silhouette, see Michael inside
it, try to stretch time so you
might live with him as long as
possible in those moments
between beats, in those few
fleeting seconds before you
squeeze off another round.
The bruise that soon sprouts on
your shoulder in gold and purple
tones burns with satisfaction.
each time the unforgiving butt
of your gun assaults it.
You believe this bruise is a
sign that you're siphoning all
of Michael's pain out of him...
and into you.
When you strip to shower at
night, you place a hand on
the bare skin, feel its
throbbing warmth.
But, soon, shoulder numbs to the
pain, the blankness of that
silhouette loses its life, and
you find yourself collecting the
many misshapen rounds you shot,
running your hands over their
smooth, rough surface, trying to
comprehend the kind of power
that could produce such a
contradiction, and maybe you
even...
pound those rounds into your
bare shoulder, make the bruise
blossom anew.
Until one night, when the sharp
edge of one misshapen round
tears into your skin,
coats the cool lead with warmth
that shocks your system.
As you stand there, blood
bubbling from your ruptured
flesh, you suddenly see the
absurdity of your ritual at the
range, see its violence with
frightening clarity.
That night,
you bury your companion
in the backyard.
Only to find yourself unable to
leave it alone the next day.
Unable to even set food outside
your house.
Unable to teach your class
for the first time!
So long as it remains behind.
This is how you decide to join
the group of parents testifying
before the state legislature,
parents whose many overtures
you've ignored until now,
parents testifying on behalf of
a bill that would outlaw your
lone companion, even as you
can't help but let it lead you
to the range every night, or
precisely because you can't help
but let it lead you to the range
every night.
You volunteer your car for the
caravan to the capitol, "to
pitch it," you say, but you
really do it in case the chaos
of the legislative chamber is
too much to bear and you find
yourself needing to escape for
the simplicity and solitude of
a firing range.
You decide not judge yourself
should you feel the need to do
this because who could blame you
for needing a release?
You find the closest range to
the statehouse and memorize the
route.
6.2 miles, a 13-minute drive.
On the drive to the statehouse,
you wonder if any of the other
parents have the faintest clue
they're in a car that's carrying
one of the very weapons they're
coming to decry.
You make it through the
interminable drive by imagining
the look of shock on each of
their earnest faces if one of
them were to discover it while
popping your trunk during a pit
stop to fish out cholesterol
meds or Junior Mints.
The expressions you imagine are
so absurd, you find yourself
smiling in the midst of the
solemn ride.
When all the parents arrive,
you're gathered together in an
antechamber and reminded of the
rules -- two minutes each, no
more.
Do keep track of your own time
so as not to make committee
members look bad by cutting you
off.
Do address the committee
properly and respectfully.
Then the page asks everyone to
wave their phones in the air to
prove they are in fact switched
off.
You eye your carefully scripted
statement, double-spaced, as
you're escorted onto the floor.
The pregnant silence that fills
the chamber as you take your
seat soon yields to a monotonous
rhythm of two minutes,
two minutes, two minutes,
two minutes, two minutes,
two minutes, two minutes --
a rhythm that could blunt even
the most blistering testimony.
A rhythm you think is almost
intended to undermine you.
Parent seem more preoccupied by
the ticking clock, the onerous
and arbitrary rules then the
words coming out of their
mouths.
Not that you blame them!
You soon find your own attention
strained from the stilted
statements to the committee
members who struggle to perform
their earnest engagement.
Their effort is palpable.
Except for a young senator whose
rounded, boyish features are
emphasized by how he expelling
air out of the side of his
mouth.
As parent after parent
testifies, you watch the
senator's gaze drag back and
forth between his watch and
legal pad where his pen meanders
about the page.
You'd pay a fortune to glimpse
the childish doodles you're sure
you caught him drawing and
eagerly wait the moment he has
to flip the page so you can
confirm your suspicions.
But, before he does,
it's your turn.
And as the committee members
commence the perfunctory
shuffling of their papers, crane
their necks when you quietly
clear your throat, you toy with
telling them the truth.
Telling him the truth.
How you've experienced firsthand
the raw power of the weapons in
question, how you can't imagine
what task would demand such
force, how you still find that
force electric.
You feel the need to bear it
all, to show him the bruise on
your shoulder as proof to say
you're the prime example of how
a citizen can't be trusted to
control herself around machines
of such seductive power.
You feel yourself starting to
say all this, starting to reach
for your shoulder, when you see
the pale glow of a screen
in the senator's lap.
He's started texting from his
seat
You're so shocked by what you
see that several gaping seconds
pass before a sound emits from
your throat.
Gaping seconds gone forever from
your two-minute time limit.
It's too late to go off-script,
too late to do anything other
than read the words in front of
you with such ferocity you might
win his undivided attention, or
even just a glance away from
that screen, but neither comes
before someone is tapping your
shoulder to tell you your time
is up.
On the drive to the firing
range, you spend every second at
red lights -- and maybe some
seconds not at red lights --
scouring your phone for
information about this man.
You visit the legislative web
page to pair a name with a face,
and what you find waiting for
you, the well-coifed hair and
easy grin can't help but make
you laugh.
The other parents from your
carpool keep calling and
calling.
You send them straight to
voicemail.
They'll squeeze into the cars,
you think, as you continue
wringing the Internet dry of
whatever it will yield about
this senator.
His personal life -- single,
from everything you see.
His voting record --
aggressively pro-gun.
Awkward photo ops.
A radio interview where he's
skeptical about the number of
children killed by guns, where
he calls those statistics the...
"exaggeration of hysterical
liberals."
You resolve to find some way
to see the senator alone.
So you check into a hotel for
the night.
sit there waiting for the sun to
rise, and, first thing in the
morning, check your trunk, see
your companion still inside it,
and head straight to the
statehouse, the senator's
office, where you say you're a
lobbyist.
But the staffer at the front
desk seems skeptical.
Any lobbyist would know her boss
doesn't do morning meetings.
She starts listing dates and
times you might be able to meet
him, so you say, "You don't need
much time, just a few brief
moments," and you're happy to
hang out here and wait until
he's free, at which points, she
covers by saying, "There's
really nowhere to wait.
He has one of the smallest
offices..."
Seniority, or something.
And as you open your mouth to
protest, you clock the slightest
hint of fear in her eyes.
The same fear you had when that
first student who covered his
paper in Post-Its came to see
you in your office.
So you stand down, for her sake
and yours.
On your way out of the
statehouse, you pass a handful
of reporters.
One of them recognizes you from
your testimony the day before
and asks who you're here to see.
When you say the senator's name,
she can barely keep from rolling
her eyes before scribbling the
name of a bar on a scrap of
paper and telling you he
conducts his business there,
starting at 8:00.
You drive by the bar on the way
to a mall, where you spend hours
searching for the dress you're
sure will catch his eye.
Then you call your department
chair and leave a message
saying, yes, you are going to
need that extended leave after
all.
And thank you for being
so understanding.
Back at the hotel, you hang your
dress out to steam while you
shower, in preparation, before
you arrive a half-hour early and
perch conspicuously at the end
of the bar with a glass of wine.
He arrives 20 minutes late to
his own self-appointed hour,
taking suitor after suitor while
you hang back, nurse your wine,
contemplate your next move.
But something unexpected
surfaces when you're watching
him from across that bar,
watching the compulsive drumming
of his fingers on the tabletop,
the slow sweep of his palms down
his pant legs.
And soon you start wonder
whether that behavior is a sign
of energy or restlessness,
whether that's enthusiasm or
desperation beneath his
too-eager smile.
Whether he's buoyed by a sense
of purpose or leading a life
that's devoid of joy, when,
suddenly, he makes eye contact.
You have a hard time telling
whether he recognizes you or
not, whether he's terrified you
followed him here, or excited at
the chance to meet a lovely
stranger.
But when your eyes meet again,
he suddenly raises his brows, as
if to say, "Yes, I see you,
and, don't worry, I'll
definitely be with you just as
soon as all this nonsense is
over."
Suddenly, you're no longer
content to be the next thing on
his agenda.
You drape your purse over your
shoulder, walk out of the bar,
and leave what happens next to
chance.
You're almost at your car when
you feel his hand on your arm.
Before you can even feign
contrition, having interrupted
his meeting, he apologizes for
making you wait and wonders
aloud if he can't talk you back
into the bar for another drink.
You're now certain he has no
idea who you are, so you suggest
heading somewhere else.
And before you can even wonder
whether you're coming on too
strong, he offers to take you in
his car.
You say you'd feel more
comfortable following in your
own.
As you crawl behind him down
suburban streets, you clock his
eyes in his rearview mirror,
studying you every step of the
way, filling you with the
incendiary mix of giddiness and
disgust.
And when he signals to turn into
a driveway, you pull over a
little up the block, put your
car in park, and find yourself
walking around to the back of it
where you pop the trunk and let
your hands hover over the spare
compartment where it lies in
wait.
You watch your hands hover, see
how long you can hold them there
before they tremble and retreat
or act for themselves.
When you hear his voice call
out, "You coming?" and see him
look at you with his bemused
sort of half-smile, at which
point, you were just making sure
you hadn't forgotten something.
Then ease the trunk shut,
listen to the latch click.
The only touch of personality in
his too-tasteful apartment are
the crude crayon drawings that
line the entrance hall, drawings
you barely have time to take in
before he calls you into the
living room, where he's waiting
with a glass of wine.
A quick scan of your
surroundings reveals no photos
of him hunting, no trophies on
the walls.
None of the signs you'd expect
from someone who boasts his
particular brand of zealotry.
Just a clear glass coffee table
and two black leather sofas.
As you settle on the sofa next
to him, ease into the soft
leather, steal your first sip of
wine, something about the impish
smile that crawls onto your face
makes him ask if you know who he
is, and if you knew he'd be in
that bar tonight.
When your initial laugh doesn't
seem to satisfy him, you say,
"Yes, and no."
Of course you know who he is,
but seeing him in that bar,
that was just a...
happy accident.
"How happy?" he asks,
half-joking.
And you start in, dead serious,
or so he thinks, about how
deeply you appreciate his
tireless fight for your rights.
How hard it must be to hold fast
his principles when everyone
around him is so compromised,
how long you've admired him from
afar.
You're not sure what you expect
when you start in like this.
Maybe you're hoping to expose
his hubris, let his naked ego
soak your righteous rage,
but the longer you go on, the
more you sense his obvious
discomfort, which strikes you as
strange since you've seen plenty
of his kind before, and they've
never been the type to shy away
from praise.
Still, you take a perverse sort
of pleasure in watching him
squirm while you shower him with
adulation.
Until his discomfort is so
overwhelming, you begin to feel
guilty, and you slowly start to
realize that this man doesn't
believe the things you're saying
any more than you do,
that this man is no zealot at
all, but a too afraid to live
the consequences of his
convictions, that his cowardice
is so monumental...
he doesn't deserve
to exist.
But before your rage can amount
to anything, he grabs you
lightly by the wrist and kisses
you.
You let the kiss run its course,
then flash a giddy smile until
confident he's set the encounter
back on track.
He excuses himself to go to the
bathroom.
You say you'll try not to miss
him too much.
But soon after he shuts the
door, you're pretty sure you
hear him turn on the shower.
You do...hear him turn on the
shower.
And find yourself seizing the
unlikely opportunity to move to
your car, pop the trunk, remove
the weapon from its compartment,
slip a single round into the
chamber, and step back inside
where you pause momentarily on
the crayon drawings by the door
before returning the living
room, facing the bathroom,
assuming your stance.
Amidst the sound of cascading
water, you focus on your breath,
try to steady your stubborn
heart, which seems like a losing
proposition, so you shut your
eyes and find Michael,
waiting for you.
Only, this time,
he's not smiling.
He seems...
disappointed that you would take
this sacred thing, this intimate
act between the two of you
and waste it on someone so
unworthy.
That you would let this
stranger, this coward...
diminish it.
It's the first moment since he
was taken from you, since you
first held him in your arms in
the hospital that you wish you
couldn't see your son.
Wish he'd just let you have
this, this one thing!
But even when you open your
eyes, he's still --
He's standing right there.
Staring at you.
You...set the weapon down, tear
your fingers from the cold
comfort of the metal grip, leave
that part of you lying on the
clear glass coffee table, one
bullet still in the chamber,
then you turn and run down the
hall, where you find yourself
frozen on the drawings by the
door.
Whose drawings they are, you'll
never know, but you're stuck
there, staring at them, when you
hear the shower stop, grab the
closest one off the wall, tuck
the frame under your arm, keep
running to the car, start the
engine, and drive...
...and drive...
...and drive.
How far, who knows?
You think of the senator
stepping out of the shower,
your offering on his table, one
round in the chamber, having to
live with that terror -- I mean,
to know how close he came...
until there's nothing in the
rearview, just darkness -- the
same in front -- until the black
smothers you so fully, you can't
tell how fast you're going, or
even if you're going at all.
So you lift your foot from the
gas, let the car roll to a stop,
look down to focus on your
breath, see the drawing still in
your lap.
Its messy lines running off the
page.
Remember how Michael's eager
marker always skipped off his
paper, got on the carpet.
You should go home, you think,
tear up the tape outlines, see
if the marker stains are still
there, run your fingers over
them before they fade.
You catch movement in the
rearview, see Michael in the
seat behind you.
No longer disappointed, but...
You turn around to smile at your
son...
...but he's gone.
Thank you.