A Dad and His Guns

Only one things shocks me about the latest high school gun massacre: it happened in a suburb. I'm always expecting it to happen at a rural school. I remember two little thugs I grew up with--Bobby (whose role models--his older brothers--were all car thieves), and Kevin, a greasy, obnoxious bully. Bobby was obsessed with World War II paraphernalia and history; it didn't take me long to figure out that he was a neo-Nazi--right down to his leather jacket and black, lace-up boots. He was known for picking fights with jocks and taking out their knees with his steel-toed boots.

Kevin, who had a habit of staring creepily at the girl seated next to him in class and trying to punch her when no one was looking, was finally expelled after knifing another (male) student in gym class. These two boys were from "good" families--both had fathers who worked at Boeing, and their mothers stayed at home to provide the requisite "nurturing." Neither father kept guns in the house.

They weren't farmers, that's for sure.

We had all kinds of guns: shotguns, rifles, antiques, guns made by my grandfather, pistols, revolvers, you name it. Once you get far enough out in the middle of nowhere, there isn't much fun left, except getting drunk and cleaning your guns. 'Cept maybe getting drunk and shooting your guns. You can fill up a lot of shotgun shells on a slow afternoon.

I remember the first and only time Dad took me out to shoot guns (urban folks call this "target practice"). I was about nine years old. Mom had gone on a weekend trip with her sisters. I'm sure Dad thought that taking us shooting was the best way to bond with his two youngest children. He looked us up and down and said, "Well, I guess you're tall enough now."

Then he sat us down at the kitchen table and we made targets. First, he took out white notebook paper and a couple of black felt tip markers. On each sheet of paper he drew one big circle, eight inches in diameter, then told us to fill it in to make an enormous black dot. Soon the markers ran dry, and Dad told us to get our crayons. Damn, but those crayons made darker, shinier circles than the markers did.

Then he found an old cardboard box and flattened it, and taped one of the sheets of notebook paper on it. That was the target. We were set.

We dressed warm and went on a hike across the valley to the woods. Dad had a favorite spot for his targets: the tall stump of an old cedar tree on the edge of the woods. He took the hammer out of his belt and nailed the cardboard target to the stump. Then he slung the rifles onto his shoulder and paced a ways from the target, with me and my little brother jogging at his heels.

Now, you have to understand something: all of my mother's family is nearsighted. Back in the days when I was going to school, the school nurses were supposed to come around once each year and do on-the-spot eye tests and hearing tests on the students. Somehow I either missed the tests or the nurses forgot to test me. Maybe because I was so shy, I could become invisible at will. Or maybe the tired nurse simply interpreted my whispered "I don't know" as "I, N, O" and checked off the box for 20/20 just so she could finish her shift. Anyway, I couldn't see worth a damn, but nobody had noticed yet.

...Until that shooting day. Dad kept walking away from the target. Once in a while he would stop and turn around, peering at something--I couldn't tell what--then turn back around and walk some more. I asked my brother "What's he looking at?"

"The target, stupid," he hissed.

Suddenly Dad stopped. "This is far enough! Come here, Sam."

I stood next to him. This was wonderful. Dad usually never paid any attention to me, unless he wanted another cup of coffee. I stared up at him like a puppy.

He lowered the .22 caliber gun into my hands and showed me how to hold it, then told me how to aim and pull the trigger. He said, "Okay, now, look at the dot and line it up between the two prongs of the sight."

This was confusing. "What dot?" I waved the gun around. He grabbed the barrel of the gun and steadied it. "On the target!"

"I can't see the dot!" I moved the gun up, down, left, right. Dad pushed my little brother out of the way and grasped the gun again.

"Okay, then, just aim at the target. Can you see the cardboard?"

"No," I whimpered.

Impatience crept into his voice. "Then just aim at the stump!"

"What stump?" I pointed up into the trees. I could just make out a dark green blur on the horizon.

Dad towered over me, and I became a little afraid. He pointed down the length of the barrel. "It's right there!"

"Where?"

"Just shoot the damn gun!" he shouted and I jumped. My fingers squeezed out two scattered shots.

"That's enough!" his voice quivered and he grabbed the gun away.

Later that week Mom took me to the optometrist. But Dad never took me shooting again. Not that I miss it. I just wonder sometimes if Dylan Klebold and Kevin Harris once sat at their kitchen tables making targets with crayons and notebook paper when they were nine years old. It's possible.