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To Shoot Off the Grownup Guns |
by Ryan Wirick
There slowly arose in me the unshakable conviction that we may inflict death and suffering on another living being only when there is an inescapable necessity for
it and that we must all feel the horror of thoughtlessly killing and causing pain.
Albert Schweitzer, Memoirs of Childhood and Youth, 41
Instantly I'm brought back to my seven year old self, spending a week in the summer at my grandparent's log cabin in southern Utah in the middle of a forest sliced to strips by dirt roads and broken fences propped up long before Mom and Dad had ever met, much less conceived of a life or two to bring in through that screaming portal we call birth. I was born into a tradition we call conservatism. Not the notion of conserving the air or the nutrients in the soil, but rather a ruler of thought for what has been said to matter most decades before. This ruler has, of course, convinced its defenders that weapons are appropriate for our own assurance of safety. Thus, when I spent those weeks far from the nightly glow of civilization, naturally I would play with guns. I brought my own BB gun rifle, while my grandpa would bring a selection from his gun collection, his .22, .44, and .454 Cosull, and plenty of ammunition for target practice. These shiny items of great big boom potential were rudimentary to my understanding of the world. Taken for granted to exist, globally required, I remember being so excited to shoot off the grown up guns.
We took Grandpa's little red jeep that was factory built in the forties across low-running streams and dusty tree-trunk ridden paths deep into the calm forest. My older brother and Gramps blew air through the chambers for dirt to escape while I walked around kicking pine cones and listening to the chatter of the creatures in the trees, looping their squeaks and grunts and high-pitched cries in a patterned rhythm us gun-lovers knew with ease how to bring to a hush with a great big boom. I shot my BB gun at a pine cone. Missed. "Not bad though, Ry. Try again."
It was my first time there in that secret meadow when my grandpa's best friend, Doctor Jack, as a result of what must have been initially a sarcastic idea that ran through the twisted humor of his mind, decided to let me tryout his custom-made 50 caliber pistol. It being custom meant Jack had to pack his own bullets from shot gun shells. The sucker was so heavy I could hardly lift it high enough to see the target through the scope sixty feet away propped against a tree that had been struck by lightning the night before. The red mud gurgled beneath my boots. Grandpa taught me to induce the firing in a hush, to gently squeeze the trigger without any quick motion. "Let it happen and keep it steady." I kept squeezing and for a split second it seemed they had played a joke and left the bullets in their cardboard K-mart carton, but then the noise came almost too fast for my brain to register what any of it meant. The force swung my arms high into the air and behind my head, pulling on the rest of my body. My legs went next, rising several feet above the brush and slinging me shoulders-first into Jack's arms four or five feet behind my size three boot imprints in the mud. Doctor Jack and my gramps were laughing of course, followed by a stern: "Don't tell your grandma about this. She doesn't need to know. Not bad though, Ry. Try again."
Grandma came to find out that I hadn't been keeping to the BB gun on those afternoon excursions, but that didn't really change anything. The following summer I was eight and it was suggested that I try the Cosull and instead of "letting it happen," I attempted to control the gun's kick so as to not fall backwards, but, as soon as I took control, the great big boom brought the back-swing down too low, and the tip of the hammer of the revolver jammed straight into my scalp a quarter of an inch above my hairline. Blood streamed down my face, dripped off my chin, dried. Washing the dried blood off my chin later that day, I decided to stick with the BB gun. From the log cabin balcony or my fort down the hillside, I practiced my aim on soda cans propped atop black rocks from a volcano, a magma exit wound the likes of which resided dormant, out of view from my fort in the shade. Then one day I thoughtlessly shot a squirrel that ran in front of a soda can.
Don't get me wrong, it wasn't an accident. I consciously shot the little guy, but without consideration. I watched as it rolled down a hill and began gasping for air, lying on its back on a rock, covered in red dirt. I panicked and ran over to him from my fort. The BB had hit his throat and he was choking. A line of blood slid out from underneath his head and ran down the side of the rock. He was panting, slower and slower, while staring up at what must have only been a shadowed figure blocking the sun. I thought about the animal heads hanging above doorways in the cabin, about what they must have looked like in their last moments. Did my grandpa high-five his hunting friends when the antelope fell over kicking and screaming next to the creek? Did the deer have any fear of death when he heard the shot go boom? Or was she only frightened at the prospect of not dying, and being left to rot in agony over a wound she could never heal, like her mom, like in that one movie. I thought about this and watched the squirrel continue to hold on, though I knew deep inside he could never make it through the night. He couldn't even move his legs anymore, and the other animals would never be able to help, even if they wanted to.
I heard my grandpa's voice arrive inside my head: "Not bad though, Ry. Try again." I decided to end the squirrel's torment once and for all. So I brought the BB gun's barrel down against his head, and he suddenly became totally quiet, as if he knew something us humans have only forgotten about that portal of calm we call death. The chatter in the trees disappeared. My fingers quivering. I squeezed the trigger as hard as I could, and the little guy's head fell limp.
Ryan Wirick grew up in Southern California in close proximity to the ocean. While he has never taken to surfing, he has made several moving and non-moving pictures and paintings, and is presently completing his first novel, Invisible Escalators.
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