post-script concerning guns
I've noticed, looking back, that guns figure prominently in several of my recent posts. That's because I've been with my family and, for some reason, guns figure prominently with them. So, along that theme, I wanted to offer one little bizarre bit of info to top off my last mention of a gun (see paragraph six of "going faulkner"). That .22 caliber pistol my dad shot himself in the head with? I have it now.
When I was preparing to drive across the country in 2002, from Georgia to Portland, my dad was worried. He said "I've got a pistol I want to give you to keep under your seat in case anything happens." Most parents would be more worried about the loaded gun, but my dad's obviously not like most parents. He brought a gun out of his house one day and handed it to me: a funny looking, long-barreled, German pistol. A Ruger. He set up a can on the hill by his house and I took a few shots. I missed every time.
It wasn't until we were at my grandmother's later when I started to suspect that it was THE gun. We were in the room I use as a bedroom when I'm visiting. I was packing to leave and he was hanging out with me. He told me to go out in the hall to my dead grandfather's gun rack and look for a particular box of bullets on a little shelf. I found it and brought it into the room, looking it over. The box said "snake shot." He looked at it too and said "Oh, not these. These are snake shot. You need regular." He took it from me and went into the hall to find the bullets he'd meant. I stood there staring into the space where the box had just been. Snake shot. Exactly what he'd shot himself with. Probably the same box of bullets he'd used to load that exact same fucking gun 22 years earlier.
I just stored this info away in my little brain and later I called my mom and described the gun. She confirmed. It was the same gun. What a fucking lunatic. I don't think he even realizes that I know he shot himself. Frankly, I don't know how I came to know about it myself. I've just always known, I think from the time he did it. I was three. I remember when he came home from the hospital. I remember hiding with my cousin behind a couch, initially shy but then legitimately afraid of him, of his shaved head and his scalp which looked green. I remember knowing then what had happened. I don't remember ever being told.
So, now I have this gun, like some strange talisman. I don't feel like I can ever get rid of it.
When I was preparing to drive across the country in 2002, from Georgia to Portland, my dad was worried. He said "I've got a pistol I want to give you to keep under your seat in case anything happens." Most parents would be more worried about the loaded gun, but my dad's obviously not like most parents. He brought a gun out of his house one day and handed it to me: a funny looking, long-barreled, German pistol. A Ruger. He set up a can on the hill by his house and I took a few shots. I missed every time.
It wasn't until we were at my grandmother's later when I started to suspect that it was THE gun. We were in the room I use as a bedroom when I'm visiting. I was packing to leave and he was hanging out with me. He told me to go out in the hall to my dead grandfather's gun rack and look for a particular box of bullets on a little shelf. I found it and brought it into the room, looking it over. The box said "snake shot." He looked at it too and said "Oh, not these. These are snake shot. You need regular." He took it from me and went into the hall to find the bullets he'd meant. I stood there staring into the space where the box had just been. Snake shot. Exactly what he'd shot himself with. Probably the same box of bullets he'd used to load that exact same fucking gun 22 years earlier.
I just stored this info away in my little brain and later I called my mom and described the gun. She confirmed. It was the same gun. What a fucking lunatic. I don't think he even realizes that I know he shot himself. Frankly, I don't know how I came to know about it myself. I've just always known, I think from the time he did it. I was three. I remember when he came home from the hospital. I remember hiding with my cousin behind a couch, initially shy but then legitimately afraid of him, of his shaved head and his scalp which looked green. I remember knowing then what had happened. I don't remember ever being told.
So, now I have this gun, like some strange talisman. I don't feel like I can ever get rid of it.
posted by reasonably prudent poet at 6:13 PM
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