by M. Billiter
I reached into my backpack, which was tucked beside the empty seat next to the stinky girl, and held the tip of the dart gun. While it remained hidden from sight, I kept waiting for an adrenaline spike or shaky hands, but neither happened. Instead, I felt nothing.
David was right. The professor deserved this. I was simply carrying out what they deserved. I rapped my foot on the concrete floor, waiting for the lights to darken.
The dual screens went from white to color within a matter of seconds. The red “TED” logo flashed in the top left corner of each screen. The introductory music was next, which was my cue.
The lights in the lecture hall went from bright to dark so quickly that it allowed me to slide the dart gun from my bag to my mouth without anyone seeing me. Everyone was too busy adjusting their focus to the screens that flashed “TED” in red. Everyone fell in line the way I knew they would.
A nail dart was already lodged in the gun. I couldn’t use the laser because the red beam would draw attention to me, so instead I just aimed toward the podium where the professor stood beside the computer, drew in a deep, strong breath, and blew—hard. The coned dart sailed through the front two rows and struck the professor perfectly in their backside.
A small yelp followed, and the professor quickly turned around.
I casually leaned forward like I was tying my shoe and tipped my backpack so it fell to the floor. I slid the dart gun back inside the bag just as the lights flashed on. My eyes were already adjusted, but I rubbed them anyway like I was trying to erase sleep from them. Really, I had to do something to prevent myself from laughing or staring or both.
David’s plan worked.
The professor held up the nail dart.
“Would anyone like to claim this?”
“What is it?” someone in the front row asked.
“It appears to be a nail with paper wrapped around it,” the professor said.
“Is there a note?” I asked, which prompted the professor to uncurl the paper and look for the nonexistent letter. I should’ve ended it there, but it was too perfect. “Maybe something you want to share with us?”
I’d heard the expression that someone’s face drained of color, but I never knew if that was an actual thing or not. The professor’s face lost all color, which wasn’t a good look.
“Mr. Kovak.” The professor’s voice quaked.
“Yes?” Mine didn’t.
“Would you care to explain this?” The professor held the nail dart higher.
I shrugged. “You said it was a nail with a paper wrapped around it.” I squinted toward the podium. “I dunno. I thought maybe there was a note. Like someone was sending you a message.”
“Dick move.”
Was it?
Color slowly returned, but the professor’s composure was off, like they were rattled or had PTSD. But instead of anger, the pained expression on the professor’s face revealed one emotion—betrayal. I knew it well. It happened when I’d cried as my dad raged and stabbed me in the chest with his finger. I couldn’t believe he’d unleash on me—only he had. And in doing so, he broke my trust.
“See. I knew you weren’t ready for their reaction.”
Whatever. I’m fine.
“Then why are you reliving what happened with your dad?”
Because he broke my trust. I trusted that my dad wouldn’t hit me. Maybe when I was a defenseless kid, but not when I was a young adult about to go to college. My fractured sternum was nothing compared to how shattered my belief was that I mattered. I didn’t matter—not to my dad or even in my family.
“You matter to me.”
Thanks.
Still, betrayal was the one emotion that, by its very nature, blindsided even the most hardened hearts.
The professor’s bowed head was something I also recognized. Most people would think the body language screamed of shame, but shame was accepting blame for someone else’s actions—something I’d learned when I was little and my mom moved us into a shelter for battered women. We had to attend all these family counseling sessions.
“A lot of good that did.”
Agreed.
No, the professor’s lowered head was from defeat. Not in the same sense as being defeated in a video game—this was real defeat which equated to real loss. It was what happened when trust was broken. The loss was great. Nothing was more devastating or lonelier than broken trust.
The professor directed their next comments toward the ground.
“We’re ending early today.” Nothing more was said. The professor turned and walked toward the emergency exit.
I waited for a triumphant surge to course through me to invigorate my senses, but it never came. As everyone filed behind each other to exit the class, I fell in line and felt nothing.
23
David and Me
I’d always heard that the definition of insanity was repeating the same behavior and expecting a different result. But something didn’t click with the dart gun. There was no high afterward, not even a little.
In a bold move, I pulled a Britney and shaved my head. I get why she did it. It’s freeing. I once read that Britney Spears shaved her luscious locks to strip herself of her sexuality. I didn’t buy it. It was all the crap you battled, day after day, month after month for years that finally reached its apex. To the naked eye, it looked like she snapped when really the girl was tired of being a puppet. I totally got it. Sometimes, the most shocking acts were the sanest.
My phone chimed with a text that my Uber driver was five minutes away from the apartment. I slung my black ski bag over my shoulder, tucked the fake ID into the front of my wallet, and was about to lock the door behind me when I remembered the bag with my disassembled dart gun. I grabbed the bag and was locking the door when a voice hit my ear.
“Wow, check you out.”
I turned around. A neighbor I barely exchanged hellos with was right outside my door. The dude was in my bubble.
“Thanks. Thought it was time to mix things up.”
He chuckled. “Respect. Not sure I’d go into the winter with a shaved head, but”—he shrugged—“it’ll save time in the morning.”
I nodded.
“You headed to the mountains?” He nodded toward my ski bag.
“As soon as they open.”
“Huh.” The guy seemed fixated on the bag.
“Fucker.”
Agreed.
I elbowed my bag. “Yeah, picking up new alpine skis.”
When he didn’t seem convinced, I told him the truth. “Actually,” I said, leaning toward him, “I ordered an Uber so I can go buy a rifle. You know, something small like an AK-47.”
“Sure.” The guy laughed. “You get the guns and I’ll line up the dope.”
“Next time,” I said, heading toward the stairwell. I wasn’t about to take the elevator and have to deal with someone else.
“Fucking people.”
I know, right?
I passed the dumpster on my way to the Uber and chucked the remnants of the dart gun into the trash before tossing the bag in as well. I separated them on purpose. People got caught because they were stupid.
“You’re anything but stupid.”
Precisely my point.
* * *
Both Ohio and Wyoming allowed people to openly carry firearms without any state permit. Anyone twenty-one years or older could openly carry a weapon. Neither state required a universal background check at the point of sale either, unless I was stupid and bought it from a licensed firearm dealer. But like David reminded me, I wasn’t stupid.
When my Uber driver pulled alongside the pawn shop, a credit card linked to a prepaid debit card paid my fare. For anyone interested, David Ducharme took an Uber from the college apartments to the pawn shop.
I hopped out of the car and headed toward the pawn shop that was sketchy as fuck. It was in one of those strip malls beside other random shops that sold useless shit like rugs, lamps, and lightbulbs. There was even a VCR re
pair shop.
“What the hell?”
I scoffed, agreeing.
I opened the door and bells rang.
“Jesus. Bells? What is this, church?”
I grinned.
“Be right with you,” a male voice said from the depths of the store. The place was huge, like a bulk store for people’s castaways.
“It’s okay, Pedro, I’ve got it.” An Asian woman who was probably a few years older than me approached the counter. “Is there something I can help you find?”
Her super-short blue hair matched her eyes. A black scarf was tied around her slender neck, and big hoop earrings dangled onto her narrow shoulders. She had on a white thermal and black leggings and wore both exceptionally well. She reminded me of someone so much that I found myself staring at her.
“Looking for skis?” she said.
“Oh, uh, not really.” I felt heat rush to my face, so I quickly glanced toward the tower of DVDs on the wall behind her. A stack of anime movies caught my attention, which was when it hit me. I returned my focus to her and stared into eyes that were as blue as the ocean and just as deep. “Has anyone told you that you look like Bulma from Dragonball Z?”
When she smiled, dimples appeared on each side of her face. “Yeah, I’ve heard that.”
“You an anime fan?” I asked.
“If you pick the right year, yeah.”
That did more than pique my curiosity. It flat-out wooed me. “I’m a fan of One Piece, early 2000s.”
She grinned. “Fairy Tale is more my style, 2009.”
I shook my head. “Nah, doesn’t count. The first season is always the best.”
Her entire face and parts of her neck turned red. “Okay, Korea Boo, then, 2014.”
I laughed. “Korea Boo? Good try. Those are Japanese anime.”
“Just checking if you knew the difference,” she said.
I stole a quick glance at her name tag, which was upside down. All I could make out was that it began with a K—or maybe it ended with a K—and had a lot of vowels in between.
“Are you Japanese?” Asking someone their ethnicity wasn’t something I normally did. But neither was taking an Uber to a pawn shop to buy a gun. It seemed to be a day of firsts.
“Well, at least you didn’t ask if I was Chinese, Japanese, or my favorite, Asian. Or better still, where I’m really from.”
“I don’t even know where to start. First off, I apologize if I was rude.”
“You weren’t,” she said. “You were actually straightforward, and I appreciate that. I’m Korean.” She flipped her name tag around.
“Katie?”
“I was adopted.”
“Cool.”
Her dimples appeared again. “Is it?” She shook her head and shades of blue swooshed back and forth. “My name is as American as it gets.”
I shrugged. “It’s a stupid cultural thing Americans do—we either name our kids after ourselves or someone we want to impress.”
She laughed.
“I gotta tell ya, I’m still stuck on the Asian thing. People really ask if you’re Asian?”
“All the time.”
“Don’t they realize that Asia is an umbrella for multiple ethnicities and geographies? Are they total morons?”
“Yes,” she said with a chuckle. “They usually are. Or they ask if I’m Asian American, as if I can only be from one particular place.”
“I’m sorry.” It was all I knew to say.
“It’s okay. After you’ve been asked what kind of Asian you are, you learn tricks to mess with them.”
I leaned toward the counter that separated us and got a hint of honeysuckle-scented perfume. “Such as…?”
“When someone asks where I’m from, I tell them that I’m from Utah and then ask where they’re from.”
I laughed. “Oh shit. What happens?”
“There’s usually this pause like they’re really confused. Because clearly someone who looks like me could not be from America. So of course they press.” Her eyes narrowed when she spoke. “‘No, where are you really from?’ they ask. As if Utah couldn’t possibly be my home state.”
I shook my head, which would’ve looked better if I still had hair. “That’s bullshit. No one’s really American. We all migrated here or were forcibly brought here. We’re all immigrants of some sort. America is too young a country to pull that card. Older countries are smarter. In China there are more than fifty ethnic groups. If the US ever conducted an honest census, I’d bet money there are hundreds of thousands of ethnic groups thriving in our country that just aren’t recognized.” I paused and took a step off my soapbox. “Sorry.” I paused again. “I’m in my last year of college, and current events are really all I get excited about anymore. And I tend to get a little crazy when I hear stupid shit.”
“No apology necessary. It’s refreshing. Most people don’t know their own state, let alone the geography or history of another one. I don’t mind if people ask me, like you did, if I’m Japanese or Korean or, hell, from outer space. I’ll answer a direct question, no problem. It’s when they follow it by telling me how much they like pad thai, which isn’t a Korean food, and even if it was, why tell me? What does that have to do with anything? Somehow who I am reminds them of a meal? It’s not like I go up to Americans and say, ‘Hey, I like hamburgers and fries. Nice to meet you.’”
I laughed. Her candor was invigorating. She was a stunner both physically and mentally. I knew I had to bring my A-game, which included a healthy dose of realism. “In four years of college, I’ve learned one thing—people are stupid.”
She giggled.
“Do you speak Korean?” I asked, and her blue eyes practically danced.
“No one ever asks me that. I wish I did, but I left Korea when I was six months old, and my parents only speak English.”
When I didn’t comment, she smiled again.
“So you’re not going to ask me how much they paid to get me?”
Shocked, nervous laughter escaped me. “Jesus, no. What the fuck?”
“If I’m not grilled about where I’m from, which shuts some people down when I don’t give them the answer they want, what always holds their interest is when someone finds out I was adopted.” She leaned her elbows on the glass counter and barely took up any space. “Adoption brings up a whole new round of questions, like how much my parents bought me for.”
I rolled my eyes. “Seriously, like I said, people are stupid.” I scratched the back of my head, which was usually covered with hair.
“Trying to get ahead of a receding hairline?” she asked with a flip of her chin toward me.
“How’d you guess?” I palmed my scalp and stubble moved back and forth across my fingers.
“So, baldy, what can I help you find today?”
Suddenly the reality of why I was there didn’t press on me with the same intensity as it had when I left. But David did.
“Buy the gun.”
I shook my head and scanned the contents of the glass-enclosed counter. Rings. Pocket watches. Knives. My focus returned to the rings.
“Could I see that ruby ring?” I tapped the glass with my finger.
“Excellent choice,” she said.
“It’s not what you think.” I smiled. “My mom’s….”
“Don’t be the pathetic loser with the sick mom.”
“My brother and I got my mom this really awful fake ruby ring for Mother’s Day once, and I’ve always wanted to make it right.”
“Ahhh.”
I purposefully exaggerated my eye roll. “If you saw what we gave her, you’d understand.”
“I bet it was perfect.” She unlocked the glass cabinet and fished out the ring, then handed it to me.
“Well fuck, if you aren’t going to get a gun, at least have the balls to ask her out.”
“Uh.” I shook my head and stared at the red stone. “There’s a really dope anime conference in California that I was thinking of going to.” I glanced up into
her blue eyes. “Road-tripping with another anime nerd would make the trip a thousand times better.”
Before she could reject my offer, a dude in a camo jacket approached. “Hey, babe, need help with anything?”
“Pedro, I was just showing….” Her face and neck blotched red. “I forgot to get your name.”
I shrugged. “David. I’m David.”
She grinned. “David was interested in getting his mom a ring.”
It sounded as pathetic as David warned me it would. I instantly handed her back the ring and directed my attention to Pedro. “Actually, I was hoping to look at your guns.”
24
David and Me
The 30 percent chance of thunderstorms turned into 100 percent rain. Still, instead of being dropped off directly in front of my apartment, I had the Uber driver return me to another spot on campus. Even though he was a completely different driver, why risk it? Besides, rain or not, the front stone arch that welcomed everyone to the university was dope.
E Pluribus Unum was etched beneath the university’s name in the gray-colored stone. During orientation, it was explained that the Latin motto meant “out of many, one.” It was adopted by the Founding Fathers for the seal that’s on all our money. The idea was that out of many states, one country was formed. It was as American as it got.
It also fit my mood.
Out of all the many pawn shops, I’d picked the one with a newlywed couple who were cash poor and needed to sell stuff. It sucked that Katie was married, but it totally explained her personality. Married women flirted more than women who weren’t. It was like they knew the signal they sent off could never be returned, so it created this safe space for them to be as forward as they wanted. Either that or they were bored as fuck and wanted to flirt with total strangers to spice shit up in their lives. Didn’t matter. Katie was married to Pedro. And Pedro was one dude I wouldn’t fuck with. His camo jacket did little to disguise that the guy was ripped.
