Taking Aim

by Michael Cart

  “Wow,” Charlie said. “Balls, Rev. In a good way, balls, as in you’ve got ’em. I could never commit to a thing like that, with people like that.”

  “You do,” Warren said, making both Charlie and the Reverend laugh out loud, the sounds shocking as they bounced around the stone walls and back to us.

  “You are a very good man, Reverend,” Pristine said in a voice that was different from any other voice I had heard from her.

  “We really need to get married now,” I said, lest anybody lose sight of our mission.

  “Don’t do that again,” Charlie Waters Junior ordered. “I mean it. Any more facial contact with the guns and they go right back up on the shelf. No lips, no noses, no cheeks, and especially no tongues on the merchandise, I don’t care how much dough you got in your pockets.”

  “Sorry, sorry, I can’t help it. They just have so much—”

  “I don’t care how much of it they have. It’s weird. You’ll ruin the finish on them, and possibly my lunch, too.”

  I could help myself, but it would be difficult. And I didn’t want to. The thing about fine firearms is, it’s always there, always. The pull, the hold, the grip it would get on me. I had always felt it intensely, like the thing itself was talking straight at me. Just looking at a proper well-made rifle, shotgun, pistol would always give me a quake-like action, from the ground and rising on up, until it was in my head, and my head was volcanic with it. It was very much like I would hear the God nuts on all the God-nut stations go on about their amazing encounters with this thing that nobody could even see but them. This was like that but not, not least because you can goddamn well see a powerful firearm when it’s in the room and know you didn’t just make it up.

  And that was even when I could merely see it. Everyone who gets the chance to handle a beautifully crafted weapon does not need to be told what to feel because it is irresistible. There is power in there, of course, in the heft, the balance of the thing, the way it lies in your palm and reassures you that it is ready and so able. You can feel that it knows, and will do for you. That it is capable, practically without you.

  But not without you.

  The perfection of the sights as you line them up, the careful intricate tooling of the handle design, the exact pressure of the trigger pushing back against your pulling finger, pushing back exactly the right amount to teach you, only and precisely what it requires of you. The gun, in your hand, is alive. It has importance and confidence and, of course, power; of course, power, but it is so much more intricate than that. If it doesn’t change you, to hold a gleaming Rossi .357 polished steel revolver, then you are beyond hope. It has to change you.

  “Thought you came in for wedding rings,” Charlie Waters Junior said with a dirty chuckle after some chunk of time had fallen away.

  “I did,” I said. “But now there’s this, and this must have been part of the plan all along, because it’s too exact. Too ideal.”

  He was back in his relaxed pose again, elbows on the counter, eyes at my level.

  “So, you want the guns instead of getting married, fine. You’re not the first, just in case you were wondering that.”

  “No, I was not wondering that, and no, not instead. As part of. The final piece. Get it? These guns are us, they are the final pieces, that make me and Pristine absolutely one together. They are supposed to be ours.”

  He stared, expressionless. “Pristine? That’s really her name?”

  I stared back, eye to eye, man to man, calmly letting one finger gently trace the outline of the bigger gun, drawing me a clear mental picture of it while I was looking at Charlie’s eyes.

  “Yeah. That is her name. Really.”

  His eyes creased up in a grin, and we were doing business.

  “They are a stunning pair,” he said, politely but definitively taking back the gun that I had not bought yet and returning it to its nesting place. The matched pair of Rossi .357s—one with a four-inch barrel and the other with a six-inch—nestled into a handsome red-silk-lined display box. They were posed as if firing at each other, which, of course, they would never be doing. Just the thought of it, and me and Pristine, made the scene look almost obscenely cute to me now. “They come with the official deactivation certificates, so you’ll have no problems there. . . .”

  “Come again?”

  He straightened up, a little surprised. “You didn’t think you were purchasing operational weapons here, did you?” He let his voice get louder now than at any time yet. “Because I don’t have the proper license to sell anything like that.” Then he dropped it so low as to be almost miming. “But we can always talk. About anything. Talking’s not against the law. About anything.”

  He had given me enough time to realize my mistake and to also realize I didn’t mind.

  “Of course I knew that,” I said. “But firing a fantastic piece of work like this . . . it’s practically beside the point. The power is already in there, in the gun itself and all that’s gone into it, and all that it carries to you when you carry it. C’mon, you feel that, don’t you? Feel it, go on, you’ll understand. The real power is all right in there, even if the barrel has been filled solid with lead.”

  Charlie Waters Junior sighed, but gave it a try even if it was only to make a sale. He picked up both handguns, balanced each in one hand, swung them around, felt triggers and squinted over sights that he aimed at my willing forehead. He nodded happy, affectionate appreciation as he smiled through the exercise and was still smiling as he laid the lovely couple respectfully back in their presentation box.

  “They could not be more beautiful if you put lipstick and big feather earrings on them. But I don’t feel that thing you’re talking about, sorry. The power is in the bullet. That is, in the potential to propel one through somebody’s chest.”

  For an instant, this made me so angry. As if he had been the worst kind of rude to my personal loved ones. I even reached for the presentation box to grab it away and sweep out of the place with my guns and my great indignation. Until we both remembered they were not currently my guns.

  Charlie pulled the box away, grinning slyly at me in that old familiar you-can’t-reach expression I would never have to see again once I owned this stunning matched set of polished steel Rossi .357 handguns and then had the unbelievable Pristine for my wife with Christmas cards we would send out of the two of us posed in front of a nice tree while she held up the shiny four-inch Rossi and I held up the shiny six-inch Rossi for all the world to sit up and see. We would send out thousands of those cards, and only have to send them just once.

  “I’m sorry that you can’t feel it,” I said. “Because it’s really special, but hey, we’re all different, right?”

  “Oh, we are,” he laughed. “Just sit behind this counter for a day, and you’ll get to see how different we all really are. But it’s good, all good. Good for me, good for business, good for fighting off boredom and all the other stuff.”

  “At least you appreciate how gorgeous they are,” I said, flailing for the common ground.

  “I do indeed. Babes, the two of them.”

  There, we rested, lounged on that common ground awkwardly. Smiling nice.

  “Are we negotiating here?” he finally said, the box under his arm and ready to be packed away again on that high, special, faraway shelf that was getting higher and farther away from me as we spoke.

  “No,” I said.

  The look of total surprise on his face was satisfying since Charlie Waters Junior had to be one of the world’s premier seen-it-alls for his age division. But that satisfaction was blown clean away when he made a move in the direction of the ancient rolling librarian ladder that was going to get him to that high and faraway shelf with my guns. And I made my countermove.

  “Whoa,” he said as I started shoveling thickets of wadded-up cash money bills right there on the counter. He returned with the box, and it was my turn to take a step back. He picked up fistfuls of currency, looked over at me quizzically. “Okay,
and so . . . ?”

  “I think you’ll be fair,” I said, without saying that I already felt it, the thing, the power, of course, and all the rest that poor Charlie could not feel. “I trust you, which, all things considered might be crazy. . . .”

  “Tell you the truth, it might be,” he said without looking up from his counting.

  “Well, anyway, there are a lot of shoulds happening together lately, like I should have met my Pristine on the Lucky Buoy and I should have found my way to the perfect pair of Rossi .357s to seal the deal on the ideal and unbreakable union of our wedding. And now I feel like you were a real part of all that ’cause I should have found Bread and Waters and should have found you, and with things working like they are I should let ’em roll. So you should settle on a fair price, and then just give me back whatever change I have coming to me.”

  Now, he stopped counting. Now, he looked up.

  “This is unusual practice,” he said.

  I offered him empty and upturned hands. “I understand. But with the practice I’ve had, I don’t think I’d know ‘usual’ if it bit me.”

  “Fair enough,” Charlie said, and went back to figuring. He nudged the box with the guns across the counter in my direction and I ran to snatch them up so fast I banged my ribs on the counter’s edge.

  “You all right?” he said, straightening up and handing a neat, thin stack of bills my way.

  I pocketed them without counting, then groaned a little at the pain that stuck me when I inhaled. “I’m great,” I said, offering him my hand to shake while I pressed the box against my sore side.

  “Aw, Jesus,” Charley Waters Junior said before he would accept my hand. He pulled out another thin stack of bills and handed them to me to pocket, uncounted, before finally we shook.

  “And I’m throwing in a pair of rings for free,” he said. “Here, just root around in the drawer for a bit and I’m sure you’ll be able to come up with two that look more or less alike. What’s her size?”

  I was just starting to rummage, after having frankly forgotten all about the rings.

  “Rings have sizes?” I asked, and rummaged.

  He sighed loudly. “Get her a seven. Women are mostly all sevens. Or if it’s an eight, eight is fine; unless she’s really big or really small these should be in the zone. Is she?”

  “She’s perfect.”

  “Of course she is. Seven’ll be just right. Or eight. Right around there. She can always exchange here anytime, so no worries about that. What about yourself, like a four or something?”

  “I have no idea.”

  He grabbed my hand, examined it up close.

  “The men’s and women’s wedding bands are practically the same, anyway. Just keep digging, you’ll be fine.”

  It took about ten minutes to get us somewhere around fine, but I was leaving the shop with what felt to me like an immeasurable haul of treasure, and taking it out into a fine future I never could have imagined before Lundy Lee.

  Charlie Waters Junior had come out from behind the counter, wishing me all the luck in the world and holding the door for me to walk out into it.

  I stopped on the threshold.

  “You wanna come?” I asked.

  “Come where?”

  “To my wedding. Not totally planned out yet, but almost.”

  “You’re inviting me? To your wedding?”

  My heart began to hurt as the old defective stuff inside started coming back to me and making me small and stupid. Even the grand package, the presentation box with the miracle guns inside that changed things so profoundly, went suddenly powerless. Went worse than powerless, even, as the box grew larger, then heavier right there in my arms until it was gonna dwarf me and I wouldn’t be able to hold up.

  “I would love to come to your wedding, man. That’s damn decent of you.”

  “Oh,” I said, cooling down but mostly because of the sweat misting my whole face. “Oh, excellent. I’ll come by with the details when they’re finalized.”

  “Cool.”

  “Cool.”

  “Be cool now, just be cool,” the Reverend Saul St. Paul was saying to me, soothing in just the way I imagined he had soothed countless nutjobs in this same place.

  “I am cool,” I said, “very cool. I just asked a question. I just wanted to know if this was gonna be for real and unbreakable now, now that we are married. Really married, yeah?”

  “Gus,” he said, “I am an ordained minister and I have a license to marry people . . . and there are many different forms of union. In the eyes of—”

  “What does that matter, baby?” Pristine asked, stepping between the minister and me. “We are together, and our special day was magic. Charlie and Warren witnessed it, and Reverend Saul said a beautiful ceremony just for us, and I’m feeling honored that he would even do that. . . .”

  True. All true. It was lovely and beautiful and all true right down to the part about being honored. She was honored now by everything the reverend did. Which was great, which was fine. All I wanted was one simple answer to one simple question and he wouldn’t honor me with that, would he? Yes, he was a hero and a saver of souls and tall and everything, but would we have to get all excited every time one of them came along? Because for all I knew there would be hundreds and thousands of them, and I for one was not looking forward to a life of getting honored and excited by each and every one of them that came along.

  Just like that though, it was everybody. Charlie Waters Junior was up close at my shoulder and his friend Warren, who turned out to be every bit as nice a guy as he seemed, was up close at my other one. We were like a huddle, all of us. In a near-empty church or former church or halfway house or whatever this was, we needed to be in a bride-groom-minister-witness-witness huddle that frankly felt a little close.

  “Pristine,” Charlie said, “you just bring that ring to the shop any day you want, and we’ll get you one that fits, okay?”

  “Thank you, Charlie,” she said, beaming at him. Really, just like they say, a beaming bride, lighting the place right up. I could see it, the light bouncing off Charlie’s big mug when I turned back to see him looking at her. Then I turned to the rev to see if it was beaming off his papery old face, and there it was, bouncing right off it. He even rose up on his toes, like he needed to be that much taller than me though he was taller than me even when he sat down. That was where I met him originally, sitting there on a pew in the Lucky Buoy’s small tidy chapel that smelled like burnt toast. Like when somebody burns the toast and tries to cover it up with two inches of butter, exactly that smell. Met Pristine in that very same chapel, different day, same scent. Burnt-toast butter-cover smell. Still, it was the most comfortable place to be out of the weather on the Lucky Buoy.

  “I really loved your story about your name, Reverend,” Warren said. “I thought it was lovely and generous of you to include it in the ceremony. Hope it was okay to laugh.”

  “Of course,” the reverend answered. “If you didn’t laugh, that meant I bombed.”

  But everybody laughed, he didn’t bomb, and now they laughed again. I knew the story already. It was an okay story. About his mother, and how she felt disadvantaged at naming her own child because the father’s last name was such a statement already. And so how she decided to name him Saul, as a counterbalance to St. Paul, ’cause of the whole Bible story, and it’s kind of funny if you look it up. And he loved her for it, and for being funny her whole life and telling the story a lot. And sure, it was a pretty good story. It was. He was lucky to have her.

  I had never known a woman could be like that. I had never until recently met a woman who joked or seemed to want anybody else to joke. When I got that horrid old hurting, I knew. I knew I was in love with the woman who had given that name to Saul St. Paul. ’Cause that’s what it feels like. That’s just what it feels like, loving.

  And now I was feeling it double, as the piercing, constricting stuff wound around my heart at the thought that I met a woman who was all that, wa
s kind and was funny and so precisely qualified for me. I met her and I loved her and I married her.

  “I have a present for you, baby,” I said, tall and strong and the groom of this gathering.

  “You don’t have to do anything like that, Gussie,” Pristine said as Warren got the package the guys had been guarding for me all day.

  “Yes, I do,” I said as Pristine knelt on the floor to lay the present out in front of her. All the men took steps back to make it more of a moment, to make a ring around her and her moment, which would be the moment we became unbreakable together.

  It was nicely wrapped and tied, and so took her a while to get through to the prize at the center, but it was worth every bit of it for the excitement it built.

  Then, down there on the floor, on her haunches, she stared into the presentation box of the two sparkling Rossi .357 revolvers, hers and his, four-inch barrel and the big six.

  Time ticked slowly, loudly, as she stared into the box and finally looked up to the smile that was deep and loving but starting to hurt my cheek muscles.

  “I’m sorry, baby,” was all she said.

  I looked all around, expecting to see my own shock on all other faces. I saw other things, which I could not even identify.

  “Sorry what?” I said with some urgency.

  “Sorry, but no. I don’t like guns,” she said in full deep throat like I never heard. “At all.”

  “Pristine,” Charlie cut in, sounding as concerned as I felt, “it’s okay, they don’t fire anything. They are certified, they are deactivated—”

  “They are guns,” the bride said with the power to make all the saints and demons scurry to the corners.

  “Right!” I cheered, the stupidest part of my brain taking over while thinking we were somehow all on the same side.

  “Take them away, Gussie. I don’t ever want to see them again. Around me, around you—”

  “Did something happen, baby?” I said, approaching her slowly. “It’s okay, whatever happened to you in the past, that’s the past, and we can deal with anything as long as—”