Gun Church

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  “Funny … what’s … funny about … that?” I asked, gasping for air.

  “Funny because your injury there looks exactly like damage a person might sustain if he were shot and the bullet was stopped by protective armor like a Kevlar vest, for instance.”

  Jim had been good to his word. His shot hit me squarely in the vest, a few inches below my right nipple.

  “I don’t … look good in … vests.”

  He ignored that. “See, the thing most laymen don’t understand about protective armor is that it will usually prevent a handgun round from boring a ragged little tunnel through your body, but it can’t stop the laws of physics. The energy from the bullet has to go somewhere. Sometimes the vest will dissipate the energy sufficiently so that the wearer only gets a bad bruise, but there are times the energy will crack the wearer’s ribs or do even more serious internal damage. I’m sending you for X-rays, Mr. Weiler, but you’ve got some cracked ribs there. I’d bet on it.”

  “I fell on … the point … of a … wrought iron fence. I’m lucky it … didn’t break … the skin,” I said, the pain easing for the time being.

  “And did you used to tell your teachers that the dog ate your homework? Did your teachers believe you? This is Brixton County, Mr. Weiler. There isn’t a wrought iron fence for fifty miles around. Look, I don’t know what you’re playing at, but you better stop it before someone gets seriously injured. Have you ever seen what bullets do to the insides of the human body?”

  “Yes … as a matter of fact,” I said, remembering my father’s blood on the fussy curtains. “Thanks, Doc, but … I … fell on the point … of a fence.”

  “Suit yourself, Mr. Weiler. I’ve got other patients to see.”

  Still, it could have been worse for me, much worse. The occasional broken rib must have been pretty standard fare for the chapel, but there was no escaping the fact that the margin of error between broken ribs and bleeding out was miniscule. I was finally experienced enough with a gun in my hand to know that very little separated a great shot from a miss. All it would have taken to turn a bull’s-eye into a disaster was a momentary lack of concentration, an unexpected distraction, a cough or a sneeze, the buzzing of a mosquito. And as good as Jim was, he wasn’t immune to any of those things. I’d seen as much when he hit the maintenance man.

  Jim’s own warning rattled around in my head. “You get killed, we’re just going to take you out in the woods and bury you somewhere where you won’t ever be found. Even if you’re real seriously wounded, that’s what we’ll have to do.” So as bad luck goes, I guess, I was ahead of the game. I meant to keep it that way. I was about a hundred grand richer than I’d been a few weeks ago and I had a book to finish. I was pretty determined not to step into the chapel again. Nothing like those rare moments of clarity in your life. Standing on the wrong end of a gun will make you focus like almost nothing else.

  When the curtain around the examination table pulled back, I expected an orderly to come in, but it was Renee. She was positively jovial compared to the last time we were here. That night, she was red-eyed and shaking. Tonight, for the first time since I got back from New York, she seemed like the Renee I’d grown so comfortable with before I left. The edge was off, her smile broad. It lit up the room.

  “How do you feel?” she asked, clasping my right hand in both of hers.

  “Alive.”

  “Good to be alive.” She leaned over and kissed my forehead.

  “Very.”

  “How are your ribs?”

  “The … doctor … thinks they’re … broken. They … really hurt.”

  “Probably are broken,” she said. “It happens to all of us sooner or later. Me too. They’ll tape you up and you’ll need to take it easy for a while.”

  “Thank … you, Doctor Svoboda.”

  She blushed. “You hit Jim, you know. Almost everyone misses their first time shooting that way.”

  I was glad she was happy about it. All I was was relieved. Frankly, I didn’t give a fuck if I hit Jim or shot through the tarp and hit the hangar roof, as long as I didn’t kill him. I realized I was more frightened of that than getting killed myself.

  “Renee,” I whispered. “I don’t … think I … want to do … this anymore. Shooting, I … mean.”

  If I thought that was going to upset her, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  “Promise me you won’t,” she said, moisture forming at the corners of her fierce blue eyes. She kissed me again, only this time on the mouth. “Promise me you won’t.”

  “I promise. Renee … there’s something else … we … need to talk … about.”

  “Shhhhh.” She placed her index finger across my lips. “Not tonight.”

  “Okay, Mr. Weiler,” the orderly said as he strolled in pushing a wheelchair ahead of him. “Time to take a ride to X-ray.”

  He helped me into the chair. Renee promised to wait for me and when I turned back to look at her, she was still smiling, but there were tears too.

  Thirty-One

  No U-Turns

  By the following Monday, I was able to get around again. If not completely without pain, then with much less pain than I’d had in the days immediately following getting shot. At least I could breathe again. Weird thing, I felt like I’d been holding my breath for the last decade and had only now exhaled. I’m not sure I can explain it or if I even want to, but that’s just how I felt. I didn’t much enjoy the tape job the doctor had done on me to stabilize the ribs while they healed, but there were a lot of things I’d liked less, things that hurt more and hadn’t done a fucking bit of good for me.

  Truth was, the broken ribs were another one of those unexpected blessings that had been coming my way lately. While it gave me many more hours of uninterrupted writing time, it also gave me an excuse to avoid discussing with Jim my decision to step away from the chapel. I was certainly in no shape for running or shooting, and I wouldn’t be for at least another week or two. Jim did come by on Thursday morning to see how I was doing and to tell me how proud he was of my shooting, but I was still in a lot of pain, a little drug addled, and in no real mood to chat. He seemed to understand.

  The weekend had been pretty quiet. Renee left on Friday night to go see her folks, who she said lived about ninety minutes north of Brixton in the middle of the state. I thought the timing of her visit, a few weeks before Christmas, was kind of strange, but she said she didn’t know if she’d be going home for the holidays and that she wanted to make sure to spend a few days with her brother Jake, who was on leave from the Army. And while I was glad for the time alone, I had my newfound guilt to keep me company.

  I’d pretty much lived with Renee for three months. We had fucked our brains out on an almost nightly basis. She’d endured my occasional foul moods and dealt with my legendary vanities and insecurities. She’d followed my routines, lived her life by my clock. Yet I’d never once asked what her parents did for a living or where they lived or even if they were alive; and, until she mentioned Jake, I didn’t know Renee had a brother. The guilty part was not that I hadn’t asked but that I hadn’t cared to ask. I hadn’t cared. Worse still, I hadn’t yet told her I was leaving. This guilt thing was a pain in the balls.

  Renee’s absence also allowed me to call Meg without worries of being overheard. I hadn’t spoken a word to Meg since our dinner with Dudek because I was still supremely pissed off at her for the shit she pulled with Amy. I was also displeased that my check from her was long overdue. Meg had her own ideas when it came to sending me large sums of money. Apparently, I hadn’t quite erased all her doubts about the reformation of Darth Kipster. In the past, I’d appreciated her attempts to hold back funds so I couldn’t purchase Costco-sized bags of cocaine. That was then.

  “Kip!”

  “Where’s my check?”

  “Fine, thank you, and yourself?”

  “Sorry, Meg, I’m not in the mood for small talk, especially not after that stunt you pulled with Amy. How could you do that
to me?”

  “You needed to know there was something to come back to, you idiot.”

  “I know this is hard for you to accept, but I’ve finally learned how to tie my own shoes and everything. I can even manage the activities of daily living without adult supervision.”

  “Says the man who’s shacked up with a twenty-year-old girl and lets himself get shot with live ammunition. Yes, Kip, I’d say that instills a lot of confidence in me about your recent maturation.”

  “Well, try this on for size: I’m moving back up there at least until the end of the summer. You need to find me a one-bedroom apartment close to Manhattan, but not in it. Maybe in Brooklyn or Long Island City somewhere and you need to find it soon.”

  “Are you fucking around with me, Weiler? Because if you are, I’m not laughing.”

  “No joke, Donovan.”

  “Is this with or without … what was it you called her … the St. Pauli Girl?”

  “Without. I might have Renee come up for a week. I owe her that, but she won’t be staying, no. And don’t you dare call Amy.”

  “You needn’t fret. She’s as angry with me as you are. Angrier, probably. What did you do to her exactly that got her so bent out of shape?”

  “It’s what I didn’t do, but that’s not the point.”

  “I promise I won’t let her know you’re coming. I’d cross my heart, but I’d have to have one to make it a meaningful gesture.”

  We both had a laugh at that. I think I laughed a little too long to suit her, but I didn’t really care.

  “You haven’t even cut my check yet, have you, Donovan?”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “Well, keep the funds until I get up there and use whatever you need for the apartment. But when I get into town, I expect the check that day. You with me?”

  “Like a conjoined twin.”

  “There’s an image I could have done without.”

  “So when’s the big move?” she asked.

  “The middle of January, I think. I can’t be any more specific about it now, but I’ll let you know.”

  “Look, Kip, I can’t believe I’m even uttering these words, but do you think you’ll be able to finish the book back here? You’ll be leaving your cradle-robbing and gunplay behind, after all.”

  “I’ll finish it.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “No, not really, but the chances are just as likely I’ll finish in New York as here. Besides, if I feel myself slipping, I can come back to Brixton. I’m taking a sabbatical, not handing in my resignation. Burning this bridge would really be a bridge too far. In any case, I have a lease on this house that I’m responsible for for several more months.”

  “Okay, I’ll have my assistant get to it on Monday. Will you need a parking spot for your car? You do still have that Porsche, don’t you?”

  “Renting a parking spot in New York would cost more than my rent on this house. It’s moot anyway. The Porsche’s staying here.”

  “Suit yourself,” Meg said. “Ta.”

  And that was it. I was committed now, sort of. Sort of, because if there was one lesson being the Kipster had taught me, it was that there wasn’t a commitment in the world that couldn’t be broken. Well, I suppose once you’ve jumped out the window or pulled the trigger, there are no U-turns. I wondered if my father had time to wish he hadn’t pulled the trigger. I was on my way to taking one more step away from Brixton and towards New York.

  Thirty-Two

  The Three-Doughnut Rule

  The campus of Brixton County Community College was actually quite pretty. Lots of red brick and ivy, big live oaks and maples sprinkled in amongst the predominant pines, and a classic clock tower atop the library. It was easy to understand how some administration types mistook its looks for its quality. The former dickhead president of BCCC was wont to say that Harvard was the Brixton County Community College of the northeast. Was it any wonder he hadn’t lasted very long?

  The ever-popular Miss Crouch had prepared all my sabbatical paperwork for me to sign. There were tabs and little yellow Post-it notes with instructions on each of the forms. No wonder she’d survived seven department chairpersons. As warm and friendly as J. J. Beauchamp was, the Engagin’ Cajun was no administrator. Disorganized and drunk a good deal of the time, he had his head stuck so far up his ass that he needed someone like Miss Crouch to steer the ship. Trust me, at BCCC, there was no political intrigue involved in landing the chairman’s job. No one yearned to be English Department chair. It was a short-straw job that people accepted only because it came with a five-thousand-dollar per-term stipend.

  The one thing Miss Crouch couldn’t do was to fill in the section of the paperwork that asked for an explanation of the reason for the sabbatical. Not that anyone probably gave a shit, but you were required to fill it out before a sabbatical could be granted. This is where you were supposed to mention some lofty research study or scholarly project you were working on like a Cartesian reinterpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls. I wrote simply that I was taking the time to finish a book. I didn’t bother mentioning that the book in question was about as scholarly as the back of a baseball card and was sort of a cross between pulp fiction and an idiot’s guide to existentialism.

  “You’ll be missed around here, Professor Weiler,” said Miss Crouch as I handed back all the signed and completed forms. This was the most the woman had said to me in seven years.

  “Really, why’s that?”

  “Because the female adjuncts will have to find a new form of entertainment in your absence.”

  I stood there, stunned. I wanted to say something but Miss Crouch had already moved on to other matters, dismissively turning her back to me. And what would I have said? I was just grateful she hadn’t mentioned the co-eds I’d bedded during my tenure at Brixton. Although that particular form of “mentoring” was frowned upon by the current administration, our state university system was one of the last holdouts that hadn’t formalized a ban on such relationships.

  With the fall term having ended the previous Friday, the campus was very quiet. There were a few students around. Mostly there were squirrels, crows, and a few other faculty members. I much preferred the squirrels and crows. For the first time since the incident with Frank Vuchovich, I walked over to the southwestern corner of the campus, to the building where it had all taken place. The building had been closed for the term, but was scheduled to reopen for the spring semester. I was glad I wouldn’t be there to see it.

  I stood outside Halifax Hall staring up at the windows the police marksmen had shattered with their bullets. I turned to look at where the shots came from, imagining a straight red line drawn across the sky from the roof of the lecture center through the new windows of Room 212. I recalled the confused look on Frank Vuchovich’s face. I wondered now as I wondered then about what the kid had expected to happen. He must have known he wasn’t leaving the police with very many options, yet he seemed almost surprised by the spray of glass and blood, and the burning bits of metal ripping through his body.

  There was another imaginary string holding together a narrative that led from the death of Frank Vuchovich to the chapel to Haskell Brown’s murder to here. It was a line of perplexing coincidences and good fortune that I grabbed hold of to pull myself out of my perpetual tailspin. This line was red too. I didn’t believe in God. I’m not sure I ever did, but if he did exist, I wondered if he would send angels and omens in the form of blood and bullet wounds.

  “Gun Church, indeed,” I whispered aloud and walked on.

  I didn’t get fifty feet before I felt a strong hand latch on to my bicep. I gasped and my ribs barked at me. It was the maintenance guy, rake against his shoulder, lit cigarette dangling from his lips.

  “We need to talk, you and me, Professor,” he said, letting go of me.

  “What about?”

  His head was on a swivel, looking around, behind him, over my shoulder. “Not here.”

  “Then where?”


  “Not your house either.”

  “Okay, not my house,” I said. “How about the Dew Drop Inn? I’m going over there in a little while to get something to eat. It’s usually pretty empty this time of day.”

  “I’ll be there in an hour or so.”

  That was it. He walked away from me without another word and didn’t look back. I didn’t know what it was all about, but I could guess. He had some nasty things to say about Jim and he figured I’d be a good audience. He was right, but I didn’t give it much thought as I turned to the student union.

  At the student union, I picked up the paper and threw my change on the counter just as I had that September afternoon when all of this began. I found I was no longer thinking of the late Frank Vuchovich or the maintenance man, but of shooting in the woods with Jim. I would miss it. I would miss Jim’s company too. I would miss the sweaty-handed, heart-thumping rush of the chapel. I didn’t regret my decision to walk away from it, but I had no doubt that the junkie in me would always be tempted to put a gun back in my hand. In the end, some of Jim’s wacky notions about the essential nature of the handgun proved true. Although I tried to hold myself apart from the other people at the chapel, I had been seduced. I had proven myself in a way most people in the regular world never dare try. I was special. Staring down the barrel of a loaded handgun imparts a certain kind of wisdom unobtainable through most other means.

  Even armed with that wisdom, the temptation would always remain. I once had a girlfriend who lived by what she called the three-doughnut rule. She had weird food allergies and trouble regulating her blood sugar, but knew she could safely eat two doughnuts without having her body go batshit. Still, on occasion, she would eat three. When I asked her why, she said, “Because sometimes it’s just worth it.” I’d come to realize that we all have our own versions of the three-doughnut rule. I knew that if I stayed in Brixton, I would eventually have ashes dabbed on my forehead to step back into the chapel, to eat that third doughnut.