by Julia Kent
“This half,” the instructor says, cutting off the group right behind me as I stand behind Andrew, “can go take a break, get drinks and snacks, look at the merchandise up front–but be ready in twenty minutes.”
“Smoke break,” one of the men who reeks of tobacco says, leaving sight quickly as our half of the line moves forward.
“You need goggles!” the instructor calls out. “Any lead allergies? Heavy metal?”
“Only allergic to White Snake!” someone yells, getting snickers and laughs in return.
The instructor waves his hand dismissively, but he’s laughing.
There’s a thick door with a small window that separates us from the shooting range. Five people can fire at the same time, and there’s an instructor with each student. Two more students line up behind whoever’s currently shooting, I discover, as Andrew moves forward. I get an encouraging hand squeeze before he goes through the door. He ends up shooting first at his station, so I can watch him but not be in there at the same time. As he puts the goggles and noise-cancelling earphones on, a sense of elation fills me. Akin to pride, it’s undefined, but it has to do with being together. Watching him in action.
Holding shared space together.
But... at a gun range. This is so weird.
People come out holding paper targets with bullet holes. Most of the holes are way outside the target perimeter, but once in a while someone comes out with an actual hole in the target’s heart. Applause greets them, along with low whistles of approval from the rougher men.
Just like that, I’m determined to earn that whistle.
Bizarre, right?
But remember: most of the crowd is male. Older than me. Some primal childhood core component of my sense of self is screaming to be the center of that attention. Doesn’t matter if I’m in a presentation, at a cocktail party for Anterdec, watching my father-in-law coo at his grandchild (who is also my niece), or buying tampons from some dude at the drugstore: if the person is a man my father’s age, or close enough, my brain lights up in the regions designed to respond to praise.
Praise I never got from him.
Will I always seek this out? Will I always be uncomfortable around older men? I don’t know, but there is one thing I do know: I’m going to shoot the hell out of that bullseye.
“Grab a pair of goggles before you go in, and as soon as you’re done shooting, come on out. Don’t linger,” one of the instructors calls out before the door opens and I’m allowed in. Andrew’s on the opposite side of the range. It’s ice cold in there, the air redolent with an industrial scent that feels more vibrant than it has a right to. That much energy shouldn’t be present in the same space with people grasping in their hands a weapon that kills with one shot.
Then again, maybe that’s exactly why that kind of vibrance fills the space.
A holy respect washes over me as I step into the first column and watch the person ahead of me, his face tight, shoulders hunched, elbow pulled in as the instructor explains some detail that makes the guy change his angle slightly. At any point in here, someone could turn three feet and fire a live round into the small crowd of people at the back.
People like me.
Impulse control is a funny construct, isn’t it? We’re biologically wired for survival, but we also have this tremendous drive fueled by curiosity and risk. Thankfully, we’re socialized by all the rules about not hurting others, because if we weren’t, moments like this could become tragic. A social contract exists: don’t harm others.
Even when you can.
I turn my attention to Andrew at the other side of the room, taking in the vision of my husband holding a gun, face set in steely determination, shooting a target that represents a human being but that is really just a pale piece of paper with thick black lines on it, and nothing more. His upper body moves a few inches back, broad shoulders rippling under his shirt as the gun fires and the kick produces kinetic force strong enough for him to need to hold his core. His legs are apart, not too far, but enough that his thighs and ass tighten with the rebound of every shot.
My body goes numb and fizzy, hard and warm as I watch. He’s graceful. Strong. Powerful. Determined.
And holding a device that kills.
Mastering power you never, ever want to use requires a deep well of goodness. Honor. A direct lifeline to a moral core that has confidence in using it if needed, but that fervently prays that moment never comes. The measure of a person isn’t in how they use their power.
It’s in how they don’t use it.
I make a tiny, scared sound as my shoulder is tapped and I throw my arms in the air, surprised and biologically triggered by the interruption of kind but no-nonsense eyes behind goggles. “Your turn,” one of the instructors says, his beard thick but trimmed, glasses under his goggles, the arm touching me thick with muscle and covered in rolling, colorful tattoos.
“Oh! Okay,” I say as I step forward.
Andrew is talking animatedly to his instructor, holding the paper target. I can’t see it across the room, but I’m sure he nailed it.
“Second thoughts?” my instructor says.
“What? No!”
I catch Andrew’s eye. He gives me a thumbs up and crosses the room, violating the rule of not lingering, but when did my husband ever care about other people’s rules?
“You’ll do fine,” Andrew says, ignoring the sour look from my teacher. “Everyone misses their first time,” he adds, touching the same shoulder that the guy just shook.
I can only smile as he leaves, pointing to the door. I’ll find him there, I know, waiting.
“Revolver or pistol?” the instructor, whose name tag says Dan, asks.
“Pistol.” The classroom handling of guns led to a surprising preference for this one.
“Okay.” He hands me a pistol, the heaviness still so foreign. His words about the type of gun wash over me as I stare at it, transfixed. This is a gun. I am holding one. I listen as Dan explains all the basics, which distill down to one point: Don’t be stupid.
I can manage that.
“Spread your legs apart a little. Unlock your knees. You’ll need to be fixed but flexible to handle the kickback. Let’s play for about seven shots, and if you want another go-around, we can do that.”
His words wash over me. I keep staring at the target. At the center. The dark spot over the paper human’s heart.
And then I’m holding the gun, right hand wrapped around the handle, left hand supporting under the butt of it, my index finger on the trigger. It takes a lot of effort to pull that trigger, more than you’d think.
Everything important should take effort. More than you’d think.
Focusing my eyes on the site, I take in all we’ve been taught, mixing it with my social conditioning about guns, which is one hundred percent from media influences. Mom never owned a gun. No one taught me how to do this. I’m here now, standing in a place filled with my fellow students firing, pop pop pop, our whole beings centered on driving a piece of forged metal through a pretend heart, to kill a pretend bad guy, to use the power.
On the top of the gun, there’s a small metal piece, almost like a razor blade with a notch in it. That’s the sight. My mind wants to focus on the distant target, but the training kicks in.
Level the sight.
Center the target.
Practice your power.
My finger holds, waiting until it all lines up, and then I just... flow.
Click. Boom!
My shoulder flinches with the rebound. I tighten my core and radiate strength out to my shoulders and arms.
“Again,” the instructor says.
Level the sight.
Center the target.
Click. Bang!
“Try three in a row,” he says in a voice that sounds quizzical, evaluative, his cool demeanor peeling off to show this is a man who holds a lot of emotion under the surface.
I do.
My whole being does.
In th
e seconds it takes to assemble all of the pieces of myself, the gun, the space between me and the target, the whole milieu, I become a tree. My feet are roots that seek the center of the Earth, my hands blending into the metal of the gun and touching the paper target, reaching, reaching, as I become the space between objects, as my eyes calibrate the distance between every atom in the room, as the roof lifts up and the sky becomes my hair, the scent of metal my musk.
Click. Bang!
Click. Bang!
Click. Bang!
I blow through the magazine and Dan quickly hands me a new one. Awkward suddenly, I discharge the clip and load the new magazine.
“You can do seven more, then we need to get another student in here,” he says, eyebrows up. “Let’s see if you can keep it up.”
Keep what up? I want to ask, but the draw of what I’m doing is stronger.
I sight.
I center.
I shoot.
And seven bullets later, I’m done.
Dan presses a button that brings the paper target, a torso-sized piece of ivory paper with a black silhouette printed on it, up to us like a dry cleaner summoning your order.
“Where’s the heart?” I ask, dazed and charged, electricity flowing through my hands, my chest, my feet.
“You obliterated it,” he says, shaking his head. “You’ve been practicing, huh?”
“No.”
“No?”
“This is the first time I’ve ever held a gun.”
He laughs.
I don’t.
“You’re serious?”
All of the centeredness that came into me seconds ago floods away, leaving me shaky, weird. I take the target from him and head to the door, opening the heavy metal slab slowly.
Andrew’s there, at the back of the hallway, not in line. Our eyes meet. He looks down at my paper.
And that’s when the whistles begin.
“Holy shit, lady! You blew out the heart!”
I hold up the target. Andrew’s grin turns to amazement, the dizzying change making me laugh.
“Hold it up! Let us see!” one of the men calls out.
I do.
“How many rounds?” someone asks.
“Fourteen.”
“Not a single stray. Good work, lady.”
“Didn’t you say she doesn’t have a gun license?” says the guy who sat behind us in class.
“I don’t. Today was the first time I’ve ever fired a gun,” I tell them.
“Crack shot! Crack shot!” a few call out.
“Ringer!” shouts another.
Then the applause comes.
It has less power than I expected.
Andrew still hasn’t said a word, but he makes his way past the line of people, gently pinching the top corner of my paper target, searching it as if looking for an error, a mistake, a hole where it isn’t supposed to be.
“You blew out the heart,” he finally says.
“Don’t ever screw around on that one, bud. She’ll blow your sac off from two hundred feet,” someone says to cackles of male taunting.
Andrew ignores them.
“Is this good?” I ask, shaking the bottom edge of the paper.
The line erupts into spontaneous laughter.
One of the men takes Andrew’s target out of his hand and holds it up. Most of the bullets hit the heart, but a few are in the outer rings of the target.
“Lady, you didn’t just blow out the paper heart. You blew the fuck out of your husband’s ego. You’ve never touched a gun and you did that?”
Andrew shows no emotion.
“This is amazing,” he says to me, weaving us through the crowd. I curl my paper toward me, so people can’t easily see. Andrew takes me to a quiet corner in the retail section, looking dazed.
“I want to do this again!” The words form in my head before I realize they’re even present, rolling out of my mouth like a perfectly sighted shot.
“You should.” His body tenses, hand moving up to his mouth, then raking his hair. He keeps looking at my target, then his, and it hits me:
I’m better at something he thinks he should be better at.
“We can come back together,” I say, so close to throwing myself under a bus to save his feelings. I’m about to say platitudes like It was beginner’s luck or I’m sure my gun was calibrated differently, but I don’t.
It turns out there are other forms of power we need to master–but never use.
Tests come in many forms. I just passed one. Not the shooting.
The test of not sacrificing my achievement for the sake of someone else’s feelings.
The true test is what Andrew says next.
“You nailed it,” he says under his breath, looking again at my target. “Absolutely nailed it.” Brow down in concentration, he peers at me with a look I’ve never seen before. “Congratulations. How did it feel?”
“Feel?” I’m confused, elated, riddled with adrenaline.
Opening his mouth, he starts to say something, but closes it. “You ready to go?”
“Andrew.”
“Mmmm?”
“Talk to me.”
“Did you like it?” he asks.
“Like what?”
“The power.”
A cold, tingly feeling lights up my skin. “You know?”
“Know?”
“You know it feels like that? Because in the moment, yes. It’s visceral and it takes over. It’s like the piece of me that gets buried in daily life has a chance to come and take the wheel. And boy, does she like to be in control.”
“Does she?”
“She also likes beating you at something. Being better than you.”
It’s no secret that I’m married to one of the most overtly and unapologetically competitive men I’ve ever met. Andrew and his brother, Declan, are nutso about beating each other.
Competition has never been a major part of my relationship with Andrew, though.
“You are better at this than I am,” he grinds out. “Doesn’t change a thing with us.”
“Agreed.”
“But I’m rethinking gun ownership.”
“You are?”
“That’s what our security team’s for, right?” He guides me outside, into the bright glare of sunlight that feels like it’s been waiting for us all day, wondering when we’d finally show up.
“Yes, but I liked shooting!”
“We can do it recreationally.”
“How injured is your ego? Really?”
“It’s pretty hurt. Needs bed rest to recover.”
“Bed rest, huh? How much time in bed?”
“How much do you have to spare?”
“I’m a crack shot, Andrew. Everything I aim at, I hit.”
“That’s my line, Amanda.”
“Oh yeah? Let’s go home and you can prove it.”
“You’re a much better target than this.” He crinkles his paper and tosses it in the trash can as we leave.
“Better looking, too.”
My phone buzzes. It’s a text from Carol.
How’s the honeymoon going?
I look at the crumpled practice target at the top of the trash.
I take Andrew’s hand in mine.
I stare back at the phone.
How in the hell am I supposed to answer that?
Chapter 8
Andrew
The pool stays.
This entire remodeling process has been stressful but also fascinating. Major systems are underway, and all of the prepper crap Deke and Omar instructed me on turns out to be surprisingly practical, minus the sexbots, private islands, mercenary armies and saffron.
Pools are impractical, but I don’t care.
When I’m doing laps, my mind can go to corners of myself that don’t get much attention anywhere else. My arms pull the water back, propelling me forward, legs and hips and the rest of me coordinated for one purpose: to move forward.
Yes, there are parallel
s outside the pool. Life is nothing but forward motion. But in the water, I’m the one moving of my own volition. I push the water out of my way so I can glide through it. Any given body of water has boundaries, but the water itself really never ends. Yes, there is a surface. There is a bottom. There are sides. But you can swim forever in an endless mobius-like environment.
It’s like the womb.
Only bigger.
The indoor lap pool that Dad installed, to help me gain a competitive-swimmer’s edge, is a relic. Not that it’s fallen into disrepair. It hasn’t. The windows still shine brightly in the morning sun, and the condensation hasn’t broken through any double-paned glass. But it has the feeling of something from the mid-2000s, and the Andrew I was then is a far cry from the man I am now.
I pull up to the pool’s edge and watch the underwater lights turn my treading legs into an artistic light show of shadow and ripple. On nights like this, when the house is empty of everyone except Amanda, I swim naked. It’s a luxury I indulged in when I was at home and Mom and Dad were gone, Dec and Terry off at Milton or college.
After Mom died, I found myself alone in the house a lot.
So, naked it was.
And naked I am now.
Freedom in the water, completely unencumbered by social norms in the form of a Speedo, connects me to some deep mammalian part of my brain. All of the water touching all of me at the same time makes me more of a whole man. A whole person. I can become part of the water while staying separate from it, commanding my arms and legs to push me into space I make, propelled forward because I want to, over and over until I reach the end.
And then I decide.
I decide whether to stop or whether to keep going.
Grief hits me, hard, as if it’s been dumped into the pool, a chemical that disinfects as it stings. Underwater, we can’t breathe. We die if we do. Lungs are for air, air that sustains us. Out of the water, we modulate our air to meet our needs. Air gives us oxygen. Air plus vocal cords gives us words, volume, control.
Underwater? Gasping for air means death.
