by Grace Risata
As we turned down the road that led to my house, Rocky gave me a warning to make it quick since it would be getting dark soon and the clock was ticking. I was afraid they would leave without me so I made all four of them give me their word they would wait. It would be a good opportunity to test out this whole “giving of the word” rule. Rocky told me that I had exactly three minutes and if I was one second over that time, they would leave. I ran into the house, almost tripped on my skirt after whipping it off, and flung on a pair of tight blue jeans. I shoved my license, keys, and some twenty dollar bills in my pocket; grabbed a black belt, socks, gym shoes, and a black hooded sweatshirt, and sprinted out the door barefoot.
“What was my time?” I asked breathlessly as I finished getting dressed in the SUV. I don’t think any of the guys had ever seen a girl get ready so quickly.
As we drove to the secret shooting spot, I couldn’t contain my excitement in the backseat. I kept bouncing my leg next to Rocky and he asked me, “Are you high on something? You’re really amped up tonight, you know that?”
“No,” I responded, “I don’t do drugs. They’re dangerous.”
“But going to shoot an AK-47 is perfectly safe?” he argued.
“Sure. It’s safe because I know the gun rules.” I practiced smart gun safety.
“This should be good. Why don’t you enlighten me on these gun rules,” he replied, using air quotes for the words “gun rules.”
“You should never point the gun at something you’re not willing to shoot, always know what’s behind your target because the bullets travel farther than you realize, when you’re not in the act of shooting you should make sure the safety is ALWAYS on, and always assume the gun is loaded and treat it as such.” I beamed knowing I aced that answer.
Vasily turned around and smiled at me. “Good answer, Violet. I’m impressed.”
Rocky scowled and mumbled, “I guess it was ok.” This caused Dmitry to glance at Rocky in the rear view mirror and chuckle.
Rocky spelled out his rules for me. “If at any time I feel like you can’t handle the weapon, it will be immediately taken away and you will be sent back to the SUV to wait for us. There will be no arguments. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yeah, yeah. Misbehave and get a time out. I got it.” If I wanted to hear nagging, I’d call my mom. She’d have a total meltdown if she knew where I was right now!
Rocky glared at me and turned to look out the window, not saying a word until we arrived at our destination. Rocky’s silence didn’t bother me one bit. This was primarily because (1) we stopped the car two minutes later, (2) I was riding in a badass black SUV with four dudes who looked like they could take down an army, and (3) I was about to shoot the mother of all guns. Best adventure EVER! Go Violet! If Rocky got all hot and bothered after seeing what an expert sniper I was and decided he had to grab me and have his way with me…well that would be the icing on the cake!
We unloaded the car and the guys started grabbing targets to set up. Our targets for the evening consisted of rubber dummies that you’d find in a boxing gym. They also had a four foot by four foot plywood board with a spray-painted bulls-eye in the middle. I was handed a case of beer bottles to carry. “Can you handle that?” Sergio asked me.
“You’re going to get drunk and shoot guns? That doesn’t sound like a good idea.” I was turning into my mother. But in my defense, four drunks and a machine gun were not a wise combination.
“Absolutely not, Violet. We’re shooting them,” Dmitry replied. “They’re old and skunky anyway. Instead of dumping them down the drain, we’re finding a way to make them useful.”
We walked through a mini forest of trees that eventually thinned out and revealed a wide open field. While Dmitry and Vasily set up the shooting gallery, I made small talk. “So how do you all know each other?”
Sergio filled me in before anyone else could give an answer. “We’re all from the same area back East. Rocky and I moved out here to start the business and Dmitry followed us six months later. He got sick of hearing us talk about how great it was so he decided to come and see for himself. Vasily is Dmitry’s brother. Vasily can’t wipe his ass without permission from both his wife and brother, so it was a natural thing to have him join us.”
Vasily yelled, “Hey asshole, I heard that!” I was really starting to like these guys. They seemed to be comfortable around one another and the verbal jabs flew left and right. It was hard to keep up, but I felt like I was holding my own.
The targets were all in place and it was shooting time. Dmitry held the AK-47 and showed me how to load the magazine and look through the sight. He explained that it was in semi-automatic mode, which meant it wouldn’t continue to fire automatically if I held the trigger down. I would have to press the trigger for each shot I wanted to fire.
Rocky stood close by to observe my training, but he looked very uneasy about the whole situation. “Let’s have her start with something smaller before you give her a loaded AK-47,” he demanded. Before I could ask where they would magically find more guns, I had two of them shoved in my direction. Sergio whipped out a twenty-two caliber handgun and Vasily offered me a 9mm handgun.
I looked wide-eyed at Dmitry, who shrugged his shoulders. “I have a thirty-eight special in the car if you want,” he suggested. What the fuck? Who ARE these guys that they’re all packing heat like this?
I turned to Rocky with a sheepish expression and asked, “Where’s YOUR gun?”
He pulled out a nasty looking switchblade and grinned, explaining, “I prefer hand to hand combat.” Wow. I was out of my element here. My sense of self-preservation kicked in and I started looking for a way out of whatever I’d gotten myself into. Rocky noticed and nodded his head at me, indicating that I should follow him off to the side.
“Violet, don’t freak out. Just because we have weapons doesn’t make us bad people, ok? You’re the one who wanted to shoot the gun and come with us. You know we won’t hurt you. If we wanted you dead, we would have done that a long time ago.” I think he meant that as a joke, but instead it kicked my anxiety into high gear.
“Um, maybe I should go?” I stammered.
Rocky put his hand on my back and whispered, “I give you my word that you’ll be safe. You’re among friends here. Dmitry and Vasily think you’re amazing because you give me shit. Don’t let their opinion of you change, ok? Let’s go out there and show them what you’ve got.”
That little pep talk was reassuring. Now wasn’t the time to wimp out. I wasn’t afraid of the guns, just of the guys that carried them. Rocky had a point though. If they wanted to do me harm, then they had ample opportunity to have done that by now. Dmitry was very patient when showing me how to use the AK-47 and they’d all been nothing but gentlemen so far. I’d suck it up and try to keep a cool head. I managed a small smile for Rocky and we re-joined the group. Rocky pulled out some ear plugs and we all put them in. I was grateful he had them. I could only imagine how loud the assault rifle would be.
I held out my hand to Sergio for his .22 caliber. That’s the same one I had at home and the one I felt most comfortable with. They had me aim for the plywood board and I came pretty close to the middle. I didn’t like the 9mm because it wasn’t as accurate. We all backed up and Rocky did some practice shots with the AK-47. It looked really cool. He gave it to me after I showed him what I had just learned from Dmitry and he was confident that I would follow instructions. I aimed for the head of one of the rubber dummies. I squeezed off four rounds and then handed the rifle back to Rocky. He seemed surprised that I was done already. “I want to see how good my shots were,” I explained. We all trekked over to the rubber dummies and I was elated to see a chunk of the head had been obliterated. “YES! KILL SHOT!” I did a fist pump and jumped in the air to celebrate my success. High fives were passed out all around and I had a giant shit-eating grin on my face. This was so much fun! My turn was over and now everyone else got a chance to show off.
I watched in awe as the
guys took their shots. Dmitry went wild with his new toy. He took so many hits on the plywood board that it cracked in half. Sergio was the sniper and had to hit the glass beer bottles to make them explode. Vasily only took a couple shots with the AK-47, he preferred his 9mm. He didn’t want to waste ammo so he ended up spending most of his time texting back and forth with Irina. Rocky seemed to content to watch everyone else have their fun.
“Aren’t you going to shoot anymore?” I asked him.
“I was actually trying to come up with a way to win my hundred bucks back from Sergio. Watch this.” Rocky loudly challenged, “Sergio, I’ll bet you a hundred bucks that I can knock down more bottles than you. We each have five bottles and five .22 caliber rounds. We have to shoot from twenty feet away.”
Sergio accepted the bet and I went to line up the bottles. It was really starting to get dark and I didn’t know how that would affect the challenge. Sergio shot first. He got four out of five. He missed on his third one and started swearing. Rocky got all five and happily won his money back.
We packed up the dummies and picked up as many beer bottles as we could. Dmitry said he’d get the rest tomorrow in the daylight. As we made our way back to the car, Sergio declared he was hungry and wanted to stop for food. The guys were all agreeable and I was starving after having only eaten rotten chicken leftovers for supper.
Dmitry chose a small diner on the edge of town that was known for their greasy burgers. It was your typical small town restaurant with booths covered in ripped vinyl, a few regulars at the counter perched on swiveling stools while drinking bottomless cups of coffee, and juicy aromas coming from the grill. The place was pretty empty, due to the fact that we were arriving well past the dinner rush.
The guys picked out a corner booth because it was the only table they could all comfortably fit in. I was stuck on the end next to Rocky. Somehow we always ended up sitting next to each other. I wished with all my heart that someone I knew would walk in to the restaurant and see me sitting there amongst the four sinfully good looking guys. Of course that didn’t happen. Damn my luck!
The waitress sauntered up to take our order. After scanning the group, she stopped at Sergio. She batted her eyelashes and gave him a hilarious come-hither glance. “Well, hello there. You gentlemen must be from out of town. I’m sure I’d recall such fine looking men walking into my restaurant. What’s your name, sugar?”
Oh you have GOT to be kidding me! Again? All the ladies flock to Sergio and I get treated like I’m invisible. She said that ‘the gentlemen’ must be from out of town. So did that make me a townie or one of the gentlemen?
“His name is Johnny,” I replied, using the fake name that Sergio gave the Barbie Twins. “The other ones are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Noah. My name is Iris.”
Dmitry put his hand over his mouth to cover his immediate snort, while Rocky had a coughing fit. Sergio politely asked the waitress to come back in a few minutes to take our order and turned to me with a death stare.
“What the hell was that?” he demanded.
“I like the fake name game,” I explained.
Dmitry could no longer contain his laughter and had a full blown episode. “That was great, Violet, but what’s up with the biblical theme and which one of us is which? I want the Ark. Also I don’t know if you can count or not, but you listed four names and there are only three of us at the table.”
“Fine, you can be Noah, and yes I’m bad at math.” I’m really glad they got the joke. I hated when my humor was wasted on people who didn’t understand.
Vasily was busy texting instead of paying attention to the conversation. “Irina wants you all to come back to the bar after we eat. She’s bored and wants to show Violet where she works. Irina doesn’t have many girlfriends, so I think that would be good for her.”
“That’s fine with me. I liked Irina after I figured out she didn’t want to kill me. She’s fucking hot,” I admitted. All four heads turned toward me. “What? A girl can think another girl is attractive. And Irina is like Russian-supermodel hot. I’m not blind, you know.” They were still staring at me when the waitress returned to take our order. Rocky, Dmitry, and Vasily all got double cheeseburgers, Sergio got chicken strips, and I got pancakes. I’m all about the breakfast foods.
“Still afraid of undercooked meat, Violet?” Sergio teased.
“I’m a cautious eater and it’s really hard to fuck up a pancake. I like the safe road.” Says the girl who just shot an AK-47. “So tell me more about where you guys come from. Dmitry, did you also go to school with Rocky and Sergio?” This was a great opportunity to dig for more information. We just ordered our food so there was no escape.
“Well, Violet, funny you should ask that,” Rocky responded, “I have a story about Dmitry that’s even better than the one I told you about Sergio.” Now that caught my attention. I loved the way Rocky told a story.
Dmitry shook his head violently and protested, “Rocky, it’s always that same fucking story. Let it go, will you?”
Vasily broke out into a huge grin and disagreed with his brother, “No, that’s the best story in the history of the world. No matter how many times I hear it, I still crack up. Tell her!”
Rocky was happy to oblige. “Once upon a time, or more like four years ago, there was a seedy bar in a crime ridden area of town. Sergio, Dmitry, and I had a rough day and we decided to go out and find some trouble. Dmitry was knocking back drinks like he just spent a week in the desert and it took him about half an hour to get completely obliterated. He was approached by a lovely lady who got his attention. This lady was about six foot two with an Adam’s apple and a voice deeper than mine.”
“HEY, I was drunk and she was wearing a short skirt and high heels! It threw me off, ok?” Dmitry said, trying to defend himself.
“I tried to tell my friend that the lady he was flirting with was not a lady at all,” Rocky continued, “but he wouldn’t listen and had the nerve to accuse me of trying to muscle in on his action. After getting a lecture on how I should step aside and watch how a real man picks up a girl, I had no choice but to let him learn the hard way. They started making out, with tongue mind you, and they didn’t stop until the lady put Dmitry’s hand between her legs and he felt a bulge there. Once he realized that normal ladies don’t have nuts, he ran away so fast that he accidentally hit a brick wall and knocked himself out. Have you ever tried to pick up your friend when they’re out cold and your other friend isn’t helping because he’s laughing so hard he pissed his pants? That’s what I have to deal with.”
By now I was laughing so hard I thought I would piss MY pants. Sergio had tears coming from his eyes and Vasily was covering his mouth in a futile effort to hide his amusement.
Dmitry shook his head and offered up a weak, “After I regained consciousness I used two bottles of mouthwash.” I fucking LOVED these guys.
“Violet, it’s your turn. Tell us a something about you,” Vasily urged. Oh no. Way to put me on the spot. I don’t have any great embarrassing moments.
“I mostly just do stupid stuff like putting aluminum pots in the microwave and then they start smoking and my fire alarm goes off. I got a ‘D’ in gym class once as my final grade for the semester. Does that count as anything?” I asked.
“How do you get a D in gym class? I thought you were guaranteed at least a C for showing up and changing clothes?” Rocky insisted.
“I’m bad at sports...and in that class I had two stoner friends that never participated. Janette was a short little thing with a bad attitude and Stacy used to tell us about all the guys she was hooking up with and had false pregnancy scares every other week. I was boring miss-goody-two-shoes so I felt cool hanging out with them. One day the teacher told Janette to get involved in whatever we were supposed to be doing. She told him to fuck off. He asked her to repeat what she’d just said and she responded by telling him that she was sure he’d heard her just fine. I thinking I got a D by association. It was worth it. They made gym class fun.
Stacy was pretty hot too. She had long blond hair and always wore tight ripped jeans. She let me wear her leather jacket once.” They were all staring at me again.
“What’s with you and the chicks?” Sergio asked. “Did you ever...you know….?”
“No! I did NOT ever…you know...with a chick. I just have a thing for girls with long straight hair.” I was saved from having to explain further when the waitress brought our food. Everyone dug into their plates like they hadn’t eaten in weeks, myself included. I eventually looked around to see if anyone wanted a bite of my pancakes, but they were too busy jamming in their own food to bother with mine. I grabbed a French fry off Rocky’s plate and got a dirty look in return. Evidently swapping spit once doesn’t automatically grant me permission to steal his food.
Dessert was declined, but the waitress made sure to put her phone number on the check when she gave it to Sergio adding, “In case you’d like dessert of another sort later, hon, why don’t you give me a call.” She was brave. I had to give her that.
I reached in my pocket to pull out some money to put toward my pancakes. Rocky saw me dig out the money and immediately put an end to that.
“Violet, put the money back in your pocket. We discussed this already. The girl does not pay,” he reminded me very quietly so no one else would hear. Instead he pulled out the hundred dollar bill that he won back from Sergio and smacked it down on the table.
“Let’s go to the bar and see if we can’t find Dmitry another man to hit on.”
We all laughed, except for Dmitry of course.
On the way to the car, Sergio made a show of handing me the receipt with the waitress’s phone number and suggesting, “Maybe you want her number, Violet, you seem to be into that.”
