EQMM, August 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Your name, sir?” the dispatcher asked. “What's your address?"

  "Charles Vaughn ... I live in Lincoln but I'm in my car at Faneuil Hall, near Williams-Sonoma. He's drunk, he's attacking me. I—"

  The big man lunged forward, snatched the phone away, and flung it to the sidewalk, where it shattered. Bystanders jumped back, though most stayed close—to watch whatever was going to happen next. A couple of drunk teenagers laughed and started chanting, “Fight, fight, fight."

  The man gripped Vaughn's jacket and tried to pull him out of the car.

  "Get off me!” Vaughn gripped the wheel and the men played tug of war until a siren sounded nearby, getting closer.

  Thank God...

  The assailant, his face red with rage, let go and stood frozen for a moment, as if he was wondering what else he could do to Vaughn. He settled for repeating, “You prick,” and ran back to his car. He spun the wheels in reverse, disappearing around the corner. Vaughn strained his neck looking back but he couldn't see the license plate.

  Hands shaking, breath ticking with the fright, Vaughn felt weak with fear and dread.

  The police arrived and took a statement, made a note of the incident and the damage to the car. Vaughn was giving them what information he could remember when another thought occurred to him. His voice faded.

  "What, sir?” an officer asked, noticing the businessman's troubled face.

  "He heard me give nine-one-one my name. And where I lived. The town, I mean. Do you think he'll try to find me to get even?"

  The police didn't seem concerned. “Road rage, or parking rage, whatever, it never lasts very long. I don't think you're in any danger."

  "Besides,” one officer added, nodding at the damage to the paint, “looks like he already did get even."

  The police talked to passersby—with less enthusiasm than Vaughn would have liked—but nobody had gotten the man's tag number—or was willing to admit it if they had. Then another call came in on their radio—another fight in progress.

  "St. Paddy's Day,” one of the officers spat out, shaking his head. They hurried off.

  "You okay?” one of the bystanders asked.

  "Yeah, thanks,” Vaughn said, not feeling the least bit okay. He ran his hand across the long scratch in the paint. He kept replaying the incident. Had it been his fault? Should he have given the guy the space? Of course not. But how had he sounded? Was he abrupt, insulting? He hadn't thought so, certainly hadn't meant to be.

  Finally his wife and daughter returned from the hall, toting several small bags. They noticed the damage to the car and the pieces of Vaughn's cell phone sitting in the backseat.

  "What happened, honey?"

  He explained to them.

  "Oh, Dad, no! Are you all right?"

  "Fine. Just get in."

  He locked the doors and drove away fast. On the turnpike Vaughn checked the rearview mirror every few seconds. But he saw no sign of the attacker's car. His wife and daughter chatted away as if nothing had happened. Vaughn was quiet, upset about the incident. And the anger—at them and at himself—wasn't going away.

  When they were a few miles from home Judy asked, “Something wrong, honey? You're not still bothered by that crazy man, are you?"

  "No,” he said. “I'm just a little tired."

  "Don't worry,” she said. “It's just paint. They can fix it up like new."

  Sometimes women just didn't get it at all.

  "Oh, Dad,” his daughter said urgently, “can we stop at Beth's? I want to give her the necklace."

  "No."

  "But it's right up there."

  "I said no."

  "But—"

  "No,” he snapped. “You'll see her at school tomorrow."

  The girl wasn't happy—the friend's house was, after all, on the way home—but Vaughn wouldn't change his mind.

  When they arrived at home he pulled his wife aside and told her his big concern—that the man had heard Vaughn mention his name and the town they lived in.

  "Oh.” Now Judy seemed miffed. His impression was that she was upset he'd gotten into the fight in the first place and hadn't just given the guy the parking space, then double-parked to wait for them. As if it was male ego that'd caused the problem.

  He came a millisecond away from reminding her that their last-minute shopping spree was the ultimate cause of the whole thing, but self-preservation kicked in and he managed to restrain himself. He said, “The police don't think it's anything to worry about. But just keep an eye out.” He described the man.

  "Keep an eye out,” she muttered, and walked off silently to make dinner.

  Vaughn didn't eat much that night (his excuse was that his stomach was upset from the fast food they'd had for lunch, which his wife had ordered—a fact he managed to work into his explanation, with some petty satisfaction).

  After his family went to bed that night, Vaughn climbed the stairs to the study above the garage and stayed awake for a long time, keeping a vigil, staring out at the street, looking for any sign of the assailant.

  At three A.M. or so he fell asleep with the Memory prominently sitting in his thoughts.

  And the next morning he awoke with it.

  Vaughn forced himself to relax and, even though he was groggy from lack of sleep, he made breakfast for the family, spent a cheerful half-hour with them, and then headed off to work.

  But the good mood didn't last. The Memory kept coming back. He replayed the incident a hundred times that day. He regretted not fighting back, not grabbing the man and wrestling him to the ground, pinning him there until the cops arrived. He felt he was a coward, a failure.

  He was so distracted he missed the lunch he'd set up to woo the big client that his rival was after.

  Over the next six weeks things grew worse. Several times on the way to work he spotted cars that might have been the assailant's, and skidded off the highway, desperate to escape. Two weeks ago he'd nearly slammed into a woman's SUV in a grocery store parking lot while staring at a car behind him. And another time, leaving a local bar, he'd seen a man in sunglasses across the street; Vaughn believed he looked like the assailant. Panicked, the businessman leapt back inside the bar, knocking into several people and spilling drinks. He nearly tripped down the back stairs of the bar as he fled.

  All of these incidents turned out to be false alarms—the men he'd seen were not the attacker—but he couldn't shake the fear that consumed him.

  Finally, he couldn't take it anymore. One morning Vaughn canceled a meeting at work and drove to a building outside of town, a place he'd found in the Yellow Pages, a gun shop and shooting range. There he bought a 9mm semiautomatic Glock pistol and enrolled in the course that would give him a Class A firearm permit, allowing him to carry a concealed weapon.

  Today, at lunch, he was going to complete the course and get the license. From now on he could carry the gun wherever he wanted to.

  * * * *

  Jamie Feldon woke up at nine on Friday, well rested and ready to get started on his new life.

  Unlike the typical evening from his past, last night he'd slept in his bed, under clean sheets, wearing clean pajamas, and, even though he'd had a beer with dinner, he'd gone to sleep sober. He'd also stuck to his rule of only two cigarettes for the entire evening. He brushed his teeth for a full minute.

  Now, eating a modest breakfast, he looked over the notes he'd taken about Charles Vaughn. The businessman lived in Lincoln. But Jamie wanted to see him without his family around, so he'd Googled the name and found him mentioned on some computer industry websites. He learned where the man worked, an Internet company about ten miles away.

  Jamie decided to take something along with him, and after some thinking he had a brainstorm: Champagne. Vaughn, he recalled, was a man who dressed well and would probably have good taste.

  After washing his breakfast dishes, Jamie jumped in his car and headed off to the nearest wine store, figuring he'd spend some serious money on the bottle. You can't scrimp whe
n you're working on a new life.

  "Good shooting,” the man said.

  He was a well-toned fifty-year-old with cropped gray hair. Tendons and muscles were prominent in his arms and neck. His name was Larry Bolling, and he was the senior instructor at Patriot Guns and Shooting Range, where Charles Vaughn had been taking his lessons.

  Vaughn pulled his ear protectors off. “What?"

  * * * *

  "Good shooting, I said."

  "Thanks.” Vaughn put the black semiautomatic pistol down on the bench in front of him as the instructor reeled the target back in. The eight shots were grouped tight in the silhouette's chest.

  The shooting wasn't competition-level but he was satisfied.

  The idea that Charles Vaughn would be spending any time at all thinking about grain weight of bullets and the advantages of a SIG-Sauer safety (a thumb lever) versus a Glock (a second trigger) was hilarious. Here was a man who made his living with credit reports and product-spec sheets, and yet he was spending his lunch hour shooting at images of Bin Laden and John Q. Thug.

  But even more ironic was that Charles Vaughn had turned into a pretty damn good shot.

  At first he'd held the gun stiffly, in a way that seemed to mimic what he'd seen actors do in the movies.

  "Now, sir,” Larry Bolling had explained at the first lesson, “you might not want to do that."

  "What's that?"

  "Hold your weapon that way."

  "Okay. Sure. Why not?"

  "Because when you pull the trigger, the slide—See that part there—is gonna fly back at, oh, about a thousand miles an hour, and it'll take a portion of your thumb with it. What you do is just rest one hand on the other. Sorta like this."

  "This?"

  "That's right. Now let's go put some holes in a target."

  Well, at first he hadn't put a lot of holes in anything but the bullet trap at the back of the range. But today he'd been rewarded for his skill.

  Good shooting...

  After the lunch-hour lesson today, Vaughn dismantled the gun, then cleaned, reassembled, and reloaded it.

  He found Bolling in the front office, hunched over some papers. He motioned Vaughn to take a chair.

  "So, I get my ticket?” the businessman asked.

  "Not quite yet, sir."

  Vaughn frowned. He'd passed all the tests with perfect scores. He'd also passed the background checks. He'd attended all of the video and live-instruction sessions, had done all his homework.

  "I thought that was it."

  "Nope,” Bolling explained. “There's one more thing that I include in my classes."

  "Okay, what's that?"

  "You need to answer a question."

  "Go ahead."

  "Why do you want a carry permit? You never told me."

  "I'm a wealthy businessman. I'm concerned about my family. There's a lot of crime in Boston."

  "That's all true—at least I can attest to the last one of those, and the other two are no doubt right, as well. But why don't you tell me the real reason?"

  Vaughn could only laugh. He shook his head and explained about the attack on St. Patrick's Day.

  "Okay, sir, I understand that was upsetting. But that's not a good reason to carry a weapon."

  "But he was dangerous."

  "Let me ask: That was six weeks ago, give or take; you seen hide or hair of that man since then?"

  "I don't think so,” Vaughn said defensively.

  A nod toward the pistol on the businessman's hip. “You've done good in the course. You know safety and you've got every legal right to carry that. My advice to you is to take it home, put it in a lockbox, and leave it there until the next time you come here to have some fun. Then take it home again and put it back in the box. You get my drift?"

  "But—"

  "Listen to me."

  Vaughn looked up into the man's steely eyes. He nodded.

  "Most people, in their entire lives, there's a one in a million chance that there'd be a good reason to draw their weapon on the street, and even less of a chance they ought to use it. The absolute best possible thing you can do in a confrontation is turn and run like a rabbit, calling for help at the top of your lungs. I'll tell you from my heart that that's exactly what I'd do."

  "Run."

  "As fast as your feet can carry you. And if you're with your grandmother, or your child, you sling ‘em over your shoulder and carry ‘em with you.... A gun's for that one time in your life when you're trapped, there's no help around, and your assailant intends to kill you. That situation in Boston, naturally it upset you, and no doubt that man was a solid-gold son of a bitch. And you're thinking you were a coward. But I'm telling you, it's braver to live with a feeling like that than to go looking for trouble."

  "Well, duly noted,” Vaughn said. “I appreciate your comments."

  "There, I've said my piece.” Bolling produced a temporary permit. “Good luck to you, sir."

  Leaving the gun shop and range, returning to his car, Charles Vaughn was thinking about Bolling's words. But they didn't stay with him long. He was aware of a curious feeling. It was as if something fundamental in his life had changed. He thought back to the incident in Boston and found, to his surprise, his gut didn't twist, his heart didn't pound quite so fast. The anger—at the attacker, and at himself for his cowardice—was almost gone.

  Charles Vaughn walked to his car and headed back to work, buoyed by a confidence that he hadn't felt for months. Maybe even years.

  * * * *

  At five P.M. that evening Jamie Feldon sat in the front seat of his Toyota, listening to the radio and watching people leave the office of NES Computer Products.

  He didn't know if Charles Vaughn was a workaholic—a lot of times those Internet guys really put in the hours—but Jamie would stay as long as he needed to in order to see the guy. Beside him was a grilled chicken sandwich from McDonald's, an iced tea, and a bottle of Champagne whose name he couldn't pronounce, which meant that it had to be good.

  He ate his dinner, listened to the radio, and thought about the other people on his list.

  Then, at seven P.M., Jamie saw Charles Vaughn leave by the front door, look around, and then head toward the parking garage.

  Jamie took a deep breath.

  Making amends.

  A new life.

  He grabbed the Champagne, stepped out of the car, and started up the sidewalk to the garage.

  * * * *

  Approaching his car, Charles Vaughn examined the paint job. The body shop had completely erased the damage from when the psycho had keyed his car outside Faneuil Hall.

  Just like the gun on his hip had erased the psychic scarring.

  He no longer felt defenseless, no longer felt scared. In fact, despite the gun instructor's advice (which Vaughn thought was a bit hypocritical, considering his job), he was hoping the man would make his move.

  I'm ready for you.

  It was then that he heard a snap—or some sound—not far away. He froze and looked around. The garage was deserted here; after his lesson at the gun shop he'd returned to find parking only on the fifth floor. His was the only car here now. He shifted his briefcase to his left hand. His pistol was only a few inches away from his right.

  But, he told himself, how would the punk know where he worked? He might've been staking out Lincoln, but here? Impossible.

  Though if the guy was really determined, it wouldn't be impossible to find out his company. Vaughn squinted, scanning the floor behind him. Was that the shadow of someone on the far stairwell? He couldn't tell.

  His heart beating quickly, he remembered the man's face, remembered the anger in his eyes, the smell of liquor, the uncontrolled hands as they gripped Vaughn's lapels.

  A chill tickled his spine. But it wasn't fear; it was exhilaration.

  Keeping his right hand free, Vaughn set his briefcase down and fished for his car keys, while he scanned the garage in the direction he believed the sound had come from.

  The
sound again.

  He hit the unlock button on the key. But still didn't get inside. He tapped the gun with his right palm.

  Vaughn tensed as the sound of tires squealing filled his ears. He laughed to himself, watching the pickup truck squeal down the exit ramp from the top floor, where maintenance workers and contractors were supposed to park. That was the noise he'd heard, the men loading up the truck.

  It was then that a man's voice behind him said, “Excuse me, Mr. Vaughn? You probably don't remember me..."

  Vaughn gasped, dropping the car keys. He stared at the figure approaching him, carrying something large in his right hand. It looked like a club, a bowling pin.

  Jesus, it's him, it's the attacker!

  Instinctively, Vaughn dropped into a combat shooting pose, drew his gun, and aimed directly at the man's chest. He started to pull the trigger.

  * * * *

  Jamie Feldon gasped, holding up a hand as if it could ward off the bullet that was about to end his life. “No! Please!"

  Neither Jamie nor Vaughn moved.

  Time was frozen.

  Jamie heard nothing, he felt nothing.

  It was so quiet.... Had the gun actually gone off? Maybe it had and he was dead.

  But then he felt wind on his cheek and heard a truck shifting gears nearby. A horn honked in the distance. His heart, too ... he could actually hear it.

  "Please,” he whispered. “Please don't...."

  Vaughn was squinting at Jamie. “Could you ... I'm sorry, could you step into the light there?"

  Jamie did.

  Vaughn studied his face, then the Champagne. He slumped. “My God, my God, my God...” The gun lowered and the businessman leaned against his car. “I thought ... I'm sorry, I thought you were somebody else."

  Feeling his hands quiver madly, Jamie gave a breathless laugh. “Who?"

  Vaughn said, “This guy I had a run-in with in Boston. On St. Patrick's Day ... I'm so sorry. I couldn't see you clearly.” His shoulders slumped. “Or maybe I was just so paranoid.” He glanced down at the gun with wide eyes and quickly put it in the holster on his hip. “Are you ... are you all right?"

  Jamie laughed. “Well, I've gotta say I'm a lot better now that you put that thing away. Thought I'd pee my pants for a minute there."