saw the flashes like lightning strikes
and heard the crash of breaking glass and understood that my father had a gun.
“Not just a gun,”
she explained, “an assault rifle. He had
a fucking assault rifle, Kevin, and
he was shooting at these imaginary people in the yard.”
According to the
Sheriff’s Department, he fired sixty rounds in all, a total of two full
magazines. He blew out every window on
the ground floor. Once the windows were
gone, his bullets sailed unimpeded through the air and crossed property lines
to puncture tires, punch neat little holes in garage doors and shatter even
more windows on neighbors’ houses. By
the grace of God, he fired on a flat trajectory and kept the damage down to
ground-level; had he let the barrel get away from him and fired high, he could
have shot through bedroom windows and killed the people sleeping there. When the Sheriff’s Department arrived, they
found a first floor littered with shell casings, an assault rifle leaning
against the fireplace in the living room and a confused old man wandering
around trying to remember where he’d squirreled away the rest of his
ammunition.
“Where in the hell
did he get an assault rifle?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Who sold him
that? I want to know who thought it was
okay to sell a man of obviously diminished capacity any sort of firearm whatsoever…”
“Kevin, I don’t know! ”
Bobby was in Iraq, thousands
of miles away from this mess. I wanted
to turtle up in the worst way—I did not want to deal with this, I wasn’t
equipped for it—but I understood that I wouldn’t get away with that this
time. So I dressed, packed a few things
and drove the two hours to Conover. I
managed to stay awake and avoid running my car into a guardrail on I-40 with
the assistance of coffee, bewilderment and a significant dose of worry over the
court appearances and appointments I would have to postpone tomorrow in order
to take care of this. Because although
my father had just blown out his windows and nearly killed a bunch of his neighbors
with an assault rifle nobody knew he had, things like court appearances and
clients bearing billable hours still seemed important to me and worth freaking
out about.
Yes. I was and am a self-absorbed prick.
I met up with Kate
in the emergency room of Catawba Valley Medical
Center in Hickory. Her hair in a messy blond ponytail poking slightly off-center from the
back of her head, she wore blue jeans and one of Bobby’s old T-shirts. Dark circles under her eyes and a drawn
quality to her face made me stop and wonder where she had picked up the extra
twenty years.
“You talk to
Bobby?” I asked as we embraced.
“I called the
base. They’re going to try to reach him,
but he’s probably in a tent somewhere, so it might be a while. Right now, we’re it.”
“You okay?”
She drew in a
long, deep breath. Ki breath, I recognized; Kate possessed this technique, too,
because she had taken aikido with Bobby and me. She shook a little bit as she let it out, and I saw on her face the
stretched seams that explosive panic had left behind.
“I’m fine. Him, not so much.”
“What the hell
happened?”
“The people tried
to get in,” she said. “Apparently, he’s
been going on patrol every night for weeks, walking around down there with this gun and…I don’t know…staring down
these things he’s been seeing. He said
they tried to get in. So he stopped
them.”
“And all this
time, you never knew about the gun?”
She gave her
shoulders a tired lift. “I don’t search for contraband, Kevin. Maybe he’s had it for years, who knows? I think you’re focusing on the wrong thing
right now.”
“I’m just kind of
shocked here, because he’s never said a damn thing about guns my whole life, he
doesn’t hunt—hell, he doesn’t even fish —and
hey, whoa, here’s a big, fat old gun that carries thirty rounds
and heard the crash of breaking glass and understood that my father had a gun.
“Not just a gun,”
she explained, “an assault rifle. He had
a fucking assault rifle, Kevin, and
he was shooting at these imaginary people in the yard.”
According to the
Sheriff’s Department, he fired sixty rounds in all, a total of two full
magazines. He blew out every window on
the ground floor. Once the windows were
gone, his bullets sailed unimpeded through the air and crossed property lines
to puncture tires, punch neat little holes in garage doors and shatter even
more windows on neighbors’ houses. By
the grace of God, he fired on a flat trajectory and kept the damage down to
ground-level; had he let the barrel get away from him and fired high, he could
have shot through bedroom windows and killed the people sleeping there. When the Sheriff’s Department arrived, they
found a first floor littered with shell casings, an assault rifle leaning
against the fireplace in the living room and a confused old man wandering
around trying to remember where he’d squirreled away the rest of his
ammunition.
“Where in the hell
did he get an assault rifle?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Who sold him
that? I want to know who thought it was
okay to sell a man of obviously diminished capacity any sort of firearm whatsoever…”
“Kevin, I don’t know! ”
Bobby was in Iraq, thousands
of miles away from this mess. I wanted
to turtle up in the worst way—I did not want to deal with this, I wasn’t
equipped for it—but I understood that I wouldn’t get away with that this
time. So I dressed, packed a few things
and drove the two hours to Conover. I
managed to stay awake and avoid running my car into a guardrail on I-40 with
the assistance of coffee, bewilderment and a significant dose of worry over the
court appearances and appointments I would have to postpone tomorrow in order
to take care of this. Because although
my father had just blown out his windows and nearly killed a bunch of his neighbors
with an assault rifle nobody knew he had, things like court appearances and
clients bearing billable hours still seemed important to me and worth freaking
out about.
Yes. I was and am a self-absorbed prick.
I met up with Kate
in the emergency room of Catawba Valley Medical
Center in Hickory. Her hair in a messy blond ponytail poking slightly off-center from the
back of her head, she wore blue jeans and one of Bobby’s old T-shirts. Dark circles under her eyes and a drawn
quality to her face made me stop and wonder where she had picked up the extra
twenty years.
“You talk to
Bobby?” I asked as we embraced.
“I called the
base. They’re going to try to reach him,
but he’s probably in a tent somewhere, so it might be a while. Right now, we’re it.”
“You okay?”
She drew in a
long, deep breath. Ki breath, I recognized; Kate possessed this technique, too,
because she had taken aikido with Bobby and me. She shook a little bit as she let it out, and I saw on her face the
stretched seams that explosive panic had left behind.
“I’m fine. Him, not so much.”
“What the hell
happened?”
“The people tried
to get in,” she said. “Apparently, he’s
been going on patrol every night for weeks, walking around down there with this gun and…I don’t know…staring down
these things he’s been seeing. He said
they tried to get in. So he stopped
them.”
“And all this
time, you never knew about the gun?”
She gave her
shoulders a tired lift. “I don’t search for contraband, Kevin. Maybe he’s had it for years, who knows? I think you’re focusing on the wrong thing
right now.”
“I’m just kind of
shocked here, because he’s never said a damn thing about guns my whole life, he
doesn’t hunt—hell, he doesn’t even fish —and
hey, whoa, here’s a big, fat old gun that carries thirty rounds
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