The Shooting (17 page)

He wants to sound big and mean but his voice is not big and mean, it is weak, it is a voice that breaks like an adolescent's, and it comes out so fast the words all meld together. He comes to the living room, freezes at the threshold. He sees nothing. Gropes for the light, cannot find it.

—Hello? he says.

Then he hears the noise again. And he knows what it is. It is a voice. A human. Someone chuckling, someone muttering. Lee has never been so terrified. His flesh is cold. This is evil that has come for him in the night. He is in the barn in the dark and the heat and he cannot get out, and the voice says something to him and he does not know what but yes he does, he knows, it is saying,
HEEEE! HEEEE! HEEEE! HEEE!
Lee raises his toy gun and says, —Let me out!

YOU AIN'T NEVER GETTIN' OUT!

And Lee pulls the trigger. He pulls it again and again. Four times he fires, maybe five, maybe six. It must be six because soon the gun is not firing anymore though he still pulls the trigger. He is so deaf he cannot hear his own blood rushing through his head and he is so numb he cannot even feel his own heartbeat though it kicks like a caged gorilla. He touches his ears, expecting to find blood gushing out of them. Everything smells burned and sweet. Finally he finds the light.

On the floor, just inside the closed front door, in fact right up against it, lies a kid. Not a home invader—just a kid, wearing Air Jordan sneakers and jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. His hand opens
and closes, opens and closes, as though grasping for something. The other arm is draped over his face. Then the arm moves, drops away. And Lee sees the kid's face looking up at him. Blood all over it. Blood everywhere. Lee keeps the empty gun on the kid, trying to figure out where he knows the face from.

The kid says, —Where am I? Then he stops talking, stops grasping.

—No, no, Lee says to him.

But he's gone.

(Sheeple IV)

 

Maureen is in town for work. One day she knocks off early and stops in at a bar for a glass of wine. She never goes to bars alone. Nor is she much of a drinker. But today the constant, throbbing low-level insanity of New York makes her feel resigned and hedonistic, makes her feel French, though she has never been to France. Likes to imagine that in Paris they think nothing of wandering away from the office at three
P.M.
to drink wine with the sun still out, letting whatever happens happen.

It is awkward to be alone at a bar. There are some young people from either the college or Brooklyn, and there are old men, probably alcoholics. A man comes in. He is about her age. Says hello to him, they chat, fall in love.

She is successful at work but does not think much of herself. She is not small or cute or bubbly and does not feel compelled to charm or flatter men. Her teeth are not great and she is afraid of the dentist. Her clothes on her look nothing like they do on the models. Is fine without men or romance. She is far from alone. Many friends. Family. Her work. Was in love once. Darren. Long time ago—college. She told him,
I love you,
and he responded,
We are at a point in our lives where we should be casual and have fun, not saying I love you to each other.
She told Darren to get lost. Three days later, drunk on her doorstep
at two
A.M.
, he was saying,
I was dumb, I do love you.
She closed the door on his face.

Father was a drunk narcissist. Mother was gone. Could not or would not stand up to her husband, who was cruel and called Maureen dumb and fat and lazy and a dyke. A woman who does not stand up to her husband, Maureen believes, is a woman who is gone.
Why did you marry him?
she once asked her.
Why don't you take me and leave him?
Maureen was eleven. Her mother answered,
Because I love him. And he me. We are in love.
Grew up from then on to believe love is a myth. Darren changed her mind. Then he changed it back. Years later in a bar in New York a man comes in and changes it again.

Between her parents and then Darren, it has taken her fifteen years to teach herself to trust people. Where at twenty-five she would automatically assume everyone she met must be a danger to her, at forty she looks at new people and whatever their race or gender or class and sees not danger but help. She sees them as being capable of somehow helping her in ways she cannot necessarily conceive right away. And she them. It does not matter what her first impression is, what her visceral reaction is. Even when she feels repelled by a person or situation she tells herself,
Let them help you,
or
Let it help you...
She read this in a self-help book after Darren when she was just out of school and beginning her work life. Thought,
What the hell, try it.
It has worked. Since she has been doing this her life has been very successful and rich. Sees the world very calmly and clearly, as how it really is, free of the influence of news media or her father's warped myths or anyone else's myths. Sees the truth: that people are good. They are sweet and kind and lonely and want to do right, and the last thing anyone wants is to hurt anyone else. Everyone, she sees, is doing only their best. So she gives everyone the benefit of the doubt, no matter how she feels about them. Because you never know. People like to think they know. It makes them feel smart and in control. But there is no such thing as either smart or in control. Her many friends she has made from choosing to see people like this protect her when she needs protecting. She is never alone. They protect her with love. Real love.

At work she trusts people enough to ask for help and to give help, to admit when she is confused about something everyone else assumes to be obvious. People appreciate these things about her. She is a voice of reason. Catches problems others are too worried about appearing dumb to speak up about. She trusts that they all love her and will never think she is dumb. It makes them trust her in return. And to want to help her. They recommend her when positions open higher in the company, and in networking scenarios they mention her and recommend her; she has developed a good reputation in her field and is constantly fielding attractive recruitment offers from rival corporations, is often poached, never has to interview for a job, people throw money and responsibility at her and she is still unafraid to ask for more because she decides that the people she is asking, whether she likes them, are good people who want to help her. Earns an excellent income yet works steady, reasonable hours with unlimited vacation and ample perks, alongside people she respects and enjoys working with, because she is unafraid of refusing to settle for less. Owns a lovely home surrounded by neighbors she cares for and who care for her and who know her and she them and whom she can depend on if tragedy should ever strike.

Has made good with her father and mother. It took a big leap and maybe a little whiskey, but she sat down with them and explained her side of the experience growing up and its effect on her and asked them with sincere interest to talk about their own side, so she could have an idea of where they were coming from when they acted how they did so she would no longer see her childhood as irrational and monstrous and would therefore not see life in general as irrational and monstrous, which she did, at the time she had this conversation with them, early on, when she was having tough luck getting her first job out of school and had just read this self-help book and was bitter about Darren and pretty much everything. And they did talk about their perspective. Her father, she learned, was not a monster. He was a man who wanted to be good but was frustrated with his work and could not figure out what to do about it and who felt in general obscure and meaningless and alone and did not think he was worth much. He felt he was being a good dad by being so
critical, so Maureen might turn out better than he. He was aware he was an alcoholic and had secretly tried to quit dozens of times, including going to AA meetings, but just could not quit and this made him hate himself more, which he projected onto his family, for they seemed to love him, a man who was not worthy of love, and therefore they were stupid and worthy of ridicule. And her mother's father was also an alcoholic, so an alcoholic man is what made sense to her, what she was drawn to, if only because it was recognizable, which she mistook for attraction. She learned as a little girl how to be passive and deferential to alcoholic men to avoid setting them off into a rage. For Maureen's mother, the choice was either be quiet and accommodating or be responsible for what happened as a result: things being broken, emotional hurricanes. That is what a man meant to her and that is what love meant. What family did. All she wanted was to be a loving wife and a good mother who contributed to her family. Maureen left that conversation changed. Understood them now. Trusted them. Began training herself to trust everyone else. Did.

Knows plenty of people from fucked-up families—whose isn't?—and she helps them get over it by telling them how she dealt with hers.
Get yourself trusting your folks
, she tells them,
and you trust life and you become free. Then you can do anything. Best thing you can do for yourself.

In town for work, New York, stops in at a bar, meets a man. Bald, overweight, dour, and introverted. Suspicious, scared eyes. She wants him, she needs him. Everything about him she hungers for. She says hello. Hit it off, go back to her hotel. He is quick about things from his end and the wineglasses on the end table are not exactly shattering from anyone singing alto soprano, but it is very good, still, somehow. Lies there afterward listening to him talk. He talks mostly about his father. At one point he cries very hard talking about him.
I have always loved this man
, she realizes.

The next night they are going out to dinner with her friends from work. She meets him at his place. His place is incredible though he has no idea what he is doing with it. Or, worse, maybe he does. The mattress is on the floor. He has, for some reason, an old portable
washer-dryer in the middle of the kitchen hooked up to the sink faucet. —Got that out of the trash, he says, —someone was throwing it away, can you believe it? They'll throw away anything in this country.

She says, —You don't have laundry in a building like this?

He says he does not like to use it ever since someone stole a pair of his underwear.

Hot dogs and nothing but hot dogs in the fridge.

Big television, way too big for the space.

In the bathroom she paws at the empty toilet paper cylinder in the dispenser and washes her hands in a sink coated in a layer of long-ago-hardened shaving cream, kicking aside an NFL towel grown mildewy on the floor. When she comes out he is standing there holding a gun.

—What do you think about this? he says.

—Not much, to be honest. It pulls to the right so bad you have to push against it, otherwise you won't hit the side of a barn. She explains, —My granddad had the same one.

He smiles, baring yellow teeth. She kisses him.

On the way to dinner he wants to know all her friends' names and backgrounds and Social Security numbers. They are all seated at a table in the middle of the restaurant and he makes the staff move them to one in the corner where he can sit with his back to the wall, facing the door. Her father used to do the same thing. He is polite if quiet with her friends, and she can see how much he enjoys the rare company, how lonely he has been.

Trip ends. He is at her hotel to see her off.

—Why don't you come with me? she says.

—Ha ha, he says.

She says, —I'm serious.

—What are you talking about?

—Lee, I think you need someone. I think you should come with me.

—That's completely irrational, he says. —I can't just leave New York.

—Why?

—Because I have a life here. A whole company depends on me. My community needs me. I am
vital.

She puts her hand on his face and says gently, —Honey, no, you're not.

His face grows red and he says, —I don't even know who the hell you are. You're just a lonely woman. You've misunderstood all this. It's lust, nothing else. You were drunk at a bar probably hitting on every man there and I was just the first who said yes. And now you want me to think it's love and move to God knows where with you and change me.

—You're such an idiot, she says.

—You're the one trying to get the man you threw yourself at at happy hour to run away with you.

—You should listen to me, Lee.

—I can't even believe I'm still here talking to you.

—That makes two of us, she says, and turns away, falling out of love with him. She leaves the room with her suitcase.

He follows her down the hall to the elevator, not saying anything. He follows her all the way out front to the sidewalk, where she gets a cab. He watches her get in. The cab pulls away and he stands there watching her until they are out of sight of each other. Lee. Never even knew his last name.

She spends most of that flight home from New York in the bathroom. Her body has gone haywire. She is so sad.

Back at home, to cure the grief she works. And spends time with friends. Works harder, becomes an even better friend. Her ambition burns even hotter, after Lee. Maybe it's anger and it probably is. To think he had all that power to destroy all they should have had. Works harder and angrier. Finds new space for her company to expand into, has the guts Lee does not have and she uses her guts to take big risks on new products for unexplored markets. The risks pay off and revolutionize the space. Company grows. She is promoted to C-level executive. A Fortune 500 multinational approaches her to put her in charge of its North American operations, headquartered in Chicago. Dream job. More friends.

Late one night being driven from O'Hare following a trip to Beijing, a stray bullet shatters her window and hits her in the head. Emergency surgery saves her life. Blind in left eye. No feeling on
left side of body. Left corner of mouth droops. Shooter never found. Could have been anyone, from anywhere. Nothing happens legally as a result. She just has to live with being mangled. Is anyone doing anything about this? Becomes obsessed with counteracting gun violence. Hears about a woman out of Ohio trying to start a movement to repeal the Second Amendment. Getting nowhere of course. Meets with this woman, Jenny Sanders. Has to fly to South Dakota to find her. She is there failing to get voters to turn on state senators in the pocket of the NRA. Meet at a Starbucks. Jenny Sanders is pretty if a bit cross-eyed and aggressive and unlikable. That's cool to Maureen. Maureen says she wants to help Jenny Sanders however she can. What can she do? Stuff envelopes for her? Make calls to voters? Canvass neighborhoods? Start a gun buyback program? Stage a rally outside a sporting goods store that sold the bullets used in a shooting?

Jenny sits forward and shouts, —They've been doing that shit for decades and know where it's gotten them?
Nowhere. Absolutely nowhere.
We need votes. And to get votes, we need money. Can you get me money?

—How much money?

—More money than
they
have.

—How much do they have?

—A whole lot of fucking money.

Maureen goes to her board. They refuse to get involved in politics, let alone radical ones like this. However the company is European owned, not American, and Maureen is a star who is excellent for its stock price but could leave for a rival whenever she chooses, and she makes the firm way more money than she is asking for, so they agree to start contributing to a shell company that contributes to another shell that funds Repeal the Second Amendment. This funding allows RSA to absorb the various extant and ineffective gun control groups. Jenny sneers at the very term
gun control
, saying society cannot control guns, it must annihilate them into extinction. RSA can also now buy advertising on national television, hire top marketing talent. It poaches some of the NRA's own lobbyists. Deluges neighborhoods with direct mailings and phone calls to
create the image of a popular grassroots uprising, which then helps create a true popular grassroots uprising. In South Dakota voters remove two of the NRA's state senators in favor of dark horses who vote against gun rights across the board, no exceptions. Maureen silently becomes the largest financial supporter of anti-gun America. The ammo tax gains traction.