Lucky Shot

I'm leaning over a glass counter, the edge is digging into my stomach. Amy is standing next to me, watching expectantly over my shoulder. A salesman stands behind the counter, each hand hovering a few inches from the two selections my eyes are darting between. I like the silver one; Amy had her eye on it since the beginning. The other was silver and graphite with clean lines; the light hit it beautifully. There was a gold piece down in the case that actually looked kind of nice, but was way -- way too tacky. I scratched my chin, they were both so expensive. I shifted my weight between my feet and sighed, then pointed at the one on the right; the silver and graphite one. "This one," I said to the store keeper, "the H&K. I'll try this one."

"Ok, sure," the man said. "How many boxes of ammo do you want?"
Umm...

Amy's big idea for Saturday was to go shooting. She'd gone online and found a gun store with a pistol range in Lorton that would let you rent their guns for the range. We drove my white '99 Honda Civic, it took about 50 minutes on I-95 which took us right through Quantico. From the highway all you could see of Quantico was the dense woods of the USMC base on either side of the road but somehow it still felt creepy to me. Somewhere behind those trees was a University with a lab that my Dad worked in for over 25 years and I'd never even been there. I kept driving, but I knew somewhere beyond the forest and brick there were probably answers to questions I haven't gotten around to asking yet.

When we got to Lorton we stopped at a branch of the bank where most of my money was and I withdrew a few hundred dollars, all in hundred dollar bills, so when the man at the gun store told us that we had to be 18 years old to use the range I could hold up a few hundreds and say, "even if I pay with twenties?" That worked, well enough, and now all I have to do is choose a gun when I know nothing about them. Amy picked hers in a snap; she'd told me her dad was in the Corps when he was younger and that he had a Beretta 92 that he let Amy shoot a few times, so she was the resident expert. I just picked the one that looked the coolest, which was apparently a Heckler & Koch USP with a silver slide.

"It's a choice weapon," the shop guy had said, "they made them especially for the US Special Ops."
"Neat," I said, feeling kind of silly.

Amy wanted us, or me specifically, to go shooting because she figured that if I am indeed able to fight unusually well -- maybe I'm also able to shoot unusually well. Short of picking random fights, there's no easy way to test my fight skills again, but testing my firearm skills is only a rental away. It all seemed kind of dumb to me. I grabbed the gun I picked and a box of .45 ammo and sauntered into the shooting range with stupid huge earmuff things on my head. Amy followed behind me with two paper sheets with plain-looking black silhouettes. The indoor range was otherwise empty, with about 15 firing positions all in a row. I set my gun down on the platform inside one of the positions and Amy set up in the one next to it. I figured out how to attach the target sheet onto the metal clips and sent it back a few feet with a rickety-sounding electronic pully. Amy slid bullets into the clip of her gun in silence, and I tried to emulate her as if I knew what I was doing. After about eight rounds, the resistance of the spring was making it near impossible to slide any more bullets into the clip; I figured they must use machines to load them to capacity, or maybe it was just because my hands were shaking. I was holding little explosives in my hand, lead and steel wrapped around explosive powder. I wasn't even holding the gun but I was sure I was going to somehow make these bullets explode on their own and take my hand off. The earmuffs made my quickened pulse echo back into my ears. I gave up on loading more rounds and slid the half-full clip into the gun to a satisfying click. Amy was just watching me with a half smirk on her face.

I set the gun back down and gestured to Amy for her to go first. She didn't understand, and pulled the muff away from one ear and said "What?" which barely made it through my own ear protection. I freed one of my own ears and said, "You take a few shots first." I hoped my nervousness wasn't showing.

She smiled, and stepped back into her firing position. I had to step out of mine to see what she was doing. She pulled back on her gun's slide, held the gun straight forward with both hands, held her breath, and pulled. A loud bang tore through the concrete room and a lead bullet tore through the paper hanging about 6 feet away from her. Mister black target man had a fresh hole in his shoulder. Looked easy enough.

I went back to my partition and picked up my gun. It felt heavy now, the cold metal sucked the heat from my hand. I was holding a lethal weapon. I could freaking kill someone. It's a creepy feeling.

I held up the gun as Amy had, pulled the slide back as Amy had, and pulled the trigger as Amy had. Nothing. Stupid safety.

I flicked the switch on the side of the gun from a white S to a red F and readied again. I held my breath, aimed at the middle of the target's featureless face, and squeezed the trigger. The gun bucked loudly in my hand and the empty cartridge sprung out as the slide kicked back; the cartridge spun through the air, bounced off the partition wall to my right, and popped me right in the cheek. It was hot, as if it just been party to a controlled explosion of magnesium and sulfur. I screamed and swiped at my cheek, it scared the hell out of me. Nobody ever seems to talk about the flying cartridges or show them in movies. Those little buggers have a mind of their own. Through the muffs I could hear Amy laughing, I turned around and saw her behind me covering her mouth and giggling, but she wasn't looking at me. I followed her eyeline over to my paper target which dangled happily from the clips in perfect health. I hadn't even hit the paper. What the heck?

"What the heck?" I said, pulling down my ear protection. "How did I miss? How could it be that complicated? You point and shoot."

Amy shrugged, still giggling, and went back into her position and began popping more rounds into her target.

I growled and picked my gun up, fired through five more rounds. A few of them hit the paper, one actually hit the target... in the arm. This was surprising. It seems like if you aim at something and shoot, you should hit where you aim. There shouldn't be too much more to it. Sure, it should be hard to be super-accurate or to shoot with one hand, but the bullet should go in the general area of where I point.

I finished my rounds and dropped the clip out, angrily sliding more bullets into the clip. I went through all of those, and another clip, and another. My box of ammo was half spent. I dropped the gun and stepped back. Amy was having a blast, it seemed.

"I guess that answers you question," I said once she'd stopped and taken off her earmuffs. "I'm not Jason Bourne."
"Yeah, you don't have the shoulders," she said.
I pointed at my depressing target, "Or the weapons training."

"Well," she said in deep thought, "when you got in that fight, were you thinking about what you were doing or just doing it?" She was holding the gun still, down at her side.
"I didn't think about it, I was too freaked out by the guy about to smash my face in. It was like an instinct. Like watching a bunch of action movies was just burying all those fight scenes into my subconscious."
"You've seen enough gun fights, too. Maybe they're down in your subconscious," she paused for a second. "So don't think about shooting, just pick up the gun and shoot. Don't think about your arms or aiming. Close your eyes, take a breath, open them, and shoot."

So I got back in my firing position and slid my ear covers on. I slid a newly-loaded clip into the gun, and set it down on the platform in front of me. What a waste of time.

I looked up at the target, the lifeless outline of a man was mocking me. Don't think, just shoot. That's what they told soldiers in World War 2 so they wouldn't have to consider the fact that they were going to be killing human beings. Just shoot. Shoot the damn gun.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, as Amy suggested. Eyes still closed, I took some more deep breaths and visualized the target hanging in front of me. I imagined he was that Mexican kid, about to punch me -- no, about to shoot me. He tracked me down and brought a gun, he was going to shoot me right in the face. He was going to shoot me then shoot Amy -- just like he shot my dad. I could see the stupid little grin and stupid little pesudo-mustache so popular among people in the midst of puberty. He shot my dad. He killed my dad and he's going to kill me.

I opened my eyes, picked up the gun and slowly let out my breath as I unloaded three shots in rapid succession. Three cartridges fell gracefully to the ground and danced around my feet. I put the gun down, felt my arm pulsing. I looked up at my target, finally, and there they were. Three holes, in a straight line, from the heart up to the base of the throat, all equally spaced. He didn't look so happy anymore.

I turned around to Amy who was staring, mouth open, past me and at the target. I pulled off my ear muffs and said, "Can you go get me some more ammo?"