No thanks, Cal.
Yes thanks. Take it, pally, and don’t fuck with me.
Can I pay you for it?
Yeah, pay me by using it! Pay me by getting rid of that shitty Ruger.
Well then thank you, Cal, I said.
When I was done, Cal stepped to the lane with his Uzi and shot at the target without discrimination, tearing it up, the gun going BLURT! BLURT! BLURT! BLURT! BLURT! The shell casings flew out of the gun and littered the floor; the tattered paper target danced on the clips, then fell like confetti. When he was done he gave a little chuckle like he was proud of himself.
Man! That cleaned my clock like smelling salts! All day long pent up in my house wasting time. I thought I was going to go crazy, Art.
He reloaded a clip, dropped one in the chamber, and let loose. Wham. Bam. Thank you ma’am! BLURT. BLURT. BLURT! Then he unloaded again…Wango zee tango! Wango, tango! Blam! Blam! Blam! BLURT. BLURT. BLURT! And again. BLURT. BLURT. BLURT!
When it’s all over he removed his earplugs and he was as happy as a clam.
You’re as happy as a clam, aren’t you!
I sure am! And you know what I like about clams?
No I don’t.
The soft slippery interior.
I chuckled and shook my head and said: You’re a funny guy, Cal!
?
After shooting we had a couple beers and he told me about his life.
How are you getting along, buddy? I asked. It’s a question I never asked. In fact, I didn’t know much about the guy.
Wonderfully, he said. I couldn’t be happier. I live in a small house with my aging mother. Did I tell you I started to go to church again?
Again? I didn’t know you ever went to church.
I used to go religiously. My father was a great believer in the Church. He held the coin basket. Hell, I was even an altar boy for a few years. Let me tell you. The church I went to. In the winter it was freezing, in the summer it was hotter than hell. It was a crazy place to be an altar boy. Anyways I started going again.
Why?
I don’t know exactly. Though a month or two ago I found in the bottom of my underwear drawer this cross someone gave me for my First Communion. I was cleaning, believe it or not, and I found it there in the back of the drawer. I used to wear that cross all the time during my pimply years. Then the little washer that held the cross to the neck chain got loose, and the cross kept falling off. I used to love that cross. Here, I carry it in my pocket now. Let me show you.
He handed me the cross.
The thing I like about it is what it says on the back.
I flipped it over to look.
There…that expression: “I am a Catholic. In case of an accident, please call a priest.” When I saw it again it really got to me. There was something there that I responded to all of a sudden.
Like what? I handed the cross back to him and tilted my beer bottle. Cheers.
God bless.
It’s only a phrase.
Yes, but the way it says it: I am a Catholic. Art, you know as well as I do, all my life I have drifted. I have never felt like I belonged to anything. Ask me what I am or who I am and all I could tell you was my name. For the most part that’s all I have. I’ve been in and out of so many jobs I can’t even tell you for certain what I do for a living or what my so-called expertise is. And now that I’ve been out of work so long, I don’t know what to tell others it is I do. When I go for job interviews I don’t know how to put myself all together so that the identity of a single person emerges from the picture. I’ve been on this earth too long to have such a vague resume. Most people after they have lived as long as I have can define themselves. Say what they do. Me, I can’t. At heart I take care of my mom. She’s the personality in my family. She’s the one with all the friends. She plays bingo like crazy and card games with all of her lady friends—they come over to the house. She entertains them, and I make sure everything is OK. I make sure we don’t run out of tea or cookies or cake, and the thermostat is set just right, and that we have a little brandy for later in the night. But my mother is in the center of it all. She’s laughing. She’s telling stories of my father. She tells stories of me. I can tell she’s still proud of me, but I feel I’ve let her down. But she’s got her place in the world. Me, my place in the world has so far been to look after her. And to look after you, I suppose.
Me?
You, Art. You’re my only friend in the whole goddamned world.
Oh, come on.
No, serious. So when I saw that cross again with the expression, “I am a Catholic,” well, by God, I thought…I suppose I am. After all, I was raised Catholic. I was confirmed. I know the prayers. I’ve done confession. It’s something I can claim for myself and try to be. And so I’ve been going to church to see what it’s like being a Catholic. I think it’s who I am.
But do you believe in that Jesus shit?
I don’t know that I do. But I believe in the Church. I believe in kneeling in the pews. I believe in the light that filters through the stained-glass windows. And by the way, I volunteered to take the collection basket around, and now I’m doing that, just like my dad did. It’s a good feeling. I feel better about myself.
Good. I’m glad.
It beats everything else I do.
Like what?
Like when my mother’s not around, I watch porn. I’m tired of porn. Do you have any idea how much porn I watch? I don’t understand it. I don’t understand why I watch it so much. It’s not like I like it. It’s alien to me. I don’t understand the people in it. It’s pussy and cock. It’s not even people. Just items. I’ve watched too much of it. I’m worried it’s soured me and made me useless for the real thing. I don’t want two-dimensional pussy, and the jack that everlastingly screws it. What I want is the thing that goes with the pussy. I want the woman. The real thing: the person. Hell, I don’t even give a damn about pussy, when you come right down to it. When you come right down to it, I’d be content just to hold hands with a woman who cared to listen to me and smile with me at the sunset.
A romantic…
A romantic, yes, and there’s nothing wrong with that, Art.
I agree.
I’m hoping going to church again will help me clear up some of these issues. I already feel like I’m cutting down on my porn. I went to confession and told the priest about it, and I’ve been two weeks now without it.
Wow, good.
I’m hoping that by going to church I may even meet a woman. It’s a long shot, but it’s just one of my thoughts.
Here’s hoping.
All my life, I’ve been looking for women at bars or the racetrack. Or even the shooting range. Remember that crazy woman I took home from the shooting range who wanted to ‘play’ that I was killing her? The one that had me bind and gag her and shoot blanks at her?