Because by carrying a gun you may either have to use it or…
Or what?
Or someone may use their gun on you!
It’s a dangerous business.
Yes. But are you willing to take on the risk of such a business?
Why not? What more do I have to do with my life?
You can do anything under the sun.
Like what?
Like, you could do something important.
I wasn’t made for important things.
Not important important. Just something useful, like teaching…
I already told you. I don’t read books.
Think it over. Think over what you’re doing. If after thinking it over, taking into consideration all of the risks, you still want to do it, then I support you one hundred and ten percent. But remember the monstrosity you evoke may come home to haunt you.
I don’t know why she said that, but she did say it, and I never forgot it.
?
After a few days I came to her. She was in the kitchen cooking one of her Beef Stroganoff meals. An open bottle of Merlot was on the counter.
Well, I have something to tell you.
She looked at me, her eyes bright with expectation.
I’m going through with it.
I wiped my mouth and tamped the sweat on my brow, and Adeleine didn’t say anything, so I went on.
I found an office downtown on Wabash Avenue and I’ve located a secretary, Wanda Jones. She’s Welsh.
Adeleine looked a little crestfallen, as if she were hoping I was going to tell her something else. Like: Honey, I’ve made a decision…Yes?...I’ve decided to be a high school teacher…You have? Oh, wonderful! I knew you would do the right thing! Instead I’d told her what she’d least wanted to hear. And I was committed, so I had to keep going.
I found an office in a building on South Wabash Avenue. And a secretary. She’s Welsh. I’m having a shingle made and I start work on Monday. I’m going to be a detective.
Yes.
Yes. I’m calling my business Triple A Detective AAAgency.
She looked crestfallen, as if she had suddenly realized she’d married the wrong man.
It’s not what it’s cracked up to be. Believe me. But if it’s what you want to do…fine.
Thanks, honey.
I went to embrace her, and instead of reaching her arms around me, she held them by her side.
?
Now I sit in my office all day waiting for the phone to ring.
I sit so long in my office waiting for the phone to ring I wonder who it is I am.
When the phone does ring I pick it up and answer it.
Good afternoon, I say, as friendly as can be. This is Triple A.
Triple who? the voice says, trailing off.
Triple A Detective AAAgency.
Oh. I must have the wrong number.
Oh.
I sit in my office all day and the calls I get are all wrong numbers if I get any calls.
I wait in my office waiting for a call. When none arrive, I knock off for the day.
Wanda…
Yes, Art.
I’m knocking off for the day.
Yes.
Would you be so kind to close up before you leave?
Of course, Art. No problem.
?
I call Cal and we drive out to the gun range.
Cal shoots a well-oiled and carefully tended full-auto vintage Uzi 9mm carbine with the extending metal stock that he was blessed enough to inherit from his uncle Benny Calabrese who himself had mob connections going all the way back to the island of Sicily and who also died of old age, though why he needed an Uzi, not to mention what he might have used it for, Cal can’t say. Lucky, though, for Cal, when his uncle kicked off he got the gun. He had to go through all the FFL rigamarole to start taking it to the range, but he got it for free, so he’s lucky. He shoots it like he knows it too: knows how lucky he is.
I prefer something a bit more delicate. I like the original Ruger Standard model .22 caliber with suppressor. I picked mine up at a pawnshop for under a hundred bucks. It’s pitted with a bit of rust, but I like the gun. I call his a blurt gun. He calls mine a pussy gun. Compared to his, I suppose it is, but it’s a fun gun to go plinking with. Most people shoot better with a smaller gun.
That’s a pussy gun, he says poppy-cocking around me.
So what? I like it.
Fine by me, Art, if you want to stick with it, but it would be so much better if you actually hit the target.
I do my best. But it ain’t easy with you leering over my shoulder.
I’m not leering. I’m just watching what an idiot does with a pussy gun.
We go shooting back and forth, slapping each other on the back between turns. He shreds the target. I take aim and miss. Reload, miss. It’s all part of our routine. He wears plugs, I wear muffs to cut down damage to our ears and shout above the noise. We both wear safety glasses. And I am shooting a .22, so I don’t get the same recoil. Only the smell is full. That gunpowder smell.
Cal steps into the lane. Sets his ammo down. He keeps cursing about this girl.
Shoot her right there in the cunt, he shouts, taking aim, and off goes the gun. BLURT. BLURT. RAT TAT TAT TAT TAT. Cartridge brass bouncing all over the place.
Got her right there! he says, very smugly.
That’s not very nice, I say. Under the conditions…
Under what conditions, Art? She wasn’t a very nice girl.
But Cal you’re forgetting something…
What, that it’s only a paper target?
No. You just can’t pretend the target is a woman. It’s not fair.
Why’s not?
Because under the conditions…she can’t shoot back.
And if she did shoot back, she’d probably miss.
Maybe, maybe not, Cal. Or maybe she’d shoot your nuts off just for being a jackass.
Hmm. Maybe so.
He steps back. We reset the target and I step into the lane. I take aim with my Ruger and go Pop. Pop. Pop.
Did I tell you I had a date last night, Art?
You’re hung over, I tell him, stepping aside.
He steps into the lane and picks up the Uzi: Blurt. Blurt. Blurt.
The bitch, he says, shooting at the target again as if it were a woman.
How’d it go?
Lousy. RAT TAT TAT TAT. I met her at the track. Should know better than to meet a woman at the track. RAT TAT TAT TAT. We left after the fifth race. She wanted me to go shopping with her. So I took her to the mall. We must have walked around that mall for three hours holding hands. At one point in an elevator we started kissing. I bought her a pair of shoes and some perfume. And then…
He goes into target shredding mode. Blasting away. When he’s through, he sets it down and steps back and I step into the lane. Pop. Pop. Pop.
So tell me about her, Cal, I say, trying to figure out what’s wrong with the sighting of my gun because I don’t seem able to hit the target like I want. The sights on this one don’t adjust. Rust. So it must be me or the gun. I can’t decide.
I met her at the track, Cal says. Should know better than meet a woman at the track. We left after the fifth race. She wanted me to go shopping with her. So I took her to the mall. We must have walked around that mall three hours holding hands. At one point in an elevator we started kissing. I bought her a pair of shoes and some perfume. And then…
You told me all that already.
So I did.
So you did.