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About 'prison break tattoo sleeve'|Real Tattoos?
My birth wasn't as celebrated as a human birth. There was no shower. There was no jumping for joy or hard sigh of relief. Nor did I fall bloody and sticky from a gaping female crevice to be caught by a man in all matching clothes. There was equally no great pain or regret caused by my birth. I'm not complaining about this, I'm just stating facts. I simply happened. I was simply manufactured successfully. Built, tested, shipped. Short hoorah. Mission accomplished. Like you though, I took traits from those who made me, like you may have your mother's brown eyes and your father's drinking problem, or you may have your grandmother's short fingers and your grandfather's receding hairline. I have my mother's factory-grade function and efficiency. I breathe it. I do exactly what my wielder makes me do, just like the machines that made me did, and the machines that made them, and the machines that made them. Like the workers who run those machines, I fit my given role-when I am told, how I am told, when I am told. I may and often do think differently than I do, but I do anyway. Because I think but do not act freely, just like my father the assembly line worker. I am a product of mechanical coquitos. At birth, the doctor slapped you into tears. Your lungs filled with oxygen. After my assembly, I was slapped awake on a firing range. I breathed out spent gunpowder. You learn and grow; I learn and yearn. From what I have learned of pleasure, I enjoyed my time at Pauly's Pawn and Gun Shop. There was something "uniquely American about small time capitalism in its purest form-you could trade your life in for the cash to buy a new one, or buy a gun to shoot what you believe in," as Paul would say on a regular basis, "my shop alone covers the first few amendments, plus a few that didn't make it into the constitution." It was what I knew to be a typical pawn shop. There were new and used handguns behind locked glass cases. It's one of these cases I would call my home for an uncountable amount of time. My room-mates were a .38 Super (automatic), a .48 Long Colt and a 1986 Colt Python. The .38 and the .48 came in packages near the same time I did. Our firing pins came days later resting in beds of Styrofoam peanuts. It's illegal to send us ready to fire. The Python had been there a while. One wall was filled with guitars, one with televisions-from wide screened to wide width-wise, another wall had shelves full of electronics that could be plugged in and tested at will, and the center of the pawn shop was unfilled for walk-ability. The furnishings tastefully reeked of bare-minimum. Besides objects with for-sale tags, there was a tattered American flag hanging on the wall behind Paul's register. There were also numerous tin signs posted that said: Shoplifters will be shot. Cash only. And NO TWEAKERS. Another said:Hippies use back door. (Seriously) Paul was a husky well-built man in his mid-forties; he had a square jaw and square shoulders and he had square framed glasses that usually hung by a chain around his neck. If I were to judge him solely on appearance, everything about him pointed at square. I assumed (like everything I assumed at first) that my stay here would be cold and mechanical, like: FedEx Priority Overnight. Or Colt .38 Special. The door jingled open and jingled closed and footsteps plodded toward Paul. World Poker Champion Mark McKnight was muted. His spot-on brilliant technique showed through his silence. "Hi, how's it going?" the man asked as he wobbled from case to case, eyeing the guns. His voice was raspy, aged, deep-a smoker maybe. He was a short chubby man, thick sideburns that met a scraggly brown beard and arms that an artist might call too short for his body. He had a green backpack hanging over one shoulder. "Pretty damn good in here, how about yourself?" Paul replied. He was eating French fries with ranch off an increasingly transparent paper plate. Like any true American, Paul liked everything deep-fried and drowning in ranch. "Okay," the man sighed, "well horrible to tell you the truth, but I'll spare you my life story. I'm tryin' to get a gun-a handgun-just have a few bucks on hand and a few things I could trade." "Few dollars, a few things? What are we talkin' here a Wal-mart watch and a few Lincolns or what?" He stuffed a handful of dripping fries into his mouth. Speckles of ranch decorated our case. The man forced a laugh. "No, I have a Panasonic-ah... 3X zoom-all I really know about it." He unshouldered his backpack and started rifling through it. Then pulled a bulky camera from it and placed it front of Paul. He grinned awkwardly, "I paid a fortune for it three years ago, but it's probably not worth much now." His second chin frowned. "Probably not." He put on his glasses to examine the camera. "-and I have a hundred and ten dollars that I'm not trying to spend all of." "Okay okay. What kinda' gun do you have in mind?" Paul asked. "I just want something cheap and reliable, won't lock up on me if I get surprised at night by some droolin' junkie." "Well cheap and reliable are two very different things-which one do you want?" The man sighed deep and long stroking his beard in frustration. He crossed his arms across his chest, scanned the cases directionlessly for clues. Paul was a good man and an even better business man. "I want something cheap," he said, "Fire. Boom. Make bad people go away." Damn, I thought I might be going home with this guy-though I'm not sure why I wanted to so badly. I didn't know him and I did like it here. I guess the excitement of being owned was becoming just too much to bear. Being for sale wasn't enough. I needed an owner who would clean me and love me and fire me. I vented my frustration to my fellow handguns. The Python hissed at me. He told me not to be so anxious. He told me lust for the unknown was a blind man prematurely ejaculating. I didn't know what that meant, but the Python was much older than I, and I had no reason to believe wisdom didn't come with age. He was a bit more high-end than me and had sat there for four years. He'd floated around random auctions, gun shows and part-time and long-term owners before then. Bitter gun orphan. He said he probably would never leave this pawn shop. Paul was in love probably (or so the Python said). Paul wouldn't budge on the price for him, wouldn't trade either. You're inpatient now? Wait until you spend twelve years in cold, dark, silence with nothing but your thoughts. The first few days are miserable, after the first month the time just flies by for a while, and then it goes back to being unbearable. Years in confinement do a loop around, easy, unbearably, easy . Year after year after year after year after year of the same. The same. The exact fucking same. When you add up all the years it's never worth it. You want to go home? You don't know what home is yet. That can't be what everyone experiences. It doesn't differ too much. Maybe you'll go home to someone who goes out and target practices. Maybe. Just remember that most people have lives. Working, schooling, dog walking, eating, drinking, fucking, fishing, knitting, reading, fighting, dreaming, jogging, going to movies, traveling...living. Ninety-nine point nine percent of what people fill that great space between their birth and death, does not involve shooting a gun. I thought that pink .22 was a drama queen , the long colt chimed in. Jesus. You sir, need to lighten up a little. Look toward the future ahead! Anything can happen. Wait until twelve years in complete silence. I dreamt for anything to interrupt the silence. I wanted the house to be burn down. I wanted to be sold or stolen. I wanted to be used in a suicide-at least an evidence locker would have some interesting objects to talk to. The door jingled shut. Paul was filled with tid-bids of simple wisdom which he liked to sum up in three-word stories. Three word stories are exactly what they sound like: an observation, insight, or opinion- a description about something in only three words. It was Paul's little attempt at keeping some semblance of control over the world he deemed: Too-nuts for Trail-Mix. That's a poor example of one of his three word stories, as it could be argued that "too-nuts" is two words, but that was because the world was too crazy too be summed up in a three word story. That's what Paul's TV reiterated. The world was crazy and out of control, the television said. But the TV wasn't usually on the news. It was usually on the History Channel, Discovery, Poker or a myriad of random adapted-to-television movies and TV shows. Five months passed by. Many potential owners passed in and out. Some held me. Some aimed me at the wall with one eye up to my sights. One guy even went to the ATM for money, came back with thirty dollars less then I had cost. Paul hadn't budged. The door jingled open. Heavy footsteps wandered the pawn shop for a bit and then were followed by a deep voice, "Can I look at that one?" "You're quick for an old man aren't you?" "I ain't old, you're just young in comparison. Now you going to show it to me or ain't you?" "Sure sure, I'm just givin' you a hard time-that's mostly all I do." His key jingled just outside our case. "Well that's a bit more than I do these days anyway," he said. "Ahhh, you got your eyes on the Colt case..." Paul's wiry hands reached for the Python. "This one?" "Yes, that's the one." I said bye to the Python. I'm not going anywhere, the Python hissed. Have some faith you negative Nancy, said the .38 Super. "She's a beauty isn't she?" Paul's voice trailed off. He! Isn't he? The Python corrected. "I'm not lookin' to spend more than six hundred." The old man trained the Python on the wall of televisions. "Well..." Paul sported his honest disappointment grin which tastefully showed some teeth, but was careful not to appear to be smiling. "Sorry, pal, this girl is a bit out of your price range." "That's a shame," the old man lowered the gun and placed it on the glass above me. Paul laughed and sat the Python back next to me. "What kind of gun are you looking for?" "I love the types of guns in this case." He pointed wrinkled finger at us, "The old west style," he laughed, drawing his hands to his sides and crouching, pulling imaginary guns from imaginary holsters. " They remind me of my father. We used to watch westerns before he passed." Paul smiled wide and looked as if he were about to speak, but he didn't. "As they say, you can kill the man, but you can never kill the cowboy," Barnes' broke the silence, following it with a wink and tip of an imaginary cowboy hat. The old man scanned us with his old wise blue eyes. The old man was about five foot six and had thin wispy grey to white hair. His weathered features had once been strong and handsome, but were now interrupted by a mountain range of wrinkles, most of which were smile lines. He had a big nose and ears. The Discovery Channel had told me that these were the only human body parts that grew until death. "May I look at that one?" He pointed in my vicinity. Is he pointing at me? I asked my room-mates. "Thee-ah-.38 Special?" Paul pointing at me, too. "Yes sir, that's the one." This guy feels like the one, said the .48. Keep it real out there, wished the .38 Super, maybe we'll cross paths again. Hey bud, said the Python. Yes? Paul was lifting me out of the case as I spoke. Rust and die, prick. The old man gripped me firmly in his hands, rocked me up and down, weighing me. He ran his fingers along my rosewood handle. Along my chrome finish. He trained me on the muted Asian news-girl who had been saying nothing on the television, "Why sir, if I ain't mistaken," The old man lowered me, " I think I may be in love." Raised an eyebrow in Paul's direction. I love you, too. Or love how I knew it from cable television, anyways. There was a pause amongst all of us. It must have been three minutes, but seemed to last forever. "I'll take it." The old man finally announced. "Are you sure?" Paul tested the man. "Sir, I have only been this sure of anything twice in my whole life," he smiled, "when I married my first wife and then again when I married my second." They shared laughs and small talk for a moment before getting down to business. "I just have some papers for you to sign. FBI background check-fun stuff like that. You won't have a problem," Paul left to the back office and returned with a clipboard with a pen dangling from a string. It was full of different colored forms. The old man gripped the pen firmly with precision against the top paper, studied it, "where?" his eyes darted around the page. "Oh sorry-next to the 'X's," Paul pointed. He flipped through the papers rigorously, signing and flipping. When he was finished he handed it to Paul. "Well congratulations--" he examined the clipboard for a name, "Barney J. Jones, you have just purchased a fine piece of machinery." He stuck his hand out to shake. "Friends call me Barnes," he gripped Paul's hand solidly and they shook right over the top of me. "My friend's call me Paul... My mom calls me Pauly," he laughed and let go of his hand, "there's a one week waiting period." My new home was a seven by four foot gun case with stained cedar siding and a lockable glass door that hung on gold-painted hinges. I was hung with a twist-tie to a hook inside this case alongside a gun who didn't talk. He was an old musket layered in a heavy blanket of dust. His handle was splintered and riddled with cracks. The old musket had no trigger and his barrel was spotted with rust. He had no marks to clue me into his age, brand or model. I didn't know if he was dead or had run out of things to say. Barnes' grandson Danny looked to be about thirteen when we went out shooting the first time. He was short then, with a galaxy of freckles stretching the expanse of his face. He had mischievous and curious green eyes that danced and sparkled when he spoke. He had long dirty blonde hair that he brushed out of his eyes with his left hand as he trained me on an old busted television set. It was one of the ancient ones with wood panels and a giant black knob to flip through channels with. Danny squinted, trying to see through his hair and through my rear sight. His breath was warm on my hammer. "Now, take as much time as you need. Make sure your feet are planted solidly or the kick will knock you over." "Is it gonna' hurt me?" he turned to ask his grandpa. "No no," Barnes comforted, "this gun won't kick to hard, just be ready for it. Son, I'll tell you, though, the guns I had to shoot in basic training knocked me right on my ass. I was a tough guy too." Danny shuffled his feet. Widened his stance. He looked back, asked again with his eyes for assurance this wouldn't hurt. "Good. So whenever you think you're ready, take the safety off, aim, and press firmly down on the trigger. Breath out as you fire." Barnes instructed. Danny's breathing became more deliberate. He clicked the safety off. Breathed in. Then out. No fire. In. Then out. Then, with another breath in, he breathed out and squeezed my trigger, squeezed his eyes shut. The bullet grazed the top right side of the television sending a lightning bolt of cracks downward across the screen. Barnes cheered. Clapped his hands together hysterically. "Good shot! Amazing shot Danny!" He grinned and gave Danny a one armed hug. Then a high-five. Danny smiled, lowered me to face the gravel and broken glass and garbage. "I hit it I hit it!" he screamed with delayed excitement. "You're a natural Danny. I didn't make my first shot." "Really?" "I didn't make my first few shots, actually." Danny handed me, barrel facing the sky, to Barnes and I was pushed downward and to the side. "Whoa Danny-boy! Always-always point the gun at the ground. Hand it handle first, shooter to the ground." "It's outta' bullets." Danny protested. "Doesn't matter Danny, always treat a gun like its loaded. Now try again." Danny handed me back to Barnes, handle first, barrel to the ground. Barnes flipped open my cylinder revealing three live bullets in the chamber. "See," he angled the cylinder so the sun could shine through the open spaces, "three live ones, you never know." Danny nodded, respectfully annoyed. "Can you go set up some bottles for me to hit?" "Yeah, grandpa." Danny walked around, sifting through the junk. He dumped out a garbage bag near a soggy mattress stained dark brown and yellow in the center. Out of the garbage he kicked out a few old Corona bottles with hairy blackened lemons lodged in them. He propped them up on and around the TV set. The old man's dark eyes fluttered a little, "So Danny," he sighed, "I heard you got in a little bit of trouble this last Friday?" He peered at Danny, then back at the bottles. Danny sighed hard in frustration, "dang it not you too grandpa. How'd you find out?" "Your mother told me." "It wasn't a big deal or nothin'. They just made mom an' me an' him 'n his mom all sit down and talk and stuff. He walked out of between the bottles and Barnes. Looked up at his grandpa. "Was this boy giving you grief?" Danny shook his head side to side. Barnes lifted me up, put my sights on the faded label of one of the Corona bottles, "oh, other way around then?" he pulled the trigger, breathed out. The bottle shattered. I was lowered. "I don't wanna' talk about it. It's all I hear 'bout at home. That's why I like comin' to see you grandpa. We can just do fun things without the bad." He clicked my safety on and turned and made eye contact with Danny. "It is all you hear about right? Your mother-well we both know she's got some listening problems," Barnes chuckled, "I'm not going to lecture you. I want to talk to you. Two-way conversation." Danny scratched his head, "can I shoot again?" "After you talk to me you can. And don't worry, what I hear will not be repeated-to anyone." "No one?" "Only me, this rusted old junk around us, God and this gun will hear what we say." Recognition, sweet recognition. "There's this kid at school who won't leave me alone. He-he pulled my pants down in the lunch line. And-" Danny paused, his eyes fluttered, "he keeps calling me a fag and a mama's boy. And-and said freckles are jizz stains from Satan from mom bein' a whore when I was in the womb, still." "Wow, that last one is-graphic. It's kind of creative. Um-so is this the same boy you had the altercation with?" "No, this is a different one." "And you can't tell someone-a teacher-or the principle about this?" "What? Tell on him? I'm not gonna' be a tattle-tell! Sink to Justin's level-I hate tattle-tells." Danny yelled. "Okay. Calm down." Barnes laughed, "I would never tattle either when I was a kid. I had too much pride-pride that didn't get me too far neither." the old man shifted his weight in his boots, "so," He aimed me back towards the bottles, "to make you feel better about being picked on, you go and pick on an even smaller kid?" He breathed out, click. My safety was still on, Barnes swore under his breath. "I guess," Danny pushed hair out of his face. "Here," he said, handing me handle-first back to Danny. Then Barnes slipped a case of Grizzly Wintergreen chew from his back pocket. He packed it. Opened it. Scooped up two fingers full and lodged it in his front lip. "You know this kid-this bully probably has an older brother at home who knocks him around a bit-and they probably have a dad that isn't too nice either. Or maybe he was picked on when he was smaller than anyone else. Whatever reason, Danny, you have to rise above that. You have to break that chain. Don't go pickin' on people smaller than you to feel better about yourself." Danny set a crooked sight on one of the bottles, stared intently through his mess of hair at the targets, "Grandpa?" "Yes?" He spat black. "What's it like to shoot somebody?" For the first few years, my routine varied very little. I was taken out every Wednesday around six O'clock to be cleaned as he watched old war movies and Westerns. I was taken out to the shooting range a few times a month by Danny and Barnes-and I never got to see the mother they complained about, which was probably for the better. I saw Danny sprout higher and higher and Barnes hunch slightly and his wrinkles double every year. One night, my two years of routine were shattered by the sound of breaking glass. It came from downstairs. Then came a thud followed by some muffled arguing. After a short time of muffled sounds downstairs, two men entered Barnes room. One was a darker skinned man with a pencil thin mustache. Bags under his eyes were two shades darker than his skin. The darker man had an overstuffed black hoodless jacket with the words "Ecko Unltd" in old English font on the bottom and the outline of a rhino on the side of his shoulder in red. He had blue jeans that rested just above his knees, both of which were several sizes too big-and a red flat brimmed hat, turned sideways slightly. The hat had a white dash on it. Strange. The other man was taller, white and gangly. A black beanie rested just above his beady brown eyes. He had sunken cheeks and thin chapped lips. Above bushy brown eyebrows, a scar snaked its way from under his hat and ended at the top of his left eyebrow. On the side of his neck was a faded, black stick-and-poke tattoo of a two of spades card. The lowest card in poker. He wore a tattered black zip-up hooded sweater and some paint-spattered tan Carthart pants. He had off-white well-warn shoes with the tongues pulled way out. His left shoe was held together on the bottom with duct tape. They both had backpacks on. They peeked around the room, like overgrown children in a candy store-a candy store they broke in to. The first thing the skinny guy spotted was the framed war medals mounted above Barnes' bed. He jumped up on the bed and reached up and lifted the frame up off the screw. He stood, dirty shoes on bed, admiring the medals. The darker man start sifting through drawers, emptying clothes and miscellaneous knick-knacks out on the floor in to chaotic piles. Occasionally he paused to examine something closer, decide it had value and shove it into his backpack. "Kalo!" he held out the medals for him to look at, "What'cha' think these babies 'er worth?" he grinned wide. "Jack shit." He laughed, looking back to the task in front of him, "people sell that shit at antique shops 'n shit for next to nothing." "Are you fuckin' serious," he studied them closer, "They so shiny," he protested, " shit's got'ta be worth more than a buck 'er two," he paused, " and they fuckin' framed!" "People frame shit with sentimental value, not shit with monetary value...Shit dawg, I swear yo' brain reboots evera' damn morning," Kalo went back to his work. "Fuck." He scratched his head through his hat. He jumped up and down on the bed, smearing the sheets with mud. He picked up height, and as his head got closer to the ceiling he frisbeed the frame over Kalo's head and it shattered on the wall with a crash of drywall, medals, glass, and frame. Kalo's head shot up at this, "what the fuck are you doin'? Keep it the fuck down!" he stepped closer to the disrespectful bastard and grabbed him by the sweater, pulled him down to eye level. "Dawg, let the fuck go'a me." His eyebrows formed a 'V' under his hat. "Jus' 'cause the owner's not here, don't mean his neighbors' ain't." He let go of his sweater with a firm push. He jumped off the bed, landing hard on the carpet. The white male paced to different corners, scanning for valuables in an unorganized fashion. When he walked his shoulders led, left followed left leg and right followed right. He held his head up as he walked, prancing in a way. Paul called this prison swagger. After a while of probably thinking of something clever to say back, he told Kalo, "Well even if someone did come, I got feet, yah know?" "I kin run too man, but wouldn't it be nice to jus' walk outta somewhere for once?" "Yeah I guess...You sure no one's gonna' randomly show up here?" Skinny white asked. "Yeah, I'm sure. I mow the guy's lawn-he's always in and out of the hospital 'n shit. I saw him leave yesterday, he told me he'd be gone a bit, asked me to keep an eye on the house." "Wow...that is just so beanerly of you," he laughed, "robbin' the guy who gave you work," he said, holding a pair of reading glasses up to his eyes and squinting, "you think these'd help me read?" "I'm Filipino you shit-for-brains redneck," he held up some gold chains, "are these made uh real gold?" "Brown is brown is brown-like shit!" He laughed, "You know that, man? I once ate nuthin' but egg whites 'n beer for a day, and when I shit, it was the same color as your fuckin' skin." "Dawg if you keep sayin' shit like dat I swear Im'ma pop you right in the face...Plus-you're the one with the beaner name." He cackled, "Diego-what is that shit? Ain't that-ahmm what's dat bitches name? Dora. Ain't that Dora's boyfriend's name?" "Who-the fuck-is Dora?" He shoved some rediscovered change in his pocket. "Yoouuuu know Dora. Yah know-dat explorer from the baby cartoon?" Kalo continued to dangle the chains for him to look at. "Get 'em outta' my face, man. I dunno' real from fake gold man just take it all we'll sort through it later," Diego yelled as he continued picking through a dresser, "there's a buncha' girlie-ass shit in here-this guy queer or married or what?" "Queer? I can't even believe you just asked that. He was in the army, dumbass, you can't be queer and in the army." "Well his wife has some nice stuff then," he held up a gold broach with a female bust carved in ivory affixed to it. He studied it, and then stuffed it into his backpack. The skinny white man left and returned from the bathroom, struggling to keep grasp of handfuls of pill bottles, "I love old people," he said ecstatically, "I really do. It's like they take two pills 'n jus' leave the rest." "You said I get the next bathroom?" "Yeaaah-next bathroom," Diego laughed, tossing all the bottles in his backpack. He pulled a random pill bottle out and read it to himself, "strong shit, too," he muttered under his breath. The space around Diego's beady black pupils widened as his gaze met my gun case. "Glass safes..." he snickered, "they're as easy as passed out chicks." Through the grey fuzz of mold, Dr . Phil's bald held shone brightly under studio lights. He was on a set made up to look like a typical, but un-used therapist's office. He stared down his large nose at a skinny and tattooed teenager with a shaved head and a face red and soggy with tears. "What you are doing is displacing the anger you feel towards yourself on those you love. You are burning the bridges that got you to where you are now," he pointed a knobbed pointer finger at the kid, "once you turn to run from your anger, you'll find you have no bridges left to cross, and you will drown!" The kid buried his face behind two large veiny hands. Waterfalls of tears streamed down his face uncontrollably. "I know. I know I know I know." He scrunched his eyes shut hard; tears forced their way through the corners. He smacked his forehead with the palms of his hands. Then again. In frustration. "I jus-I jus-do things. Whether or not I want to. I just do them before I get a chance to stop myself." My owner's snores cut off Dr. Phil's response. The fuse of his cigarette inched closer to the filter, leaving behind a delicate ash skeleton. I was lying on his wooden table, the point of a triangle between Diego and his television set. I stared at them through grey mold fuzz that sprouted from an unnamable and unspeaking little pile of something. Dr. Phil's hard love eyes judged us all equally. The cigarette, held more by chance than two fingers, dropped to the carpet. It sizzled from moisture. From a carpet always damp with spilt drinks and urine. Some carpet fibers melted black slightly before the butt quickly extinguished. Life spared by? My new forced home was a dingy studio apartment with a patio. It was dimly lit by the one light in the kitchen-the only one that hadn't burnt out. The combination of dim lighting, the permanent hang of lazy smoke in the air, and the bent cans and molding food made Diego's apartment much resemble descriptions of the Opium dens from one of Paul's history documentaries. I suffered for weeks through the blight that is daytime television. The moral of every show was Get a job. The cliffhanger: You're still there? Really? Haven't gotten up at all yet? Really? This is what Diego did most of the time. Watch television, occasionally other people joined the couch. He or they and he often drank beer during this, always smoked during this and occasionally put things in their nose or in their mouth during this. Whenever a good deal of money was made all at once, it was poured into celebration of said victory. Diego had to celebrate that two-month's rent was here, and not a penny shall be spared. Ill earned money. Ill spent money. Diego slammed a wad of crumpled bills down on the table knocking over a pyramid of 16 oz High Gravity cans and Four Lokos. He flipped open his phone and began dialing numbers. Waited a second. "Hey Kalo. We ain't drinkin' malt liquor tonight!" He yelled into the phone. A minor pause, "Yeahh boy. Yeah...yeah. Patron on ice nicka'!" He paced back and forth in anticipation, listening to the whaw whaw whaw on the other side, "Tell--ahhmm...those one bitches yah'know ta come. Ya' know," he bit his lip, "Ah, Denise and Sissy and your boy Detroit-tell 'em he can bring his cool friends too-mosta' 'em anyways. What's that bigga' girls name?" He paused, "she was chillen' at your pad the other day. She was cool too. I mean not ta fuck er nuthin-nooooo. She was like one ah the guys." He paused to listen to the squawking on the other side and nodded along, "Yeah-No-don't worry 'bout none ah that, you bring a wrap and I'll fill it. All you gotta' worry 'bout is what flavor gets yo' tip wet." He laughed as he snagged a dented can of Cobra off the mess of the table and tipped it back letting some of the washed-out yellow-brown liquid pour into his mouth. Then he spat-sprayed it along the length of the table, misting me. He sat the can down hard and something clanked around in it. "Oh fuck!" A squawk. "Aw fuck dawg I just sipped a beer with a cigarette butt in it... Gross." he spat on the floor. My world spun 180 degrees. Then up and down against Diego's jersey. Thanks for wiping me off. And then he shoved me in his pocket. He made a few more very similar calls. Then he walked to the liquor store-where, while still in his pocket I was joined by a pint of Montego Bay Rum, who had traveled all the way from Jamaica. We got to know each other fast being as crammed together as we were. The pint told me he suspected he was being shoplifted and that I should do something. I told him that, as a gun, all I could do is fire a bullet through my barrel-and even then, I could only do so when my trigger was pressed firmly. We spoke during the walk back to the apartment. Monty, as he referred to himself, asked me why someone would take something from such an honest establishment as the state-run liquor store, when one hadn't earned the cash to make a proper transaction. I told him that, from my experience, people didn't always do what was right. My owner took things from others when he wanted, whether or not he needed to-and at times, when he didn't seem to even want to. Taking things and braking things was Diego's nature, like mine was to shoot and Monty's was to be drank. I felt him walk up the stairs, step by step by step, up the third floor. His apartment's floor. There was a muffled shrill voice heard through his jeans. I shush Monty so I could listen. "Look like you havin'a bit of a party later?" I heard a flirtatious female voice say. "Yeah, I mean, I guess you could call it somethin' like that." "Are you celebratin' somethin'?" "My birthday." The bottles in his paper bag clanked together as he bended to set them on the ground. "Fer real?" She said with flirting doubt in her voice. "Sure." His keys jingled from the pockets furthest from me. "Well dang, I would love to come, but I don't got a present for you." "You wear a bow baby and you can come as my present." She giggled, "what time's this little shindig gonna' get poppin' at?" "Poppin' 'round ten but you can pop in any time." "Cool, I can be here around nine-nine thirtyish." "That'd be jus' fine 'n dandy." Fine'n dandy? Asked Monty. Diego tried to use big words to impress girls but had a very limited vocabulary , I explained. I had witnessed such strange word choice many times since I'd lived with him. Fine'n dandy isn't big it's just old-fashioned . Monty was perplexed. I told him not to look into it. I was left in his pocket for the first few hours. Through his pocket I heard music turned up about an hour in. Mindless head-pounding base. The sound of people filtered in for the next few hours. I counted about eight before it became impossible to count with the continual in and out as people left to smoke or get beer or to pick people up or to leave. About three hours in, I was finally drawn from his pocket and tucked into his belt in the front. The room had gone through dramatic changes since I was away. Tornado times ten. The wreck of beer cans, garbage and cigarette butts that had been on the table were now in a heap on the floor-replaced by a single clear glass with a murky off-brown liquid in it and a quarter sunk on the bottom. Other than that, there were just a few red plastic cups and some miscellaneous spilled powders and drinks. There were a bunch of people crammed out on the patio passing an over-sized rolled cigarette. Across from me, from right to left, were a woman, a man, and a passed out man all sitting on rusted white lawn chairs pressed closely up to the table. There were a couple more tipped over chairs in the vicinity. I heard the voices of a couple people talking to each other on the couch next to Diego and me. My owner looks up and down the girl, probably thinking he was checking her out discreetly, but he appeared too intoxicated for subtly. She didn't seem to mind much. "Yo Siss-aay, you wanna' 'nnother linne?" His 'N's' drug out extra-long as he spoke. "Sure," she nodded, "Cut me another." Sissy flung the giant black mess of curls that were her bangs out of her face. Sissy was skinny. Like someone stretched fake orange tan tinted skin tightly over a tall and thin female skeleton. On top of her actual skinny appearance, extra measures had been taken to assure Sissy resembled an over-make-upped human toothpick. She had extra-large gold hoop earrings, a tight black tank-top, tight blue jeans, and next to her sat a large purse. She had a long thin nose and a wide mouth with bright red lip stick-all the better for snorting and blowing with, I presumed. Evolution disgusted me. "Hurry up!" She whined, "I wanna' go git down on dat blunt." Diego was aligning a grainy white powder on the table with a hotel key card. Best Western. He scraped the table hard; he slid the collected powder into the center forming a half-inch line of powder. He slid the card along each side of the line, tapped it on the table. Repeated. Scraped the table hard. Little discolored specks peeled off the table and mixed in accidentally. My owner's eyes occasionally drifted around the room. They focused outside for a second, and then glared at the two men, then toward Sissy's face, then down toward her breasts, the two tangerines that poked out of the skeletons chest, then back down to the task at hand. He pulled the card away, "'aight," he slid his tongue across both sides of the card, then rubbed his index finger back and forth on his gums, "You got dat bill still 'er somethinn'?" "Yeah," she pulled a partially rolled bill from her pocket and rolled it tighter and leaned closer to the table. Sissy placed one end of the bill up to her nostril and held the other nostril closed with a finger. She hovered the bill along the line of powder and it disappeared into the depths of her anteater nose. "You think I could get in on this?" the man next to her peeked over her shoulder and asked. Diego glared at the man. "If you wanna' do a bump outta' the barrel ah my .38?" He said with a crooked smile. "Dude. Shit. Sorry, I was just asking," the man put his hands up defensively. Sissy's mouth curled into a smirk. She shoved the bill back in her pocket. Tipped her head back, cleared her sinuses. Then she cackled. Rubbed her index finger back and forth on her gums. "Who even invited you here anyway, creep-a-leap? Go free-load somewher' else." Sissy shouted, nudging the man slightly. "I gotta' free load from yo mama last night, give her a call maybe she got some fight left in her," Diego roared with hyena cackles of laughter. He rested his hand on my handle. " Dawwg you better watch yourself." The man stood up, gazing deliberately down his nose at my owner. Diego stayed sitting. A fifth of Cognac magically in his left hand. " Me watch myself?" He took a swig from the bottle, "whose place you in right nnow? Who's alcohol you been drankan-n on?" He set the bottle on the table and pointed it at him, "whose friends you surrounded by?" He leaned forward and grabbed the glass from the center of table. He examined it for a second, the quarter clanked against the sides as he turned it in his hands. "Git the fuck outta' here," he flung the glass at the passed out guy and it splashed the guys face and chest. The glass bounced off him and landed on the carpet-the quarter leaped from it. The passed-out guy just flinched but didn't wake. "And take your lil' fuck buddy wit'cha." The splashed liquid seemed to boil on the standing man's face while he turned red. His face scrunched up in the middle. The voices next to us on the couch started whooping and hollering. Their weight shifted up and down on the cushions. One of them flung a lit cigarette at the standing guy and another spat on the guy passed out in the chair. "Booooooo---gett out!" one of them yelled spitting and laughing. Another loogie, murky Carmel-colored and thick struck the red-faced man in the nose. The heaviest mass of the spittle leapt slowly down the tip of his nose and to his upper lip, leaving a web-like comet tail behind it. He wiped it with his shoulder sleeve. The man, still red in the face, looked around the room, "well has anyone seen my coat anywhere?" "Im'ma' count to a numba'-not gonna' say which one," his hand gripped my handle firmly. Then pulled me free of the belt and lifted me to face the guy's chest. The man stumbled backwards as if sucker punched in the nose, knocking down a lawn chair. He was back on his feet as soon as he went down. "And if you ain't outta' that door by the time I reach that numba,' Im'ma give you an asshole where your face-hole use'ta be." The guy's hands were up at his sides again and I was aimed squarely at his face now. I didn't want to kill this guy. I didn't even know this guy. Just walk away. I wanted to yell to him to run. I wanted to tell the man my owner isn't stable. Frankly none of them were. Out the door fast with his tail between his legs, a storm of spit and beer bottles trailed him and smacked the door as it slammed shut. Then the guy was gone. Friend and jacket left behind. Then I was tucked away again in the pocket not the belt. I spoke with Monty for a while. I told him all the crazy stuff that just happened. He spoke judgmentally for a while with his sheltered imported Jamaican mind. Throughout the next few hours he was periodically taken out and put back with less of his brown liquid life blood. He was shuffled through my owners many pockets until eventually he never returned. In the morning, I found myself staring into a pair of silky pink panties, resting in a nest of crumpled blue jeans on what appeared to be my owner's multi-colored carpet. Oh the things I have seen, they told me, oh the things I have seen. A toilet flushed somewhere to the right of me. This must have been my owner's bedroom. I knew that for sure now. Skinny bare legs and feet passed by me having emerged from the bathroom's direction. They stopped in place in front of the panties and jeans. From atop the legs I heard the girl make the sound, like that of a held-back sneeze, then the legs disappeared again into the bathroom. The toilet flushed and the legs stumbled back in. Arms into view picked up the panties and pants, stretched them over her skinny naked body. It was Sissy from last night. She gathered things up franticly and shoved them in her purse-a bulky counterfeit Dolce and Gabbana. She slipped on a t-shirt with a cartoon Calvin sucking spaghetti out of the skull of Hobbes. Then the legs walked passed me, stopped, and circled back. I was gently gripped by a female's hand. Bright red finger nails glinted in the morning sun that shown through the blinds, and the hands threw me in the purse. Zipped it up. I traveled in the dark for hours, bouncing around with the contents of Sissy's purse. I attempted polite conversation with her lipstick, her chewing gum, her pink pocket sized pepper spray, but was just met with rude snickers. Sissy's aspirin bottle told me that my serial numbers would probably be scraped off and then I would be sold for parts. Sissy's personal mirror told me I would be used to hold up a convenience store and then she would throw me in a river to destroy the evidence. I tried not to take anything too personal; they were just reflecting their owner's condescending demeanor. I traveled a bit in the darkness of her purse. I could barely hear the conversation from the outside. I was forced to endure the disrespectful behavior of the contents of Sissy's purse. Sissy's tampons told me I'll probably be shoved inside her for a few hours, then yanked out and thrown in the trash. A loose stick of gum told me to fuck myself. Days passed in complete darkness. Snickers and snide remarks became common place and lost all effect on me. A ribbed condom told me not to lose my head. Roll with the punches.Existence is filled with moments of pain and pleasure alike.The key is to cherish it all equally. Grow from it. Learn from it. It was the nicest thing I spoke to in Sissy's purse. Sometimes you get the pink. Sometimes you get the stink. Finally I heard the zipper unzip and light poured in. The hand dug around and grabbed a hold of me. I was lifted up and sat flat on glass. I knew this place! I was back at Pauly's Pawn and Gun Shop. I was excited to see if Paul was there, but it was just his partner Bob. Bob was a beer-bellied, low-energy man. He had two chins and one shiny forehead. "The sign outside says you buy guns?" Sissy brushed her bangs out of her eyes, "I got it as a Christmas present and could use cash a bit more." Bob picked me up, examined me. "How much you tryin' to get for this?" Bob gazed judgmentally at her. "Ahh, I dunno'. A couple hundred bucks'd be nice." "You mind waitin' a sec'? Handgun's are more Pauly's thing." "Yeah whatever, I got a few minutes," She eyed the door behind her. Bob carried me to his back office. He found a pen and scrape piece of paper among the mountains of junk on his desk. He wrote down my serial number. Then he went back to shuffling through papers on his desk until he found the one he had been looking for. He held it up to the light. It was a poorly faxed list of serial numbers. My number was fifth from the top. Then he dialed 9-1-1 and asked for the police. I was driven back to Barnes by police officers. They told him he was very lucky to get me back, since most stolen firearms were never found. Barnes had to sign more papers to reclaim me and I was home again. The house hadn't changed a whole lot; just a few things had just been shuffled here and there, but nothing much. Barnes had changed though. The once spry and outspoken wise old man seemed frail and more reserved than before I had been stolen. After placing me back in my case he called someone on the phone in the living room. The phone call didn't last too long-and I couldn't make out what he had been saying. After he hung up the phone he walked slowly to his bed, crawled under the top cover, and fell asleep. The initial excitement of my return quickly fizzled away and I grew bored and lonely in my case. I just hung there. Barnes just sat there. Danny didn't come hang out any more on his own. Occasionally the whole family came and visited but it was short, awkward and forced. I would only be fired twice more by Barnes. It was early winter a year after I had been returned. It wasn't cold enough to snow yet, just cold enough for everything to be equally frozen in place. The ground was shiny white with miniature ice canyons that crunched under Barnes' boots. He drove us out down to the old dirt lot where he and Danny use to fire me at old cars, bottles, old washers, driers and television sets. The old man stood alone in the cold, his lower lip bulged with chew. He stood long and hard, examining our many potential targets. He shivered under red flannel. Spat black on the frozen gravel. He laid his eyes on a target. An old rusted and charred burn barrel that was nearly rusting in half. This seemed to be a large enough target for the sharp shooter, but Barnes was grimacing. His eyes seemed out of focus. Strained. He was breathing heavy, the cold air was raspy in his lungs. He panted. Spat black. He slowly lifted me up, rattling back and forth between two wobbly leathery hands. He turned me over in his hands, left to right, to left-examining my sides, my weight. I thought back to when he had first handled me. I wondered if I pictured it clear enough, I could go back to the pawn shop-grab that moment and hold on to it and not let go. Instead, I tried capture the moment in a three word story: There aren't words. Then he pressed my cold barrel up to his warm pulsating temple. This was the closest I would ever come to looking into the man's eyes. They were pale and tired, sunken back behind ripples of wrinkles against light blue bags. His wrinkles had all sagged downward to a ground that wanted him more. His eyes shook, fighting tears. Men don't cry. I told him not to pull my trigger, through words he could not hear. I told him I'd do everything in my power to malfunction. Maybe my firing pin was frozen. Maybe it would shatter from the rapid change in temperature caused by igniting gunpowder. Maybe my bullets were duds. One dud was rare. All of them, impossible. Maybe one dud would do it. Scare him straight. Convince him to live. Our shared immobility had brought us closer than we had ever been. As close as I had desired, but disagreeing reasons. He clenched his eyes tight. Filled his lungs with cool crisp air. POW POW POW. Breathe out. My bullets ricashaed off frozen gravel around the burn barrel, dislodging bits of icy glass shards and rock and sending them flying. He had swung me around last minute. The old man spat black. Swore under his breath. He went down into a squatting position and flung me to the ground in front of him. Stared at me with his hands cupped over his mouth. Not yet, cowboy. The next three years crawled by more slowly than the few that preceded them. It was like the roaring ups and downs of the roller coaster I rode were slowly climbing up that final hill. Danny flunked three classes in his senior year of high school and was going to have to finish in the summer. The two grew further apart, each became their own person, more and more through the passing of years. Barnes continued his upward battle with time-in and out of the hospital, he spent his seventy-sixth birthday in the hospital. Something was lodged in my barrel, disdain, or what I knew of the word. My inability to interact with the world that I was so involved in grew heavy in me, like so much melted lead. I was moved from the gun case to his bed side table with the company of more dead objects. Here, I spent more years than I could count. I ran out of three-word stories fast and took to thinking up poetry in my hours of days of years in dark silence. Free-form, short and abstract prose, of course, like all gun poetry. I ran out of three-word story combinations my first year. "Untitled" Human nature is the greatest crime, of which there is no punishment. Fate is the lie we apply to what we cannot control. Nature and function. Like inseparable Siamese twins, connected at the head. "Free will and silence" Foolish was the tree who held his leaves during fall. Foolish was the cat that ignored his curious drive, to extend his life-only to die fat, bored and lonely of old age. Foolish was the cow who wanted to make something of himself, and not be made into something. Foolish was the gun who dared to dream. "Colt Python, Wise Asshole." Oh how the Python was right. How I pray this place burn, just to see some damn light. The silence and dark crush my spirit. It screams but no one can hear it. Please open my drawer. I'm not sure I want to live any more. I've seen enough to be seen. I don't want to be mean. But please shoot yourself so I may leave this place. I am no longer fit for the handgun race. The next few years were bumpy to say the least. Barnes' mind slipped further and further. He was never taken out to be cleaned. I didn't trust him to shoot me, but he didn't anyways. His grip on where he was, when it was, and sometimes who he was seemed to be slipping further and further away from him. Paranoia grew in him. I was moved to his side table drawer. Sometimes I would be moved from inside to on top of the side table-back and forth in the same night. All the men who ever hunted him seemed to creep into his house at night. I was drawn on cats outside in the bushes, deer, or the wind at the window. The plumbing in the walls. He saw the robbers from the night I was stolen pounce out of dark corners in ski masks the second he tried to close his eyes. He would wake up sweating and confused and mumbling. One night, my complete darkness was barely flooded with dim moonlight. The drawer slid open and Barnes' leathery hands molested the darkness around me until gripping me firmly by the handle. Me in trembling hands he crept downstairs. I was drawn at attention, pointed into the grey and black shapes in front of me. What was it this time? Deer picking at the rose garden? A wind storm? My guess was as good as nobodies. He did his best to quiet his footsteps but his poor limb control on old stairs creaked with every step. I wobbled in unsteady fingers. Barnes stopped cold in his tracks in front of the kitchen. There was as an obvious dark outline of a figure standing in the center of his kitchen. The figure didn't move. The two dark beings seemed to hold their breath at once. Barnes filled his lungs with oxygen and the dark figure took a slow step back. Slow cautious dance. He pulled my trigger four times in a row. Right after another. He stopped holding his breath after the fourth bullet found its mark. POW. A shatter. POW. The sound like a bullet hitting a wet mattress. Thud. POW. Snapping tile. POW. The sound of splintering wood. The lights fluttered on. Laying awkwardly on the wood floor in front of us was a tall white male, his face closest to us. His struggled breathe spattered bits of blood against his galaxy of freckles. There was blood running like a faucet out of his nostrils and down the side of his cheek, some beaded on the tips of the stubble on his chin. The man writhed in pain, clutching at the leaking fluid from the hole just next to his third floating rib from the bottom. "Ehhh-ah," Barnes cleared his throat, keeping me shakily fixed on the wounded body, "are you-ahh-live?" "Grrahhh-mm-hhhhhehhh," struggled attempts at words answered back with fast raspy pants of breathes. The robber curled into a fetal position. His long brown hair matted with thick as molasses blood. The man's black long sleeve t-shirt read "Jack in the Box" in faded red letters. It had the outline of a pointy-headed figure above it with a torn round hole near the head where dark liquid life blood poured out, dirtying the shirt and floor. The robber shook vigorously. Deep raspy breathes. His eyes closed tight like crows foot prints in sand. "Ehhhhh---srrrrrrrrr-----ahheh----hheeee-gggggh," the figure rocked back and forth, trying to speak. "Try to steal from me punk! Try to take my things? Come in'n disrespectin' my house? There's a last time for everything-ain't there?" He trained me on the robber's head with his finger on my trigger, "I've taken' younger lives over a whole lot less!" After some hesitation, he drew me back and sat me on the counter-top. Each tile on the counter was slightly different though they were all of same basic floral design. A simplified image of red daisies sprouting out of grass. They had been hand painted by hundreds of different people in a factory in Taiwan forty years ago. The shipping and installation had cost more than the painting and the firing. In front of me was half a coffee mug with a hole in the tile behind it. Below the jagged ceramic teeth was the word "grandpa" in faded white. I heard Barnes click at the buttons on the cord phone. The cracked mug told me he'd held some fine Arabic coffee in his day. Only the best. I don't blame you , the mug told me. I can't help but feel a little guilty , I told him. The writhing thing on the floor let out a final gurgled scream. It convulsed, shot a leg behind it and put a whole in the wood cupboard below the sink. Little splinters shot forth, skiing along the pool of blood until the stickiness suctioned them downward. Then it breathed out. Raspy and struggled like the first breath after someone gets the wind knocked out of them. Barnes told the phone there was an intruder lying on the cusp of death on his kitchen floor. " Yes, I shot him." He told the phone. "----------------" "I'm fine. I'm just a little startled is all." "--------" "-He broke in." His voice showed no recognition as he spoke. "Yes I can wait here. I won't touch him or anything." I'm sorry it had to happen this way , I told the formerly #1 Grandpa mug. Jagged ceramic teeth, said nothing. |
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