guns

did i tell you the story
of how i feel about guns
it's not that long of a story

when i was younger
from when i was little
until i was in high school
or really maybe even college
(this was the friend my mom had the longest)
my mother was friends with cholla
she was a painter
but
her husband was a police detective

when he came home
he sometimes just threw his gun on the dining table
and the way their house was set up
the dining table was where people hung out
it was a great house
great flow
i bet it was great for parties

but
when
i first really noticed the gun
i was immediately agitated
and
it had an intrusive desire
to pick up the gun
and just start shooting everyone

i was maybe eight
now
luckily
i have and have always had
a lot of control over my intrusive thoughts
i don't even think i touched the gun
i just moved further away from it

i was not a redneck
nor was any of my family
none of us had guns
or hunted for fun or sport
guns were something police officers had
i was not raised to think guns are some inalienable human right

so
i never had to worry about
the whole gun thing again until my step father
he had guns
and he was a redneck
he was from just outside of los angeles
but
i always teased him that he was from arkansas
both because
i mean
he couldn't tell you anything about los angeles
i mean nothin
but
he had gone on some rock hunting trip in arkansas
and he could talk about arkansas
plus
he was a redneck
and there aren't supposed to be redneck-y angelinos
(i mean, are there?)

anyway
maybe i should talk about him for a minute
we met him at the renaissance festival
he was out there painting faces mostly
at the esoteric philosophy center's booth
now, he can't draw
but maybe they didn't want him doing reading or giving foot massages
so he was a face painter
and
this was like 1980 or 81
maybe while my mom was still having the affair with the much younger
married man
and
i mean, i think she knew about it
because my mom was busy giving him all the money she had saved for my college
i know she was sleeping with him on the night before my birthday
(kim not my step father)
because when i woke up
he was there
and her bedroom door was closed
and it was never closed
she would have had to clean the door area to close the door
and
i mean why would she have done that unless
she needed it to be closed
of course he just came over special for my birthday
yeah, right
and i was going to duschene so that was when reagan was elected
so january of 81
i was fourteen
so my step father was either fall of 80 or 81
i can't really pin it down more than that

he was working at the renaissance festival
and
he was looking at my mom instead of me
that was pretty novel
and
i didn't like him much
also
he talked to me like i was a child
which didn't happen much either
also
he was really tall
and unattractive
and didn't seem all that smart

he had drifted when he was young
and then been drafted to go to vietnam
which was the best thing that ever happened to him
because the army really straightened him out
also
since he was flatfooted
almost legally blind
and had been run over by a car as a child
which gave him back issues
he wasn't really suited for a combat position
so he ended up doing something in thailand
what, i'm not sure
he watched a bunch of kung fu movies
i know that

after he moved in with us
well, the apartment next to us in the fourplex my mom owned
she made him pay rent even after she was basically living with him
he watched kung fu movies ever weekend
and wrestling
and football
and exercize shows so he could watch the women gyrate
and he video taped all the elvira episodes in case she fell out of her dress
he wanted that shit on tape

he had binoculars
he would look at the women at the pool next door with
and he collected stuff
coins
rocks
celebrity skin magazines
and
in a secret stash
he hid behind a bookcase
where the government wouldn't find it
when they came to take away his inalienable rights
he had a large and ever-changing
(because he went to like every gun show, ever)
collection of guns

now
none of them were assault rifles
but many of them were semi-automatics
and
some of them had been altered
in some way
maybe to make them fully automatic
i'm just not sure

he was cleaning one or two of them
pretty often on the weekends
and i think that was what he really liked
the mechanics of the guns
when they were taken apart
they didn't affect me in any kinda way
and the gun grease reminded me of turpentine
which reminded me of my father

he was frequently making xeroxes of gun information
running it by the local radio stations
and
he was for sure
an nra member

oh, damn
i forgot an important part of his back story

when he got back from the army
"all straightened out"
he went to college on the g.i. bill
he got an agriculture degree
which was how he got the government job as a grain inspector
which was how he moved here from california

but
how he decided to get that particular degree
is one of the things i found most interesting about him
he got the ag degree
because he had met this couple
who were going to move to
shit
i think he said canada
but maybe it was just oregon or something
they were going to go there and grow pot
i think
and he was going to learn how to run a farm
and then
they would take him with them
and he seemed to think he would get to fuck the girl too
they took off
and
he never got to work their farm or fuck the girl
but
he did an ag degree
a job that he did for thirty years
absolutely hating every minute of it
and
my mom

i went to a firing range with him once
and
i liked the shooting
maybe i did it in a past life or something
he tried to give me a revolver
and it was hard to negotiate in my hand
so i convinced him to let me pick
i picked a semi automatic
and it was pretty easy to shoot
i didn't have any compulsion to shoot others
(my intrusive thoughts at that time
were seeing my mom's mat-cutting thick razor blades
and imagining  cutting the skin from the bottom of my eye
straight down my face)
and i never did that either
but
the shooting, apparently, went too well
target full of holes
rather than missing the target completely like i was supposed to
so we never went shooting again
and
i never missed it
because i don't like guns
and i don't get why they are such an american fetish