I had never bought a gun before and I was kinda freaked out by the whole thing ... yet also kinda exhilarated. The gun shop was a non-descript concrete bunker of a building with no windows, just a sign saying "GUNS." A benign, rotund man greeted me. He was Vietnam aged but had all his hair and it wasn't grey at all.

"May I help you?"

Apparently I hadn't made the first request out loud but only in my head. "Yes, thank you. I'd like to buy a gun."

"Okay. Sure."

"Can I buy any of these and just walk out of the store today?"

"No, the hand guns need a permit which is a process, but any of the rifles or shotguns can leave with you right now."

"What's the best gun you have I can buy right now?"

"Well, what do you want the gun for?" Uh-oh. I was right. I was under surveillance and a wrong answer would red flag my FBI file and I'd be fucked. Luckily I was one step ahead of him. I threw him off the scent with a Boris Spasky worthy parry.

"What do you mean?" Yeah, when in doubt, play dumb. I was back trying to buy quarters in Santa Monica.

"Hunting? Home protection?" He asked, excited he was getting to talk all things guns.

"Home protection?" I thought. Oh my God, that's right! In eighth grade through the Panama Red and horse tranquilizer haze I think I heard something about a constitutional amendment that permitted that.

"Home protection." I trumpeted triumphantly. I'm a fucking genius. "Yeah. I want home protection."

"Well you can't beat this beauty." He pulled a ridiculously scary looking black Rambo thing off the wall.

"Pistol grip, 8 round chamber, technically illegal, but if you won't tell I won't, and it'll blow the fuck out of anything that moves." I smiled, I was smitten. But then he quickly stomped on my euphoric glow.

"It's perfect for killin' gooks and n_ _ _ ers." I almost vomited. I fucking hate when that happens. When people pretend they're nice and then the "N" word comes out of their mouths suddenly, blindsiding you, announcing the arrival of their true Anti-Christ self. I prefer it if they just are evil from the beginning, so you can see it. When they warm you up, making you believe they're someone you can open your heart up to and then unveil the scum, it's doubly upsetting. Again, I know in my higher Self that these types need even more of my heart and I'll try my best to include them in my prayers, but in this moment, I wanted to nicely tell the man I would buy the gun, have him teach me how to load it and shoot it, and then, like in the bad B movies he watches late at night drunk, jerking off to kiddy porn, turn the gun on him and blow his cunt face through the back off his head.

I hate people who are racist. Especially towards black people. I will admit that everyone else is fare game for me upon occasion but I never EVER will joke about black people. I won't even write the word n_ _ _ er. I will not put it on paper to be further seared into anyone's consciousness. I know other races have had it bad and been persecuted obscenely, but not in this country. My home. Our home. Where we live. Not like black people have and still do. Black people are dragged to death behind fucking pickup trucks. Now. Today. I mean, what the fuck?! So no jokes. Sorry. And trust me, I think affirmative action can be entirely fucked and I was unfairly discriminated against my whole life on the basketball court because I was white. I cared more about that place than any in the universe and though I was usually the best player there, I got no love. As a result I wasn't scouted and lesser players got scholarships to colleges to play ball even though they weren't as good as I was because they were black. And on the playground I couldn't get a decent run or if in a game, could never get the ball because I was white, again, even though I was the best player there. You may think that's nothing, but childhood scars run very deep and trust me, you can't compare pain. I know the feeling of not being treated equally because of the color of your skin, or because you look different.

In junior high, after getting extorted and cuckolded by my best friend Robby, a black kid, I moved to Vermont and got beat on every day because I was a hippie from New York, until they found out I had the best drugs ... and I was the best basketball player in the town.

Those experiences only strengthen my resolve not to give in to the luxurious temptations of hate. Infinitely more disgusting than being a victim is being the perpetrator. That's a feeling that (unfortunately since I'm not perfect and have failed a few times in my life, but thankfully only a very few in this area) resonates with such a quiet blasphemous truth, it's impossible to escape from and you can only hope you will be forgiven for after enough genuine contrition and heart felt prayer.

But short of black people, I'll make fun of you and me until we can't laugh anymore, and we'll only be laughing because it's the truth, never for any other reason.

"I don't appreciate you saying derogatory things about black people. It's fucked up." That's as far as I would go. The man was holding one gun and had an adjacent arsenal at his fingertips and who knew what freak with a red ball gag was at the ready in the basement, giddy at the thought of Uzi-ing out my insides through my asshole. It's one thing to get the occasional buggering at the hands of a supermodel with a strap on, an entirely different thing to get anal raped by a "Deliverance" mongoloid with a sub machine gun for a cock. Again, just to recap.

Cindy Crawford with a very high-end rubber dildo ... Sometimes fun.

Leather Face with an AK 47 dick ... never once fun.

Although, I'm such a sick perverted fuck that if I don't stop talking about it, even I might be able to get one good jerk session out of the latter fantasy. Even the wrongest of the wrong I can usually try in my mind once. If only to not be a pussy and say I was scared to. Now that's IN MY MIND friends, NOT IN REAL LIFE. Okay, big fucking difference. If I had run over all the people I wanted to with my cab, New York would seem as quiet as summer all year round and I'd be the biggest mass murderer in history.

Our thoughts do not make us what we are, our actions do. Although in Buddhist philosophy that's not true. Not only do our thoughts make us what we are but make the world what it is. I like and believe that philosophy but until I achieve enlightenment, and believe me, I am trying, it's comforting to know I can continue to practice that path from a warm yoga studio with many hot, tight, chicks next to me, or lying in the sunshine in Riverside Park in the greatest city in the world, or on a beach in Mexico, anywhere I want other than prison, as long as when I mentally digress I don't act out on it.

"Yeah. Give me the gun and three boxes of shells please." Without either of us saying another word we completed the transaction and I left the store with my shotgun in a long, thin, clear plastic bag? Was that a law? So it wasn't concealed? It was weird.

"The law requires me to tell you that if you carry a loaded gun in public or transport a gun with the ammunition in the same place as the gun you are subject to arrest."

"So I need to put the gun in the trunk and the shells inside the car? Or visa versa?"

"Whatever you make of it my friend, you do. I wouldn't have even told you if I didn't have to. I hope you blow your own faggot head off with it by accident." I so badly wanted to go to jail for killing this man with my new shotgun.

"Have a nice day." And I left.

I drove across the state line to Vermont and of course, knowing me by now as you do, you know I was paranoid as shit that I was doing something illegal and would go to prison for it but I had to have a gun in Vermont if I was going to have a house there, and I had already bought the house and the gun so I figured I would just have to drive the speed limit for a couple hours and I'd probably be alright.

I arrived at my funky farmhouse near Killington without incident and excitedly got my new toy from the trunk and loaded it with the maximum eight shells. It was shiny, black and heavy. With the pistol grip you held it by your hip like Clint Eastwood probably actually never did in any of his movies but you imagined he would. It did look like a war gun with round holes cut in the long metal under the barrel, something you'd see in a movie. I had never shot a gun before but between what the racist fuck in the store had shown me and what I had seen in movies, I operated it like a pro. I aimed straight in front of me where only my empty road stood with nothing is sight for miles except beautiful country hills.

BAM!!! It was really loud and echoed though the hills for miles. I cocked it again.

Chook-choock.

BAM !!! It felt fucking amazing. The kick was really hard. Chook-chook.

BAM!!! You wanna fuck with me? Chook-chook.

BAM!!! You don't think I can play basketball as good as you? Chook-chook.

BAM!!! You don't think I'm cute?! Chook-chook.

BAM!!! You don't like my movies you cunt critics. FUCK YOU!!!! FUCK ALL OF YOU!!!!!!!!

BAM!!! CHOOK-CHOOK!!! BAM!!! CHOOK-CHOOK!!! Click. CHOOK-CHOOK.

Click. Fuck! Out of ammo.

Okay, yeah. I can see how people can kill other people.

It was scary. But again, not being a psychotic sociopath is the margin of difference between me blowing the fuck out of the air and not the actual people who anger me. But it did fell damn nice. Fuck a Bataka (the red foam "encounter bat" my eighth grade therapist who I was forced to see, Fern, made me pound on a chair) give me a bazooka and some pumpkins.

So, I store the gun in the chest at the foot of my bed. I tell everyone who comes to visit me it's there and not to mess with it, though I try and get them all to shoot it. Most of my friends and family, like me, have never fired a gun. My mom was the cutest. We had nothing to shoot and I was tried of shooting at air and wanted her to shoot something more interesting so we went to Wal-Mart and found neon orange Styrofoam turkeys and what else...? What else...? Ah-ha! Leo Dicaprio posters! How fun and kitsch. I actually have nothing against Leo and kinda like him but it just seemed like it must happen. I nailed Leo to the wooden flagpole out back of my house and handed my mom the loaded shotgun. She was adorable with her blue head phones to deaden the noise and her yellow eye protectors. She's 5'2 so the gun was nearly as long as she is tall. She wasn't bashful at all.

"Now?! Should I pull the trigger now honey?!!!"

"Wait a minute, mom, the safety is still on."

"Well make it work sweetheart. I want to shoot Leo."

I clicked the safety off and my sweet little mother raised the massive barrel of the shotgun and fired!

to be continued...

Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 12:55 AM

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