Love and a .38 Read online

It takes me until the fourth period to build up enough courage to speak to Andrew. My hands are still shaking and my ears still ringing. There’s a pepper-like smell of gunpowder still lingering in my nostrils and it feels like there’s a puff of smoke swirling in my mouth. It doesn’t matter how much air I blow out or how much water I drink, there’s always that smoky cloud swimming over my tongue and slithering between my teeth.

   

  ‘I shot myself yesterday,’ I tell him.

   

  Andrew looks up at me and I can’t blame him for the confused look on his face. ‘You did what?’

   

  I shush him. ‘Not so loud,’ I say and look around the corner of the gym to see if there’s anyone lurking around. We shouldn’t be here. On the second floor of our school building, in Mr. Steward’s classroom, there’s an empty space where I should be sitting right now; listening to him explain the concept of diffusion or whatever.

   

  ‘You shot yourself?’ he asks barely above a whisper. He pulls a Chesterfield from his shirt pocket and lights it. He inhales deeply and then exhales a plume of smoke. ‘What do you mean?’

   

  There’s a glint of winter in the early autumn breeze and in the distance you can hear the muffled voice of a teacher shouting at one of the pupils about homework not done. ‘I took my father’s gun from his safe, pressed it into my mouth and pulled the trigger,’ I tell him.

   

  He takes another drag and then looks at me with a you’re kidding, right? expression on his face. ‘You shot yourself?’ he asks as if he might have heard wrong the second time. ‘With a real gun?’

   

  I nod. ‘Thirty-eight Special,’ I say rather proudly, much to my surprise.

   

  ‘You serious?’

   

  ‘Yup.’

   

  ‘Holy hell,’ he says and then pauses. ‘Wait. If you shot yourself, shouldn’t you be dead or something?’

   

  I roll back my head and laugh so loud and suddenly that Andrew gives a little jerk. ‘You would think so, right?’

   

  Andrew looks confused as he takes a long drag from the cigarette and then offers it to me. I decline. I’m still smoking inside and as long as there’s that swirl of smoke in my mouth, I wouldn’t be able to touch a cigarette. He blows out the smoke almost deliberately in my direction and I turn away in disgust. ‘So what happened?’ he asks. ‘Why are you still here? Where’s the wound?’

   

  I shrug. ‘Dunno,’ I answer truthfully. ‘There was a hell of a loud bang, but nothing came out. Nearly peed in my pants there, I tell you. I took the gun back to the safe and locked it up for good.’ I slump down against the wall. ‘I’ve never had such a fright in my entire life and don’t ever want it again.’

   

  For a long moment Andrew just looks at me without saying a word. ‘So why’d you do it?’ he finally asks.

   

  Because I’m a coward! ‘I don’t know if I should tell you, man,’ I say. ‘I really messed up, big time.’

   

  Andrew sits down next to me and takes a last, long drag from the cigarette. He flicks it away as he puffs out little misshapen circles. ‘You wouldn’t have told me about the gun if you weren’t prepared to tell me everything,’ he says. ‘So cut the foreplay and just tell me already.’

   

  Foreplay. I can’t recall if Monique and I ever really bothered with that. It was her first time and also mine. I guess that even if we did bother with foreplay that neither of us would have known that it was indeed that which we were doing. In our minds, we were merely making out in her mom’s apartment when we got carried away. We ended up under blankets because she didn’t want me to see her body; don’t ask me why. Of everything that happened, I can only remember two things about the entire incident that day. The first was how incredibly hot it was under a blanket on a warm summer afternoon. Her hair clung to her face in isolated sweat-soaked strands and it felt like our entire bodies were drenched. The second thing that I can remember was how quickly it was over. She seemed relieved, yet incredibly sad at the same time. Relieved that she had finally gone through with it; she could finally talk along with her friends. Sad, most probably, because it wasn’t all what she thought it would be. I think that the movies pretty much screwed it up for every normal guy out there; making the world believe that a normal love-making scene should last hours upon hours while the couple tried every position imaginable. In real life it didn’t work like that; at least, not as far as my once-off experience had taught me. It sure wasn’t worth all the hype that the guys were making about it in the locker rooms. That much I know now.

   

  ‘Helloooo,’ Andrew says and waves his hand in front of my face. ‘You still with us, bud?’

   

  I shake my head to clear the memories from it. ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Where were we?’

   

  ‘You were going to tell me why you tried to blow your brains out.’

   

  I flinch at the mental image of my brain-stained wall. ‘It’s about Monique,’ I say. He should be able to fill in the blanks. He doesn’t.

   

  ‘Yeah? What about her?’

   

  I sigh and rake my fingers through my hair. ‘I . . . she’s pregnant.’

   

  ‘Sonofabitch,’ he says and produces another cigarette from his shirt pocket. He lights it, takes a deep drag and then blows it all out again. ‘Monique?’ he asks. ‘You mean you and her . . . the two of you . . .?’

   

  I nod. ‘Yup.’

   

  ‘Sonofabitch!’

   

  I laugh. It feels good to laugh again. I haven’t done so since Monique had spoken those two deadly words to me that day. All of a sudden it feels like everything is going to be okay, as if it’s not the end of the world and that taking your life is indeed not the answer to any problem. And so I won’t. I will stand by Monique and see this thing through. Together we will work things out. My father would be proud, I guess, not because I impregnated a girl, but because I’m taking responsibility for my actions. I would always run to him with my problems and he would always let me get out of it myself. ‘You made your bed,’ he would say, ‘and now you must sleep in it.’ He’s always been a face the consequences of your actions kind of guy. I guess it’s his way of teaching me about life. Sometimes it makes sense, but more often than not, it just sucks. Getting out of a fix is never much fun; especially when trying to do so on your own; alone with no one to hold your hand. In my eyes a father should reach down into the cesspit and pull his son out of the muck, even if the son jumped in on purpose. But what do I know? I don’t even know what foreplay is; let alone how a father should raise a son.

   

  ‘So you’re getting an abortion or what?’ Andrew’s voice pulls me back to the here and now.

   

  Abortion. I didn’t even consider that as an option and for a brief moment I wonder if it’s because I’m moral or stupid. ‘I don’t know yet,’ I tell him. ‘I guess that I will have to talk it out with Monique to find out how she feels about the whole thing and what she thinks we should do.’

   

  Andrew nods and taps the butt of the cigarette with his thumb to shake the ash from the tip. ‘I still can’t believe you shagged her,’ he says.

   

  ‘I still can’t believe I shot myself,’ I say. ‘I need a fresh pair of shorts just thinking about it.’

   

  He laughs. We both laugh. For a moment we’re just kids again. There is no pregnancy scare, no consequences to our actions; just plain, simple fun. We’re young and the world is our oyster. When we’re done laughing his face becomes serious and we’re instantly transported back to the real world; the world of problems and disappointment. ‘When are you going to talk to her?’ he asks.r />
   

  I rub the back of my head. The headache is killing me. ‘After school,’ I answer him. ‘I’ll go to her place and the two of us can sit down and work it out.’

   

  ‘Rather you than me, bud,’ he says and flicks the cigarette butt through the air. ‘Rather you than me.’

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