The Day I Shot A Gun For The First Time

On Sunday I drank Red Bull from a champagne glass at work, was glad to see Jason and Jennifer come to Old Soul fresh from their honeymoon, bought a tent at a yard sale from Deb and Sheldon, took a long nap, called my dad to wish him happy father's day and we talked for an hour, spent the evening writing and heated a cheap spaghetti dinner in the microwave that shorted out the power in half the house, then met Jenny at her place after she finished work and we made nachos and talked about the rise of theft in Midtown.

On Monday I had a dream that I couldn't find any of my classes at school and was running terribly late, and on my way to the office I realized that my real-world alarm was going off, and, upon waking, I discovered that I'd over-slept and was going to be late to work. Jenny saved my butt and drove me to work, just in time, and that was only the beginning of what proved to be a very weird day. 

Jessica showed up for the register shift instead of Cody, though Cody was on the schedule. Fairly normal shift. Busy here and there. Good tips. Max and Kat came in with their little baby. Adorable.

Toward the end of my shift, Katie came in with a friend and Katie, who I haven't seen since she asked for her Rushmore DVD back a few months ago, has since cut off her hair (to donate to kids with cancer) and though I expected to bump into her again at some point, it's still something that's hard to predict, so I refused to let it be awkward. We small-talked through the making of an iced latte, then she left and life went on. 

With the weather so hot and beautiful and knowing that Jenny had the day off work, I came up with the idea of biking to Old Sacramento and finding a spot to jump into to river. I extended the invitation to Jessica and soon enough we had a posse and a plan. 

Later, as I'm reviewing the first 20 pages of my story before sending it out for proof-reading, Jenny ties a handkerchief around her hair, suiting up for the bike ride, and soon we're leaving her apartment and riding down Q Street to meet Jessica at Naked Lounge. 

And a few minutes after ordering drinks and taking a seat in the muggy cafe, I look over and see AJ walk by with her guitar, and I say to Jenny, "That's her," and she knows who I mean, and I puzzle over how to react because she hasn't noticed me, yet, and it's been months since we've seen each other, months since Blogger-gate, and I simply don't know how to feel. Are we supposed to catch up? Are we supposed to be nice to each other? I don't feel compelled to say hello. I stay on the couch with Jenny and AJ orders a drink and then I notice that she notices and I sip my mocha and pretend to be clueless, though I feel bad because I'm so much in my head that I'm probably not making Jenny feel very comfortable, but we can't just get up and leave, or maybe we can, but it's too late because AJ walks by. She says something simple like "Hey..." and I reply, "AJ," with equal flatness and a little nod. I knew we'd cross paths again eventually. Hard to predict how such things will go. I still hold a grudge for what she tried to do with this blog, while I'm sure she'll always hold a grudge against me, and since things didn't end on the best note a year ago, that's always going to echo the loudest in our memory of each other.

Next, Jessica meets us outside and we three bike through Downtown to Old Sacramento, where we lock up our bikes to a hand-rail and seek out the nearest ice cream dispensary. Dripping an over-priced gimmick down the side of my hand, I follow the ladies out toward the river, which is flowing high and fast after all that rain and snow two weeks ago that we've already forgotten about, baked by sun. Down by the water, we watch the train bridge rotate back into position after letting a ship sail by. Hooligans are up in the shade smoking pot. A young couple wanders away hand-in-hand. We finish eating a bag of popcorn and talk about how the river is full of dead bodies, then drink a beer each and idle in the shade a while longer before heading back to our bikes in the sun. Jessica knows a neat place about ten minutes down the river where we can swim, so Jenny and I follow her on bikes down Front street and up toward the river-front path that will take us there, and as we're passing the intersection of Front and O, Jessica veers onto the sidewalk and aims to cross the train-tracks carved into the cement. 

Then her wheel catches.

The bike cuts to the left.

Jessica goes flying over the handlebars, hits the cement, rolls forward and crashes into the bottom step of a staircase. I'm about twenty feet behind Jenny, who's ten feet behind Jessica, and we quickly pull over to help Jessica as she sits up and starts shouting, "Oh, shit, oh, shit." She's holding the top of her head and staring dumbfounded at the tracks that caused her accident, confused, and then the blood starts to pour down the front of her face and Jenny and I realize this is a lot more serious than it looked a second ago. We need to put pressure on the wound. Stop the bleeding. Neither Jenny and I have anything useful in our backpacks, but she thinks to take the handkerchief off her head and presses it firmly against Jessica's head. I've got a wad of tissue in my pocket that we use to wipe the blood from her face. In a matter of moments, we're all sitting on the steps with Jessica holding pressure on the wound and I'm calling Nick to see if he can come pick her up and she texts a friend with a van who leaves immediately and so I tell Nick nevermind and we wait, stunned, while Jessica starts to get dizzy and nauseous. We can't see how bad the wound is. Jenny sees her old boss drive by. Jessica says, "I can still tell you guys how to get there," and we shake our heads and say, "We're not really thinking about the river right now." Finally the friend comes, Greg, and he takes her bike and Jessica and they drive away. 

Jenny gives me a hug and says, "We're getting helmets."

We ride back to Jenny's house, still stunned, worried, speechless. We'd rather not just sit around worrying about Jessica, so we drive out to Jenny's dad's house to go swimming and spend a few hours in Roseville. On the way home, Jessica texts me to say the doctors shaved part of her head to give her five stitches and two staples. Later, Jenny reads some of my story while I watch all the cool parts of Sucker Punch, and the weirdest Monday of the summer comes to a close. 

The next morning, Jessica doesn't come in to work because she's not doing so well--she's apparently gone back to the hospital--and so of course the morning rush is busier than usual and Tim has to come out and help me run the register until Cody arrives. This is stressful and awkward but I survive and the tips have added up quickly and, for the stress, I take them before Cody arrives. Working with Cody goes alright but business is slow and we keep running out of things to do, plus I'm worried about Jessica, considering cancelling my plans with Lance to go to the shooting range, wanting to be home, writing. Lucky cut all his hair off. Sonya comes in, freshly married with a fancy wedding ring. I have a nice chat with this French guy, John, about the Peace Corps and he makes me feel good about my choices. Then Shaun arrives and it's time to clock out, and so I hang out with Nick and Ashley and Jenny until Nick and Ashley leave to go check on Jessica, and Jenny and I wait for Lance to arrive and in the meantime I'm still in a weird funk because of everything strange that's been happening lately. Finally Lance arrives and we leave for the shooting range. 

All the stress and worry I'd harbored during the day disappears with the first six bullets I fire from Lance's revolver. Then, when I take a turn with the 9mm, I become addicted. There really is nothing quite like firing a gun. The explosion in your hands, the bullet, the burst of dirt, the hole in the target, the recoil, the loud pop, the smoke, staring down the sights, pulling the trigger. Felt good to have fairly decent aim, too, with this being my first time firing a real gun loaded with real bullets. Hit the center of the target with the first shot from the 9mm, which made shooting the revolver feel like using a staple-gun. 

We were there for a while. We used almost all of the ammo.

Afterward, Lance explained what it is, exactly, that he does for a living as we drove back to Midtown and stopped at Suzie's to get hamburgers and milkshakes. 

Tomorrow's my Friday. I can't wait.

- Left to Fry