AFTER SCHOOL SPECIAL

     It was my brother who showed me. We were at home alone after school. All this time it had been in the bottom shelf of my father's gun cabinet, in the very back beneath some papers and boxes, half stuffed into one of those purple Crown Royal bags. I had always taken my father's rifles and shotguns out to play around with, but there was something different about it, something more mysterious, more exciting, more evil. "It's a .357," he told me, tilting it in the light. "Don't you ever touch it! It'll blow your fucking head off!"
     "Is it loaded?"
     "Fuck no. He keeps the bullets somewhere in the garage."
     "Can I hold it?"
     "No! Don't you ever fucking touch it, you hear me?" He slid the nose back in the bag and put it back in the drawer. "I shouldn't have shown you," he said, closing the drawer. "You tell mom or dad and I'm gonna kick your fuckin' ass!"
     The next day after school, I was at home alone. I went over to the drawer and pulled it open. I took out the papers and boxes and looked at it. It looked bigger than I remembered. I ran over to the front window and made sure no one had driven up. I ran back, reached in, and picked it up. It was heavy. My wrist buckled over a bit with the weight. I removed the bag and stared at it. I got nervous and quickly put it back.
     The following day after school, I was alone again. I opened the drawer and took it out. I wasn't as nervous. I held it with more authority. I began pointing it at things. I walked around with it. I went over the sliding glass door and pointed it at our two dogs. I pretended to shoot them, first Molly then Babe. I made the noise and pretended to feel the gun kick back. I smiled. Babe and Molly just starred back at me, wagging their tails as they whimpered through the glass. I heard something and quickly ran over and put it back.
     My mother went back into the hospital with another infection. Darkness crept back into our home. My father would come home from work, miserable, and would be on the phone for hours with doctors and friends and family. I stayed with friends a lot. But whenever I found myself home alone, I would always go and get the gun out. I began to contemplate shooting myself. The thought of it made me happy, the way people would have to think of me and feel sorry for me and how sad and hopeless they would feel, standing around my grave. I figured out how to make the chamber fall out where the bullets went. I began to put it up to my temple. I stuck to the barrel into my mouth. I would imagine the blast and what it would feel like and what it would do to me. I wanted so much to pull the trigger but I never did because I remembered how my father had said it would damage a gun if you ever pulled the trigger without any ammo. I was too afraid to even cock it.
     Then one day I was digging around through my father's desk, looking for his Hustler magazine. I could see the pages curled up at the back of the drawer but I couldn't quite grab it. I kept reaching but then my fingers came to a small heavy box. I grabbed it and pulled it out. It was a green box filled with bullets. On the side it said, "Remington .357". I ran over to the cabinet with the box of bullets and got the gun. I took out a bullet and opened the chamber. I let the bullet drop in and flipped it shut. I felt dizzy. My head felt like it was filled with sand. I sat on my knees, looking at the six sheets of sunlight shooting in through the panes of yellow glass on the front door. Hundreds of tiny dust particles floated around in that golden light. I thought about my mother. I could see her perfectly in my mind, the way she used to be before she had gotten sick. She was cooking dinner in the kitchen, looking at me, smiling. I brought the gun up to my temple. I held it there with my finger on the trigger. I held it there and began to cry.