Bang, Bang –
I had an impressive collection of guns when I was six. They were no more real than my vinyl holster was genuine leather or my red vinyl cowgirl boots were tooled snakeskin. Still, they were many…and they were cool. The best was the newest – a black metal air gun. When you cocked the handle and fired, it made a loud pop and burped a little rush of air out of the barrel. I soon learned I could jam the barrel into fresh dirt, pull the trigger, and send the dirt flying a good distance. Several neighborhood kids were mad at me for having such a neat toy and for shooting them with it.
Hanging on the wall in my brother’s bedroom at the back of the house was a real gun, a .22-caliber rifle.
One morning that summer I sat on the living room floor in front of the tv, waiting for “Top Cat” to go off and Roy Rogers reruns to begin. I wore my cowgirl outfit – red felt skirt, short-sleeved tan shirt with cowboys and horses in small print, a fringed red felt vest, my plastic silver deputy’s badge, and a red felt cowgirl hat. My holster lay by the front door where I had dropped it with my pistols and rifle. I’d kicked off the boots somewhere in between.
Every Saturday morning I watched Roy Rogers beat the bad guys. Dale Evans was his cowgirl, and together they made me feel safe. Many times I daydreamed that they rode through the desert and found me sitting on a rock, orphaned, no place to go. Roy jumped down from Trigger, picked me up, and put me on Buttermilk, Dale’s arms securely around me as she held the reins. We all rode off together.
That morning, over the first strains of “Happy Trails,” I heard my parents yelling in their bedroom. It was nothing new. My father was an al-co-hol-ic – don’t ever tell anyone, my mother said. He disappeared for days, then came home smelling drunk. My mother always picked a fight.
I stretched out on the living room floor, anyway, determined to watch my show. Unfortunately, my mother came into the room and sat on the couch. My father followed her as far as the doorway. I shot an annoyed glance his way and saw he held a rifle. At first I thought it was my air gun, until I remembered it lying by the door. His was the real thing.
He raised it to his eye level and pointed it at my mother. Then he turned slightly to his left and pointed it at me. “I’ll kill you both,” he slurred. “You can both go to hell.”
My mother stood up and swaggered toward him. “Go ahead,” she said. “I don’t care if you do. We’ll be better off.” She turned and sat back down.
“Just remember to shoot yourself when you’re done,” she added.
I couldn’t move, except my eyes shifted from Roy to my father and back again. All sound disappeared. Roy and Dale galloped across the desert in silent pursuit of some robbers. My eyes went back to my father, who kept the rifle aimed at my mother. She glared at him.
Roy and Dale rode farther away. I closed my eyes and waited for the rifle blast that never came.
