The Gun Industry Fed Me and Failed Me: Part 3
Music and Munitions
If this is new to you, go read Part 1 and Part 2 first.
Weapon/Subject:
Rifle/Stranger
I was happy to have a new piano teacher that didn’t hold recitals. I always felt uncomfortable being made to parade in front of the parents in some sort of proof-of-purchase show.
I didn’t understand the purpose since my own parents were able to hear my progress at home, usually asking that I pause so they could listen to Dan Rather sternly deliver the day’s Cold War news at a reasonable level.
My mom would drop me off for my lesson, then I walked home after. To the end of the street, then left, then straight for three more blocks, then left again, then two blocks home. I took the same path each time in case my mother came to look for me.
I enjoyed everything about my lessons, but mainly I loved the atmosphere. My teacher and her husband were both professors. She had a black baby grand piano in a living room that didn’t seem big enough for it, yet it anchored the space as the walls bloomed upward to carry its notes.
It was exactly the kind of space that I imagined I would have one day, down to the deep velvet couch, the sleek speaker system, and the armadillo lamp. Somehow in the center of refinement, the warm rustic glow of roadkill kept it humble.
Well-appointed bookcases flanked a fireplace and stretched to the ceiling. No television — the first home I’d visit where there wasn’t one on purpose.
She taught the Suzuki Method, making me listen to a piece for weeks before asking me to play it for her. Reading the actual music came last. This was a disappointment to my grandmother, who played beautifully but who kept her inability to read music her hidden shame.
Her husband walked in and set a full glass of red wine atop the piano and tied his apron strings as he headed to the kitchen. My lessons fell during the time he was making dinner, and he infiltrated the space with new and delicious scents. She would play the piece for me one time only, and I’d listen — eyes closed — to hear her long fingernails as they click-click-clicked their own percussion along with the notes.
I left her house that day with a single new piece of sheet music for the song I’d been listening to. I thumbed through it until I reached the end of her street. Once I took the corner, I payed closer attention to the traffic. Without sidewalks I was at a disadvantage as the sun dipped low, kissing the Western horizon.
An older man appeared on his porch, slamming the door shut behind him. I thought he was sweeping, broom handle in his hand, but he just kept staring at me. I was sure I wasn’t bothering anything — I was on the opposite side of the street as his house. I wasn’t menacing or lingering. I was just a girl walking home from my piano lesson with some new sheet music.
I was 12.
He spit over the railing into the dead grass on his lawn. Then he grumbled something that I didn’t quite hear. I couldn’t tell if he was elderly, but maybe he needed help.
“Sorry? I didn’t hear you. Do you need something?”
“I SAID, why ain’t you runnin’? I’ll give you to the count of three. One…two….”
He raised up the broom handle. It was the long barrel of a rifle. He never said three.
There was nowhere to run. I zigzagged in the road to a drainage ditch, while fenceposts and blacktop took the rounds. I could tell they were from a .22 from all the times I’d been squirrel hunting with my cousins.
I laid there listening to him laugh. A hearty laugh like someone had just told Santa Claus a hilarious joke. He laughed so hard he began coughing and finally retreated inside, slamming the door shut with gusto and a finality that settled an eerie silence over the street.
I looked toward his neighbors’ houses to see if they’d seen this…this lunatic firing off shots at a girl. I mean, someone had to have heard this and looked out their windows.
Nothing.
I rolled myself out of the ditch and collected my papers, now wrinkled and muddy. I began to run. As fast as I could I bolted toward my house, dodging behind trees as I saw cars coming — I didn’t know if he would come looking for me. My secondhand smoke-clogged lungs burned as they drew in cool air.
When I told my mom what happened, she was draining macaroni in the kitchen sink, glasses fogged from the steam.
“What now? Oh nevermind. Go wash up. Dinner’s ready. You’re late.”
When I told her again, she dismissed me.
“I’m sure he wasn’t shooting AT YOU. Even if he was, he’s old so he probably wouldn’t have hit you.”
It wasn’t enough to make her pick me up, so I learned to walk a different route home.
