George Higgins - A change of gravity

"If he hadn't had that book in his pants he would've had a hole in a bad place, lower abdomen. You gotta take a bullet, you do not want it there. The bullet mushroomed in the book instead of in his bowels.

EMTs told me later alia time he's inna hospital, they're making sure there's no traumatic internal damage, his beeper's goin' off like there's a prison break in progress. His office is goin' nuts, all these housewives callin': "Where the hell is Ellsworth? He's supposed to be here now. I can't get my washing done, he fixes my machine."

"The gun was a Jennings J-22, chrome-plated pistol. I never heard that particular make, and by now I thought I'd had, most of them. Dave Fisher, State Police lieutenant, first responded when the call went out for someone to take charge at the scene, he says it's a six-shot, throwaway, fifty-buck cheapie. I am fascinated.

"Sunny said to me one night after we finished going at it, I got up to get a beer or something, must've turned the ballgame on, my way back to bed, and she got annoyed. There we were, wed just made love, and now I went to get a beer and turned the ballgame on. She said: "Men do not know what to do with women, really. That's where all the problems start. You like us for the sex part, like that fine. But after you've gotten laid, immediately, you start getting bored.

"I think it's because we don't have any moving parts, like machinery does. Planes and cars and boats and guns. No pieces that you can take apart and look at carefully, clean and oil, and then put back together, or maybe modify. See if they wont run a little better now, faster, smoother, quieter. Guys like things you can adjust. "Now, we fit 'er back together, snick-snick, click-click, snap, like that, right. Okay now, starter up. See how much better she runs now? Told you that'd do it."

"And she slapped her hands together, like she was dusting them off.

"You can't do that with us. Women aren't adjustable. Well, okay, you understand that; you're resigned to it. There's nothing you can do to improve performance. It's okay; this's something you can live with.

The standard way we work is pretty good. It just doesn't take a lot of attention, so you don't see any need to give us any more than absolutely necessary. Like: "dinner and drinks oughta do it." Low maintenance. Once you've used us there's nothing that needs doing for a while. "Might's well have a beer and catch a little of the ballgame." That's why you irritate us so much. You start out interested, sure, very interested, but then when it's all over, boom, on to something else."

"Maybe she was right," Merrion said. "Cars: she's got me here, I guess. Golf: keep my clubs clean, of course. Not much else I can do to make them work better; the punk results I get're my fault. I dunno dogshit about guns. Never paid any attention to them. I don't hunt. I don't shoot at targets. I was never inna service and I'm not a cop.

I've never any reason to become interested in guns. But now I'm fascinated by what Fisher's telling me about this fuckin' pistol and how people use their guns.

'"Saturday-night special: for non-professionals. We're not talkin' robbers here, drug enforcers, nut bags here; guys who shoot up grade schools, fast-food joints, disgruntled postal workers. They want something heavier, more capacity. This item's made for your impulsive casual shooter, doesn't expect to use it very often; perfect for important family occasions. Although it is kind of unusual to hold the celebration at the courthouse, in the morning.

'"Non-profit shootings're generally night-work. Daytimes most people work, haven't got time to shoot people. Nights and weekends're when the amateurs take care of that stuff that's when they've got the time.

Passion-shootings, spousal matter like this, most people prefer the privacy of the home, they can relax and be themselves. Those who want an audience, though, maybe the third party to a three' Cornered romance, like bars and the parking lots outside them much more popular'n government buildings.

'"But hey, there're no flies on this little lady I'm not sayin' that.

Wherever you happen to be when your fuse finally burns all the way down, this cheap handgun is a perfectly proper utensil. Most women use knives; shooters're generally men. But that's okay; nothing in the rules says women can't shoot people too.

"And contrary to what you may've heard, shooting isn't difficult, doesn't require great physical strength. Women can easily do it.

You're a woman with a point to make, all you got to do is point one of these things at the person you're mad at, in this case your husband but could be your boyfriend, or your husband's girlfriend or boyfriend any number of possible combinations. And you make the choice, you cute little dickens, because you are the one with the sidearm. Simple to use. Load it and point it and pull the trigger; that's all there is to it. If it's your lucky day, or night, and it isn't his, or hers, the gun goes off like it's supposed to and then there's this loud noise, like in the movies, and the bullet comes out the front of the barrel.

'"This is good news when that happens, good news for you anyway. Bad news for the guy in front of you, unless you didn't aim right. But good news for you because it means the weapon didn't jam. When you get a jam it gives the guy you aimed at time to express his feelings, how he felt when he saw you point a firearm at him and then pull the trigger. A lot of people take this sort of thing very personally, and quite often if the gun misfires they will take the opportunity to share their feelings with the person with the gun. If they don't have their own gun with them, they do this by taking his away from him and then beating the shit out of him. As the lady now leaving with the officers can tell you, this also applies when the shooter is a woman.

'"So if the gun went off and you're the guy holding it, that is good news. And if the bullet hits the guy you're angry at, well, that's even better news. It means the gun didn't blow up in your hand, which these cheapies sometimes do. That could spoil your plans for the rest of the evening. But it's bad news for the person you're mad at because he has a hole in him, probably not exactly what he had in mind when he set out for his night on the town. But what the hell, life's full of disappointments.

'"You now get the hell out of wherever it is that you both were when you shot him and dump the gun down the first stor-drain you come across. Then you start praying either that you killed the bastard, clean, so he doesn't get himself patched up through some goddamn miracle of modern medicine, and then get his own gun and start looking for you; or else that you didn't kill him, even though you did your best to, because now you are filled with remorse. Because that way you may've lost yourself a friend but you wont be facing a murder charge."

"Anyway," Merrion said, "I said to him that even though everybody who was in that room heard that sound the shot made, I doubt very much that any one of us could've said for sure afterwards that it was a shot wed heard, unless someone told us or we saw the gun. I think we've all seen and heard so many shots on television, movies, we've reached the point now when we see someone with a gun, we expect it to go off and someone to get shot. Not really get hurt, of course; it's only TV, and we know that. And if the gun doesn't go off, we're kind of disappointed.

"But as a result, the opposite is also true. When we haven't seen a gun, then when we hear something that sounds like a gunshot we don't think it is. We think it's just "a loud noise" we can't identify. Or maybe "it's a backfire." We explain it away. But cars don't backfire anymore, but we still say they do. That way what we heard wasn't a shot, we've said it was something else. For us to know for a fact there was a shot, someone has to show us a gun.