J. Bertrand - Nothing to Hide

In Jeff’s case, the experience was racked up doing private security work somewhere in Iraq-“outside the Green Zone” is as specific as he’s ever gotten. He’s in his mid-to-late twenties, square-jawed, and sarcastic. His Glock 19 has a gunmetal shine where the finish has rubbed away from use. Compared to my chromed new toy, his gun is a battered workmanlike tool. I like that about him, too.

It’s hard to have a conversation with ear protection on and guns going off a few feet away. We lean through the lane openings, watching shooters work through the course. Tonight there’s a cardboard wall with a window in the middle. Downrange, two IDPA cardboard bad-guy targets are staggered on the left side of the wall, one at five yards and the other at ten. Through the window, a bad guy becomes visible, most of his body shielded by a hostage target, and on the right side of the wall a crowd of three bad guys stands between five and seven yards away. The shooter takes cover on the left, puts two rounds on each target, reloads, then puts one in the head of the hostage taker through the window. To finish, he angles around the wall’s right edge to put two rounds each on the three final targets. All this with the stopwatch running.

“Right,” Jeff says. “This would happen in real life.”

I shrug. “It’s just a game, but you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t like it.”

He smirks and turns back to the range. One of the hardcore shooters is getting ready to run the course. He wears a white germ mask over nose and mouth, marking him as one of the club’s several handloaders. For economy, since they’re sending so many rounds downrange, these guys make up batches of their own ammo at home. When they get together, they brag to each other about their “lead count”-not the number of bullets they’ve churned out of their presses, but how much lead has infiltrated the bloodstream as a consequence.

Jeff sighs. “Watch this guy.”

The shooter stands still, waiting for the buzzer with his hands raised. Once it sounds, he pistons his arm down, clears his holster, and starts firing. Before the spent brass of his initial shots reaches the ground, he’s already reloading and lining up the hostage shot through the window. The speed and economy of motion is something to behold. After the last round is fired, he keeps his weapon leveled, scanning back and forth like he’s expecting one of the cardboard adversaries to get up. Then he unloads and re-holsters.

“Perfect round,” someone says.

Glancing down the lanes, I see the timekeeper shaking his head in admiration.

But Jeff looks amused. “I wouldn’t want him on my side.”

“Seriously?” I say. “He looked good to me.”

“I doubt that, Roland. You saw the way he uses cover? Just enough to satisfy the rules. If those targets could shoot back, believe me, he wouldn’t be leaning out that way.”

A couple of shooters in front of us glance back, not liking what they’re overhearing. I know better than to try and shut him up, though. A little experience combined with the arrogance of youth is a potent combination.

“Now you ,” he says. “You I’d take with me into combat.”

“You would, huh?”

“Maybe not with that fancy gun.” He smiles. “But yeah, I would. I can tell who’d keep his head when the flare goes up and who wouldn’t. You can handle yourself, I bet.”

“I’m flattered.”

“Whatever.”

The line advances and we get closer to the front, with members crowding behind us once they’re done. The middle shooters are mostly citizens. They joined the club after getting their Texas CHLs, concealed handgun licenses, or maybe they grew up in the gun culture like I did and the club offers an escape from the banking or lawyering or used-car dealing.

The club draws a strange cross section of Houston society. It’s all male, but apart from that fairly diverse. Hispanics and Asians, whites, blacks, some with money to burn and others scrimping to afford the gear. Meticulously law-abiding to a man, though not without some grumbling about the ATF and the administration. There are short-barreled, high-capacity assault rifles on sale up front, with thirty-round clips, flash suppressors, and collapsible stocks thanks to the lapse in the assault-weapons ban. But most of the guys out here seem to think that’ll all disappear at a moment’s notice. At least they tell themselves that to justify the next big-ticket purchase. I know the type from working for my uncle.

As the shooters progress, Jeff keeps a running commentary on their technique, half of it lost to the muffled noise. He can’t help it. Whenever the rules don’t match up to his take on reality, he has to open his mouth.

“Don’t you think you’re stating the obvious?” I ask. “The point isn’t to replicate a gunfight; it’s to have some fun while working on the repetitive skills that would come in handy in real life-reloads, clearing a jam, whatever.”

A couple of shooters nearby grunt their approval. They’re a little tired of what they see as his bragging. Noticing this, Jeff concedes with a good-natured shrug. “I hear you, but what can I say? I run my mouth under pressure.”

Now it’s my turn to say, “Whatever.” I have a good sense how Jeff would operate under real pressure, just like he has of me.

When his turn comes, he gives me a watch this look. He approaches the start line, crouches slightly, and raises his hands. At the buzzer he goes into action. It takes me a moment to realize what he’s doing. Every movement mimics the masked shooter from before. The timing is identical, like he’s imitating a film running in his head. The bullets even perforate the targets in more or less the same places. At the finish he scans back and forth.

“Wow,” somebody says.

“He’s just a show-off.”

“If he can shoot like that,” I say, “then who cares?”

Muscle memory is one thing. Reproducing someone else’s action like that, after an interval of time-I’ve never seen anything like it. The timekeeper notes the scores on his clipboard without giving anything away. From this I gather Jeff finished a hair quicker than the man he was copycatting.

“That was amazing,” I tell Jeff when he files back.

He pats my shoulder. “Get ’em, killer.”

I toe the start line and take a deep breath. The buzzer sounds. I draw and move forward to the edge of the cardboard wall, double-tapping each of the targets. At the window, though, a needle of pain shoots up into my back. I try to ignore it. During my reload, I fumble one of the fat Browning mags, watching it bounce to the ground. I leave it, slotting the fresh one into place, then take the hostage shot. Everything’s a blur, and then I’m at the right-hand side of the wall, blazing away at the final trio.

I put my gun away, embarrassed.

“You’ve got a failure to neutralize,” the timekeeper says, meaning I missed one of the bad guys entirely.

The safety officer, standing off to the side, adds: “Also got a hit on a non-threat target.”

I turn around and glance through the window. Sure enough, the hostage has been clipped in the region of the right shoulder.

Returning to the lanes, dragging my sore leg a bit, I smile awkwardly and feel the heat rising in my cheeks. Since I started, I’ve never dropped below the top third of shooters. This is a disastrous showing. I want to get out of here. Back at my spot I begin packing my gear.

“Don’t let it bother you,” Jeff says.

“I think I’m done for tonight.”

He watches me. “Hey. Roland. You wanna get a beer or something.”

“Maybe next time.”

“Seriously,” he says. “I’d really like to talk.”

The guys around us give me pitying looks, apart from a couple of underperformers who just look satisfied, and one or two who won’t meet my eye.