Cody McFadyen - Abandoned

“Can I try?”

I hand her the weapon and watch as she examines it carefully, along with the mag. She takes her time, not putting on a show of pretending to understand how it all works. “What’s this?” she asks, pointing at the decocking lever.

“Kind of like a safety.”

“No,” Jazz says. “It’s a decocking lever. Not a safety. Apples and oranges.”

He’s right, of course. I’d been trying to dumb it down for Bonnie, to keep it simple, but the old rule is always the best rule when it comes to guns: If you’re not smart enough to understand your weapon, you’re not smart enough to use it safely.

“Many handguns have what’s called a safety, honey, that you can put on manually. The P226 has a decocking lever, which lowers the hammer of the gun safely. That way, when you travel, you don’t have to worry about the hammer coming down by accident for any reason. But,” I continue, emphasizing this last, “it also means that this gun is basically always ready to fire.”

“Decocking lever,” she repeats, nodding. “How do I engage it?”

Jazz raises an eyebrow and smiles. “Engage. Good word.”

I show her. She practices it a few times. “I got it.”

“Okay, so load the magazine.”

It takes her a moment, as she’s going slow and is observing everything as she does it.

“Good. Now, use your thumb to pull down on the slide catch lever. Here, honey,” I say, pointing it out to her.

She does, and the slide snaps forward into the battery. “Like that?”

“Yep. There you go. If the magazine was full, your weapon would be loaded and ready to fire.”

Bonnie pulls the trigger back, and I hear the click as the hammer hits home. I grab the gun away from her.

“Never fire a weapon off the range, loaded or not!” I snap at her.

She’s surprised at my anger but doesn’t quail the way I’d like. Jazz sees this and walks from behind the counter. He comes over to Bonnie and stands above her, looking down at her. Jazz is not a big man, but he personifies intimidation. There is a calm and quiet coldness that surrounds him. Bonnie’s mouth falls open as she looks up into his dead-fish eyes.

“You ever do that again in my shop and you’re going to be in a lot of trouble,” he says, full of patient threat. “You understand?” She gulps, swallows. “Yes,” she manages. “Yes, what?” he asks. “Yes, sir.”

He nods. “Good.” He ambles back over to his side of the counter. “Now, the two of you get on the range and leave me alone.”

Bonnie and I put on our protective lenses and head toward the double doors that lead to the indoor range.

“Put your earmuffs on,” I tell her before opening the first door. She hesitates. “He’s scary.”

“A little, yes.”

She glances back at Jazz, who’s writing something on a stack of receipts. “He’s killed people,” she says. “I can tell.” She slips on her earmuffs and gives me a beaming smile before I can think of anything pithy to say to this. “Can we go and shoot now?”

We’re riding home in the dark that’s never really “the dark” in Los Angeles. There’s too much ambient light from all the megawatts we throw around in this city for that. Darkness here comes in pools, little islands of blackness where the monsters hide and where all the bad things happen. Women get raped in the spaces where the streetlamps don’t reach; their bodies get left in the night shade of trees, with perhaps a naked foot poking out to be silvered by the moon.

Bonnie wasn’t a natural, but she did just fine. The loudness of shooting a handgun surprised her at first, which is a common reaction. Her eyes went wide and she nearly dropped it. She caught me watching and pulled herself together, determined to show no fear. One hundred rounds later, she was getting very comfortable with the whole process. Her fingers weren’t strong enough yet to load a full magazine, but that will come in time. Her accuracy was so-so. Jazz brought in a step stool for her to stand on, to make her more even with the target, and that helped.

She asked me to shoot a little before we left. I had brought my Glock with me, and I took it out of its case and obliged. She watched as the target disappeared to the end of the lane.

“You can really hit it that far out?” she asked.

“Uh-huh. Watch.”

I never think much about shooting, and I never have, not after my first thousand rounds or so. It’s something that comes best naturally, like walking or breathing. The more I think about it, the less accurate I become. I keep it instinctive now.

I like to draw and shoot, not as an Old West emulation but because that’s often the truth of things. I stood facing the target, heart rate slow, relaxed, hands at my sides. My right fingers danced in their dangle, getting ready. Then I pulled my weapon and fired, eight shots, not the full mag, rapid-fire.

“One shot per second on the range, please,” Jazz’s voice said, coming over the loudspeaker.

I gave Bonnie a wink and a grin. I pushed the button to bring the target forward and was satisfied at the tight grouping. All center mass.

“Wow!” Bonnie said, goggle-eyed. “Do you think I’ll ever be that good?”

“It’s possible. With practice.”

I’d shot a few more times, and then it had been time to leave. “That was fun, Mama-Smoky,” she says to me. “How often can we go?”

“Every other week, like I promised, as long as you keep your end of the deal. If I’m away, Tommy can take you too.”

“I want to practice a lot. It’s important.”

She lapses into silence, and I sneak a glance at her. The determination I see in her face, as it goes from shadow to light to shadow to light, is as uplifting as it is disturbing. It makes me question again my decision to help her walk on this path.

“She’ll walk it with you or without you,” Tommy had said to me. “With you is better, I think.”

I hope he’s right, but who knows? Bonnie catches me looking at her and gives me a big smile.

“Thanks for doing it. I know you’re really busy right now.”

“You get my time when I have it, honey, always. Even when the new baby comes.”

“I’m not worried.”

“That’s important to me, babe. I love you. I don’t want you ever thinking you’re second fiddle for me.”

“It’d be pretty selfish of me not to be happy you get to have another baby, Mama-Smoky. I know you love me. I love you too. Actually, I’m pretty excited about it.”

“You are?”

“I always wanted a younger brother or sister.”

“Me too,” I admit. “Which do you hope for more: a brother or a sister?”

“A brother,” she replies without hesitation.

“Me too.” I laugh. “I don’t know why.”

“Little boys are cute.”

“Let’s hope.”

She fiddles with her lower lip, thinking. “We’re turning into a real family now, aren’t we? You and Tommy are married, a baby on the way. Wow.”

Wow, indeed. I decide it’s time to spring my other surprise on her. “Honey, Tommy wanted me to ask you something.”

“What?”

“He’d like to formally adopt you. He’s been thinking about it for a while, now, but we needed to get married first.”

She stares at me, blinking. Once, twice, three times. “He … he wants to be my father?”

“Very much. But only if you’re comfortable with that.”

“Comfortable? Is he joking? That’d be awesome! I’ve never had a dad.”

Bonnie’s biological father was a flake. He’d left Annie in the lurch and died a few years later in a car accident.

“You tell him when we get home, then, honey. It’ll make him so happy.”

“Really? It will?”

I reach over and caress her chin with my hand. “Of course it will. He’s never been a dad either.”