| | October, my sixth birthday...
It was getting late and the party had been over for several hours. Full of cake and ice cream, I grabbed the string to my red birthday balloon and went upstairs to bed, counting doubles as I climbed the steps. 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048...
I remember seeing Dad out of the corner of my eye as I passed my parent’s bedroom. His stance, or maybe the movement of his hands...I don’t know...but something about him gave me cause to stop and look in. Dad was taking something apart. Something dark and metal and mechanical and the sight of it quickened my breath. What was it...?
I meandered in, trailing the balloon, wanting to be noticed but afraid if I was he’d send me off to bed. I resolved to remind him it was my birthday if he tried to send me off too soon. Having this bit of insurance made me bolder and I asked him what he was doing.
Startled, Dad turned to me. He had a slightly guilty expression on his face that I didn’t understand. “Oh, Gil, it’s you. I didn’t hear you come in, honey. Shouldn’t you be in bed?”
I didn’t answer his question. Instead I asked one of my own, trying to distract him. “What’re you doing, Dad?”
He looked nonchalant. “Oh, just cleaning this thing, that’s all. Did you have a nice birthday?”
“Ummm,” I said. “I didn’t get the pony I asked for.”
“Well, maybe next year.”
“What is it, Dad? The thing you’re cleaning? What is it?”
Dad looked reluctant to talk about it. “Oh, Gil, it’s just a gun. Nothing I want you worrying your pretty head about. Kids ‘n guns don’t mix, especially little girls and guns.”
I was puzzled. “Why, Dad?”
“Well, guns are for men, that’s why. Little girls play with dolls and tea sets and big men have guns.”
I looked at the piece of metal in his hand. “You kill people with guns. I saw it on the telly. How does it work?”
“Never mind, now. Guns aren’t for little girls to mess with. Now off to bed.”
“But Dad, it’s my BIRTHDAY!”
“Don’t argue with me,” Dad growled. I knew that tone of voice. End of discussion. I’d felt the end of the belt enough to know not to push it when he sounded like that. I sighed, angry, and stomped away, sticking my tongue out at him when his back was turned. I’d show him...!
About a week alter I finally had the opportunity to look through my parent’s bedroom for the gun. Finding it wasn’t hard. I simply chose the most strategic place for it to be: in the top drawer of Dad’s dresser. A place very personal and private, out of obvious reach for a kid but still convenient enough to grab at a moment’s notice.
I turned it over in my hand, reflecting at what I remembered about guns. The bullet must go in here, be propelled by something, and come out of the barrel. With a little bit of effort and help from a small screwdriver I had the thing open in a matter of minutes. Looking at the insides it suddenly became so very clear to me how the thing worked. It was then that my older brother Bryant walked in.
“Gil, Mum wants... What are you doing?” He rushed over to me, but I could tell he was afriad to touch the gun. “What the bloody hell are you doing?” Bryant was only six years older than me but he had recently discovered swearing and he used it on me frequently when we were out of earshot of Mum or Dad.
I smiled at him. “It’s Dad’s gun.”
“You’re damn right it’s Dad’s gun! What’re youdoing? If you get caught Dad’ll use the belt for sure. Maybe even the buckle end.”
“Look, Bryant. Wanna know how it works?”
“How the bloody hell would you know how it works?”
“It’s easy. Don’t you see? The bullet goes in here, it canhold seven of them, and when you pull back this thing, it sets everything into place, ready for you to pull the trigger. This thing shoots forwardwhen you pull the trigger and it hits the bullet. Somehow, I’m not sure how, there’s an explosion and the bullet shoots out of the barrel. Then it looks like this thing here flies backward and another bullet comes up here, ready to fire again. Neat, huh? You could do a lot of damage with one of these, I bet, but you need a longer barrel on the thing to hit what you want. The longer barrel helps the bullet keep on track kinda like a funnel does when you pour sugar into it...” I trailed off at the look on Bryant’s face. It was a mixture of annoyance and disbelief and fear.
“Bryant, what’s wrong?”
“Put the gun up now, Gillian. NOW!”
I startled at his sudden exclamation. “Okay, okay...I’m putting it up. Within a moment I had the gun back together and back in Dad’s dresser drawer.
Bryant grabbed my arm and sat me down on the bed. “How did you know how that worked? Did Dad show you?”
“No. I asked but he wouldn’t tell me.”
“Okay. This is really weird, Gil. How did you know?”
“I just took it apart and looked at it. Couldn’t you tell, too?”
“No. Well, maybe. Yeah. So?”
I shook my head. “I could just tell. I do that with a lot of things.”
“A lot of things? Like what else?”
I said the first thing that came to mind. “Well, like how to kill someone with a paperclip. I think I know how you could do it.”
Bryant was silent for a long moment. Then he stood up and pulled me into his room and shut the door. We had a very long talk that night, and I told him anything he wanted to know.
September, my seventeeth year...
“Gil?”
“Hmmph.”
“Gillian?”
A pause. “Yeah? What do you want?”
Bright light. The sound of a window being opened. I heard a heavy sigh and the shuffle of feet.
“It happened again, didn’t it?” Bryant asked.
I threw the bedcovers down. Sunlight hit my eyes and the dull ache inside my head sharpened considerably. I groaned and turned away to stare at the wall. “Go away, Bryant.”
In my mind’s eye I saw my brother standing there by the window, arms crossed the way he always crosses them when he’s angry, a disapproving look on his face. Without even trying I calculated how long it would take him to cross the room and reach me, whether it would be better to throw the covers or a pillow at him, how I could get him out of position without hurting him so I could scoot out the window and run away...
“Where’d you stash the body?” Bryant asked.
I rolled back over. Bryant was standing there by the window, arms crossed, a disapproving look on his face.
“I took care of it.” A long pause. “He deserved it, you know.”
Bryant exploded. “Bloody hell, Gillian! That’s not the point!” He slammed a palm against the faded wallpaper. “You need to control this!”
I, sporting the headache, winced.
Another long pause.
“Well, are you going to tell me what happened?” he asked softly, looking out the window.
I stared at him a moment before answering. It was difficult to talk about. “He came onto me,” I finally said.
Bryant turned, a look of disbelief on his face. “He came onto you? That’s it?”
I sat up, defensive. “Well, no! Dammit! He touched me. He was drunk... You know!”
“No, I don’t know, Gil. He was drunk. He came onto you. So for that you killed him?”
I glared at Bryant, near to tears. “Well, I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.”
“That doesn’t cut it, Gil! You know that! Dammit! You have to control this!” He slammed the wallpaper again.
I slipped down into myself as Bryant ranted on, his voice muted against the wall of red haze behind my eyes. I saw again the man by the club that had drunkenly propositioned me the night before, remembered how he smelled of alcohol and cheap aftershave, felt his hands on my body, felt my hands around his neck as it snapped, saw the life go out of his eyes, felt the rush of pleasure when I realized he was dead, then felt the guilt...
“— Gillian? Huh?”
I snapped out of my reverie.
“Are you even listening to me? What are we going to do with you? Huh?” Bryant yelled, face flushed.
Sedate me for the rest of my life, wrap me up in chains so tight I couldn’t get free, put me in an institution so I could never hurt anyone again, send me back to whatever hell I came from, take me out into a field and shoot me like you would a rogue horse...
“I don’t know, Bryant. I just don’t know.”
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