Starr Sign

by C. S. O'Cinneide

  Deep follows a guy dressed in head-to-toe camo back to his car in order to take his spot. We wait in the Celica while the man empties his shopping cart into a double-cab pickup, throwing three pistols and a box of Smith & Wesson–inspired Christmas ornaments into an empty car seat in the back. I am impressed by a redneck such as him getting his holiday shopping done so early. Deep pulls carefully into the space after the camo guy drives away.

  “Can I have a hot dog?” Janet asks from the back seat.

  “That sounds like an excellent idea,” Deep says. “You fancy a hot dog, Candace?”

  “We’re not here for fucking lunch,” I say, getting annoyed at the family-road-trip feel that seems to be settling in with both of them. “We’re here to get a gun.” I have already been subjected to three rounds of I Spy and one of Punch Buggy that Deep will not be repeating now that he realizes shouting “No punch backs” doesn’t work with me.

  “You already have a gun,” Janet says. “I saw you put it down your pants yesterday morning at your apartment.” The kid is observant, I’ll give her that.

  “The gun’s not for me,” I say.

  “Then who’s it for?” Deep asks, still checking in the centre console of the Celica for change to help buy the hot dogs. When I don’t answer, he looks up and sees the serious set of my face.

  “Oh, no,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t want a gun.”

  “If I’m going to leave you with the kid while I take care of business, you should have one,” I say. “You said you wanted to take care of her.”

  “I meant making sure she eats her veggies and doesn’t get hit by a bus,” he says.

  Janet sighs from the back seat. “You people really think I’m pathetic, don’t you?”

  “Sorry, Janet,” Deep says.

  “Listen, we might stir up some shit looking into all this, Deep,” I say, getting him back to the point. “You said you were looking for some adventure. Well, sometimes adventure comes looking for you, and it’s carrying a Glock.”

  “I’m not going in there, Candace.”

  “You have to go in there,” I say. “I’m a registered felon. There’s no way they’re going to sell me a gun. The moment they run my ID through the system, my record will pop. It’s got to be you who buys it.”

  I can see my sister looking at the people coming out of the automatic sliding doors with their full shopping carts. One guy is wearing pyjama bottoms instead of pants and is missing most of his teeth. Another has a tattoo of a tear under one eye and a biker jacket warning us that he is part of the one percent, and that doesn’t mean he’s a millionaire. “Doesn’t look to me like they’re too fussy,” she says.

  “You don’t understand,” Deep tells me, running one hand through his hair.

  “I understand that you’re being a wuss,” I say. This is America. Not England, where you’re too candy-assed to even give your cops a gun. It’s a wonder the criminals don’t run the whole damn country.”

  “You do realize the U.S. has a hundred and sixty times more gun deaths per year than Britain.”

  “And we’ve got way more people, too,” I say, defending my country and its gun violence statistics, when really, let’s face it, there is no defence.

  “Not a hundred and sixty times more,” Deep says. “Actually, the United States has only six times the population of Britain,” Janet pipes up from the back seat.

  “Really?” Deep asks, turning around in the driver’s seat to smile at my sister. “I didn’t realize that.”

  “I did a project on it for school.”

  “For fuck’s sake, I don’t give a shit about population density,” I shout, slamming my open palm on the dash. “And I’m not arguing about this anymore.”

  Deep and Janet look at me the same way they did when I broke the “no punch back” rule. But I’m not having it. I can’t always be around, and if I’m leaving Deep with my sister, he’ll need more than his fidget spinner if the Scarpellos come around.

  “I can’t buy a gun, Candace.”

  “Are you twenty-one years of age or older?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you under the influence of alcohol or drugs?”

  “No.”

  “Then you can buy a gun in the state of Ohio,” I say, opening up the passenger door and stepping out into the unseasonably warm sunshine. Tinny Christmas music squawks from speakers in the parking lot. If I’m not mistaken it’s a Chipmunks version of “Ave Maria.”

  Deep gets out of the car along with Janet, and the two of them follow me through the sea of parked cars to the sliding front doors of the Gun Superstore.

  “Does this mean I don’t get a hot dog?” Janet asks.

  I let out a sigh, wondering how I ever agreed to take a teenager with a hollow leg and a limey pacifist to see the Mob.

  But I still wait with the grocery cart, while Deep buys them both lunch.

  “Is there a washroom in here?” Janet asks once she pops the final end of her hot dog bun into her mouth. Deep is still working on a foot long with sauerkraut.

  I look up and down the bowling alley of a gun store. Display cases full of boxed ammunition line both of its long sides, with the counters attended by smiling customer service reps in cherry-red T-shirts with name tags. The guns are hung on long metal prongs behind them, sorted like batteries at a supermarket checkout. The rifles cover one side of the store, the pistols are on the other. In the centre are bins full of every accessory a discerning Second Amendment shopper could want, but we appear to be in the toy section. Deep has just picked up a Mr. Potato Head packing a Colt 45.

  “What do you need a washroom for?” I ask Janet. “We just stopped twenty minutes ago at the gas station.” Deep had insisted on filling up, even though we were above the halfway mark on the gas gauge. For a guy who has dropped everything to accompany a criminal and her underage sister on an adventurous road trip, he’s still fairly cautious.

  “I need to take my contacts out,” she says.

  “Right now?” I’ve been waiting behind a young mother with a baby strapped to her chest for the last ten minutes. She can’t decide between a Remington pistol and a Kel-Tec 9mm, no matter how many times the sales clerk lets her hold each gun in her hand and pull the trigger. Behind me, a lady with salt-and-pepper hair and a great figure for her age waits her turn, as well. I’m not interested in losing my place in line to help Janet go in search of the ladies’.

  “My eyes are feeling irritated,” Janet says. And I do notice that one lid seems a bit swollen where the lashes connect.

  “Okay,” I say. “Once I’m done here, we’ll find the washroom.”

  “But I need to go now,” Janet says.

  “I don’t think your eyeballs are going to self-destruct in the next fifteen minutes, Janet.”

  “You don’t know that,” she says, getting all huffy in her big jacket. “I read once that this girl got sweat bees caught under her contacts, and by the time she got to the doctor, they were eating away at her cornea.”

  “What the hell are sweat bees?”

  “They’re bees that feed on sweat,” Janet says. “Duh.”

  “Why don’t I help Janet find the toilets,” Deep says, dumping the Mr. Potato Head back in the bin.

  “I don’t need the toilet,” Janet says loudly. “I just need somewhere to take my contacts out!”

  People are turning around, looking at us. I don’t need this kind of attention. I’m already nervous enough about being here. If the cops found out I was looking at firearms, I’d be up shit’s creek without a parole hearing. I’m not supposed to be anywhere near a firearm, a condition of my release. And to be honest, I’ve never really liked them. I can usually take care of myself without resorting to the tattle-tale possibilities of ballistics. But Deep hasn’t got my training, passed down from my dad or Uncle Rod, who bragged once when drunk that he had belonged to an international version of Special Ops.

  “Fine,” I say to Deep. “Go with her. But you have to be b
ack here in time to do the purchase,” I say. Deep heads off with Janet toward the far end of the store. I watch them disappear in the crowd of people with their baskets and grocery carts. The salt-and-pepper lady behind me smiles.

  “I had six girls,” she says. “Daughters, that is.”

  “Wow,” I say. “That’s a lot.”

  “They turn nice again at eighteen,” she tells me. “Until then, I recommend drinking wine with dinner.”

  “I’ll take that under advisement.”

  The baby ahead of us has started to wail, perhaps as aggravated by his mother’s total lack of decisiveness as the rest of us. The store clerk finally says she’ll throw in a free box of ammo if the woman gets the Remington, and that seems to seal the deal. The mother cradles her new gun and ammo up against the bald skull of her screaming baby as they head off in the direction of the conveyor belt cash.

  “How can I help you today?” the girl behind the display case asks as I step up for my turn. Her name tag says Hi, my name is Maddysin. I’ve never been too sure whether these variations of normal names are a result of aggravating hipster trends or parents who never bothered to learn how to spell.

  “I’d like to look at the M&P 9,” I tell her.

  “Sure,” Maddysin says, giving me a winning smile, untroubled by phonetics.

  She slides the Smith & Wesson pistol off one of the metal prongs, lays it out on the display case on a piece of felt like we’re in a jewellery store.

  “Now, this is a great duty gun, but hugely popular in the civilian market,” she says. I already know this. The M&P stands for military and police, the original market targeted by the manufacturer. But the minimal controls and reliability have made it a commercial hit, as well, popular with just about everybody.

  “Do you see the ambidextrous slide-stop control? And the reversible mag catch?” Maddysin says, caressing the gun’s features without touching them, like Vanna White does with letters on Wheel of Fortune. “That means the whole family can use it, regardless of handedness.”

  “Hmm,” I say, picking up the family-friendly gun and turning it over in my gloved hands. I hadn’t thought about whether Deep was a southpaw or not. This way it won’t matter.

  “It’s full-sized, with a standard seventeen-round magazine. You won’t get anything better for the price. You can take it home today with cash, debit, or credit. Or with only six tiny installments using our Christmas payment plan.”

  “How about ammunition?” I say. “I saw you gave baby-on-board a deal.”

  “Sure,” the ever-accommodating Maddysin says as she bends down to unlock the display case and take out the 9mm cartridges to go with the gun. Nobody seems to worry around here about the wisdom of giving people weapons along with the ability to load them in a store full of people. I wonder how many snipers are hiding in blinds behind the walls, ready to pick off anyone stupid enough to try something.

  Deep comes up behind me, just as Maddysin is laying out the box of ammo on the counter. When she sees him, her smile vanishes.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she says. “You’ll have to wait in line.”

  “He’s with me,” I tell her. “In fact, he’s the one buying the gun.”

  “I thought you were the one purchasing this firearm today,” Maddysin says, confused.

  “I wouldn’t be caught dead with that beginner series gun,” I tell her. “The damn thing is so basic it should have training wheels on it.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  I turn to Deep. “Show her your ID, Deep.” Deep looks like he’d rather show her his upper colon, but he reaches for his wallet after I give him a covert punch back.

  Maddysin takes his driver’s licence and Social Security card like she is picking up a live bomb.

  “I have to talk to my manager,” she says, and disappears through a door that pops out from the wall of guns, like one of those secret passageways through a bookshelf. She makes sure to take the gun and the box of ammo with her.

  “What the hell is going on?” I say to no one in particular.

  “I reckon I know,” Deep says with a sigh, returning to the toy bin behind us. He pulls out an NRA-themed version of Monopoly and starts reading the back of the box, possibly in search of further ironies.

  “When Maddysin comes back through the wall, she has her manager, Hi, My name is Bob with her. He is considerably older, and obviously had parents who knew how to spell. Deep drops the board game back in the bin and joins me at the display case again. The salt-and-pepper lady has left and is now browsing the household items section several yards away, looking at the plastic six shooters that squirt ketchup and mustard.

  “So, you’d like to buy a gun,” Bob says.

  “Yes,” Deep says. Even though we both know he doesn’t.

  “Well, if you would just fill out this form,” Bob says, producing a six-page epic poem of boxes and fine print. “We’d be happy to submit it on your behalf. You should be able to pick up the gun in three days.” Maddysin stands beside him, looking everywhere but at Deep and me. When Bob lightly elbows her, she produces a pen.

  “I don’t think I understand,” I say, although I am beginning to. “Maddysin here was ready to pack this gun up for me to take home today, and all of a sudden we got to wait three days?”

  “Yes,” Bob says. “Well, as I’m sure you’re aware, a NICS background check is required to purchase a firearm,” Bob says.

  “Of course I am. But a NICS check takes three minutes, not three days. The fucking I stands for instant.” I know my state gun laws, and this is bullshit.

  “Our computer is down,” Bob says, lying his nametag ass off, then adds, “Is your friend a U.S. citizen?”

  “Of course, he’s a U.S. citizen!” Deep had told me this earlier. He has dual citizenship, half Brit, half Yank. “But he doesn’t have to be a U.S. citizen to buy a gun in this state, and you know it.”

  “You do realize I’m standing right here,” Deep says, but both Bob and I ignore him.

  “There’s no need to get irate, ma’am.”

  I look around the gun store, see all the people at the cash, buying pistols and shotguns despite supposed computer glitches.

  “You’re a licenced dealer. You can sell the M&P to him while you wait for the approval.”

  “At our discretion,” Bob says.

  “And I suppose your discretion gets a little selective when it comes to brown skin.”

  “Let’s just leave, Candace,” Deep says.

  “What’s going on?” Janet asks, coming up on the other side of me, owl glasses back in place, her cornea saved from bees. Behind her, I see two store security guys bursting the seams of their wannabe cop uniforms, making their own beeline towards us.

  “I’m not sure what you’re implying ma’am, but we —”

  “Screw this,” I say before I storm away from the counter, losing myself in the tangle of shoppers that has surrounded a store employee standing on a platform. He’s demonstrating the proper cleaning technique of an M16.

  Deep and Janet join me back at the car with two toasted almond bars they bought from a guy roaming the parking lot on his Good Humor ice cream bicycle. I’d have thought a guy like that would have packed it in for the winter, but the warm weather we’ve been having must have made him dust off his fudge bars.

  “I can’t believe that fucking asshole wouldn’t sell you a gun,” I say, still fuming.

  “I can’t believe that fucking asshole called you ma’am,” Deep says.

  We get back in the Celica without saying anything further on the subject. Janet, sensing the tension, pops in her earbuds and starts listening to music I can’t hear.

  We’ve been back on the highway for a quarter of an hour before anyone speaks. And it’s Deep who breaks the silence.

  “I told you I didn’t want to go in there,” he says. “How did I know they would be a bunch of racist pricks?” I say.

  “How did you know they wouldn’t be, Candace?”

  “Oh,
c’mon, Deep. I know some people are assholes, but not everyone gives a shit about stuff like that.” Although, living above the E-Zee Market run by Majd these last few years has taught me how many people actually fall into the shitty asshole category. This includes the lowlife who tossed a Molotov cocktail through the store window one night, shouting crap about ISIS. I guess he hadn’t gotten the memo that those bastards killed half of Majd’s family back in Syria.

  “You know I went to MIT, right?” Deep says.

  “Yeah, what does that have to do with anything?”

  “Where do you think most graduates of MIT go after graduating in the top one percent of their class, Candace?”

  “I don’t know.” But I do.

  “NASA, Candace. Or the CIA.” He turns on the windshield wipers. It’s starting to rain. Though in December it should be switching to snow. “But for some reason, neither of those government agencies would hire me.”

  “There’re lots of people of colour at NASA. Didn’t you see that movie about those black chicks?”

  “Bloody hell, Candace. It’s not about colour. It’s about ideology. And because a bunch of nutter extremists who look like me are screwing with the world, no one wants me anywhere near their state secrets, or even a train schedule for that matter.”

  “But those are Muslims, not Sikhs,” Janet says from the back seat, one ear bud taken out. She’d been listening after all.

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s all about optics,” Deep says. “That’s why I work behind the scenes, where I’m Hardy Bains with the English accent who people only talk to over the phone. I have to avoid background checks, too. As soon as they discover my dad was born in Kashmir, nobody returns my calls.”

  I can’t say much in response to that. I can’t pretend to know what it’s like to be Deep, but I do know what it is to be judged unfairly. People always expected the worst from me, even before I did anything wrong.

  Deep puts on the acid jazz we’d listened to before. Janet puts her earbuds back in. We don’t talk anymore or even play I Spy. Eventually, I fall asleep in the passenger seat.