by James Boice
The school is terrifying. These strange people all seem so much bigger than he is and live in a chaos of unwritten social codes and arbitrary rules. How is he to know not to wear his Remington hat inside? Where was it stated that he would be laughed at for his clothes, which are mostly military-issue camouflage? Why is it considered any of their business that he prefers eating lunch alone in the back stairwell reading military histories instead of braying in the cafeteria with the other sheeple? Everyone appalls him with their frivolity and inane cheerfulness—what the hell are they always so daggone happy about when the country, the world, is how it is?
His first year there he does not say a word to anyone except in class when they make him. Joey Whitestone is the only one who is friendly to him but he does not like Joey Whitestone being friendly to him. He tells Joey Whitestone to leave him alone but Joey Whitestone does not leave him alone, so Lee Fisher tells him if he does not leave him alone he will blow his head off—and now Joey Whitestone knows to leave him alone and the rest of them know too.
It feels good to drive them off, to control people in such a way. You have no control when you let people change you. Blast them with coldness and it solves the problem, keeps them from hurting you. All people will hurt you. You must guard against them. When he gets home and is alone in his bedroom, he lies on the bed sobbing. He is so lonely but does not know what to do about it, he wants people but he hates everybody.
In English class where they are taking a test on To Kill a Mockingbird, Joey Whitestone passes him a note: I stole my uncle’s smokes, we’re meeting at the railroad tracks after school, want to come? Yeah, right—it’s a trick, Lee can see that, payback for what he said. Who knows what they have planned for him when he shows up? Humiliation. In some form or another, humiliation. He knows how to handle this: he raises his hand for the teacher, waving the note in the air. Joey serves ten days’ suspension, the school administration tells Lee he did the right thing. It feels good. Right. He wants that feeling all the time. He will be a police officer, he decides, when he is eighteen and may leave. He will go to New York and be a police officer. With his mother. His mother is not there anymore and has not been for a long time but that does not matter, he does not need her, he needs no one. He will be in New York, alone. Far away from here.
The principal recognizes him as one of his own kind, not just another moron student. Here is a boy with responsibility and virtue and values, a boy I do not have to worry about. —If only I had a school full of Lee Fishers, the principal tells him, in his office, splitting a Coke, excused from that period of algebra class.
Lee takes it upon himself from then on to collect intelligence on all illicit activity perpetrated by students on school grounds during school hours—drinking in the bathroom, weed in the parking lot, cigarettes in the woods, sexual activity in the stairwells, unauthorized absences, cheating on tests—and deliver the evidence to the principal so that justice may be served and Lee may feel love. The other students start calling him McGruff the Crime Dog. They taunt him, threaten him, but most important, they stay away from him.
Someone writes on the mirror of the boys’ bathroom: LEE FISHER IS A CHOAD. Lee sees it when he is in there washing his hands, sees his reflection looking back at himself through the insult, his hair close cropped with electric shears, done himself like a self-sufficient soldier. Does his face not reveal that he is unmoved, his eyes that he is unshaken? Is this not the reflection of a good guy being persecuted for his soundness of character, mocked for his having done the right thing?
Joey returns from suspension, does not look at Lee, does not invite him anywhere ever again, is always surrounded by friends, is always laughing or making them laugh, does not seem to have the problem with life that Lee has. Lee’s problem with life is everything, everything to do with life and living. Lee sees Joey blowing smoke from a joint down Tamra Riley’s throat in the parking lot one day after school. She is the prettiest girl who ever lived—Lee has been in love with her since the first time he saw her. He hates Joey even more than ever, for how he has taken advantage of Tamra Riley. He waits until they leave, goes and picks up the joint, and writes down the date and time and types up a report on the incident and delivers it to the principal. Tamra is suspended and her parents remove her from the school as an emergency measure to rescue her transcript for college applications, and Joey, having received his second infraction while still on probation, is expelled.
The day after their suspensions are handed down, Lee steals one of his father’s Glocks and brings it to school in his backpack. Loaded. Not to hurt anyone—he would never do that—for self-defense. It’s only smart—not everyone will like what he has done, not everyone appreciates those who do what’s right. Walking around with the Glock having the ability to kill any bad guys who threaten him, or more so having the ability, the option, of killing anyone at all whenever he feels like it but choosing not to, allowing them to live, makes him feel much better about himself. I am good, he thinks. He finds he feels warmer toward people, is more forgiving, even feels affection toward them. He is more polite on crowded stairwells, gallantly allowing others to go ahead of him. A cop, he thinks. A cop in New York.
One of Joey Whitestone’s friends, a big dumb moron named Bobby Pool—football, wrestling—stares Lee down in the hallway. He is surrounded by other gang rape mutants like himself. Normally Lee would stare at the ground and seethe as he pretends to ignore them, but today, knowing his gun is there, Lee meets Bobby Pool’s gaze. He says to Bobby Pool without breaking his stride, —What the fuck are you looking at? And Bobby Pool just looks away. Doesn’t say shit. None of his friends says shit. No one says a goddamn thing to Lee Fisher.
—What the hell crawled up your ass? his father says when he gets home that day.
They are in the kitchen, pulling slices of pizza from the delivery box and slapping them onto their plates, which ordinarily they would carry off to their respective wings of the house, where they would remain for the night, ignoring each other. His father never notices anything about him, hardly ever talks to him anymore; he never talks to anyone and rarely leaves the house. Mostly he sits in his chair drinking and watching cable news. He has grown very fat and Lee is not far behind. They have not spoken to each other in days, and his now taking an interest in Lee is like one of those cable news people suddenly stopping midsentence, squinting out at you from the screen, and saying your name, saying hello to you. Lee says he’s fine.
—The hell you are, you look like your dog just died. Lee looks away, but his father is peering closer at him. Puts his hand on Lee’s shoulder and squeezes. It feels both good and repellent. —Whatever it is, his father says, —Let’s take your mind off of it.
Down at the firing range, his father loads up the special gun, hands it to Lee. The firing range is the only part of the property his father still maintains nowadays, the rest of it is long overgrown with tall brown grass and weeds, including the farm they tried to live off of, the training course they once drilled on with the soldiers. Lee takes the gun, aims it at the targets, fires. Misses. Fires again, misses. Not even a nick.
—You’re missing to the right, his father says.
Lee says, —As fucking usual.
—Hey, easy, it’s all right, don’t get down on yourself. You’re doing good. You’re a hell of a marksman. Here, try tightening up that right hand, kind of push against the gun with it, kind of brace against it on that side.
Lee does, fires, hits just on the edge of the bull’s-eye.
—Beautiful! his father says.
Lee fires again, hitting the same spot, the exact same spot.
—Outstanding! his father says, slapping him on the back. —That’s it! You and that gun were made for each other. His father suddenly looks at him, alarmed. —Oh no, Lee.
—What is it?
—Oh God. Don’t move.
—Why?
—There’s something on your face.
Lee’s worried. —What is it?
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—Good Lord, it’s all over it, don’t move. He wipes his hand over Lee’s face and flings something away.
—Did you get it? Lee cries. —What was it?
—Nothing, just a smile. Been so long since I saw it, I didn’t recognize it. Puts his arm around his son’s shoulders and says, —Listen, something I wanted to talk to you about. That gun? It’s yours now.
—Really?
—It’s always been yours, I’ve just been holding it for you. Take care of it. Protect it. And remember: you’re just keeping it for your son. It’s already his, just like it was already yours.
(Sheeple I)
Jenny. I wake up, check my phone, and there is her face. This one’s in Manhattan. Black boy, white man. Jenny is on the scene and raising hell; she has to act fast or she will lose the story to the civil rights activists. This is not a black-and-white story but a gun story, the story quotes her saying. And gun stories are all-of-us stories.
She likes to appear unbreakable. Like Joan of Arc. That’s how she seemed the first time I saw her. It was in my hospital room where I lay sedated and suicidal in the aftermath of my own shooting. Her skin was dark, her bones big and heavy, and her high heels on the hospital floor sounded so powerful. She told me she had come a long way to see me. Said she knew exactly what I was going through. She told me about her Michelle, who died at her desk in a first grade classroom. She took out her purse, showed me a picture. A nineteen-year-old young man with his daddy’s gun decided Michelle and all her classmates and her teacher were going to die and so that’s what happened. Jenny shrugged, put the picture away. After these things happen, everybody always says, What do we do? How do we stop this? Why doesn’t somebody do something? Well, here I am. Now where are you?
Our hero, I thought. I joined her. She moved into a nearby Embassy Suites but I don’t think she ever once slept there; she was too obsessed, she was always strategizing, e-mailing, cultivating local ground operatives or playing politicians off one another. She went with me to Kaylee’s memorial service, appeared by my side on the Today show couch. Our family home became a makeshift local branch of her organization, Repeal the Second Amendment. Under the guidance of Jenny Sanders we moved out all the furniture and replaced it with computer workstations and phone banks. She installed a small video production studio where the kitchen had been, equipped it with satellite linkup capabilities to enable her appearances on cable news shows. With her came a cabal of young women of color, inexhaustible little Jennys each with a specific role performed with unflagging optimism. Jenny Sanders was a charismatic prophet and innate executive genius. In another time and place she would have founded a major religion of the world. Every day Jenny and I met with major political donors and super PACs, and again and again, over pasta salad and little green bottles of water, I relived my shooting.
The movie was the premiere of the new installment of the action franchise I had grown up with and adored. My girlfriend, Kaylee, had no interest in seeing the movie but I convinced her. She and I camped outside the theater all night to get a seat. The previews ended and the lights went down. A door to the side of the screen opened and in from the parking lot stepped a figure. Kaylee whispered, Who’s that? And then she was gone. I can only imagine people were screaming—if they were, I could not hear it over the noise of what sounded like a box of M-80s going off all at once by accident. I had already pulled Kaylee to the floor and lay on top of her. I could feel her heart beating against me. She’s still alive, I said out loud. People were running for the exits at the rear of the theater. At the exits they pulled and pushed at the doors, not understanding they had been chained shut from outside. The shooter stood at the base of the screen emptying magazine after magazine, reloading several times with fresh ones he carried in the pockets of his black military contractor cargo pants. I remember his face as he sighted each shot through the scope of the assault rifle. It was blank. It might have been the face of someone driving alone a long distance. This was his life’s great project. This was the only meaningful thing he had ever done. He had been carrying it inside himself for a long time, letting it come to life inside him the way others might carry a baby or music. The air smelled like sulfur. It was smoky, fire alarms were going off, sprinklers raining down on us. I remember seeing blood crawling down the sloped aisle from the exits where the bodies were piled. The massacre lasted forty-eight seconds. Two hundred forty-three were killed. They were dead in the heaps by either exit, dead in the seats they had carefully chosen, asking the ones they were with Are these good? Can you see? unaware this was the final decision they would ever make. They were dead with popcorn still half chewed in their mouths and dopey grins on their faces from the last preview, a raunchy sex comedy starring Jason Sudeikis.
Once the shooter decided he was finished and shot himself through the mouth with a Glock 19, I tried to lift Kaylee but her head lolled like it was made of dough and that’s how I knew what I had been feeling was only my own heart. I hated my own heartbeat. It was a liar, a traitor—it meant that I was the only survivor. Can you name me? Can you name any of the other dead? No one ever can. But can you name the shooter? Of course you can—you can state all three names, they roll off your tongue: first, middle, and last. You can point at his picture and say, That’s him. You can say what he did in his life. Can you say anything—one thing—those he killed ever did? Can you say one thing I ever did in mine?
Then Jenny would hit them with the economic data showing the benefits of a tax on all ammunition, the polling statistics indicating growing voter support in favor of repealing the Second Amendment in favor of a new amendment, our amendment, an amendment we the people—not dead, slave-owning white guys from 250 years ago: us— would write. —This is happening, Jenny would tell them. —It is happening. The tide turns quickly. Be on the right side of it.
I could almost see Kaylee there, in each meeting, watching me showing rich assholes her picture, watching CEOs and hedge fund managers take her picture in their small-fingered hands, pretending to care. I was using her smile and her youth and her utter perfect sweetness to try to garner votes for quixotic state legislation or small bits of money for Jenny’s organization. I was using her lolling neck. Her silent chest. I was giving her to them.
A thousand meetings, a thousand howling escorts from the building. —I’m sorry what happened to you happened, said one Democratic state representative, —it breaks my heart. But, look, you’re talking about guns. And if that wasn’t bad enough, you’re talking about taxes. In Texas. He looked at Jenny like he was going to cry. —Are you out of your mind? Do you want any Democrats in office in this state? Do you want any kind of future political life here, Jenny? There’s a right way of doing what you want to do and a wrong way. And, darling, this is the wrong way.
—Fuck you, Jenny told him, and left. I followed.
People sent my family and me death threats all day every day, via phone or letter or social media or e-mail, even in person. They protested outside my house carrying guns, screaming at my family and Jenny whenever we left. A caravan of men carrying guns followed us around wherever we went, calling us enemies of the state, traitors to our nation. They called Jenny a cunt. Called me a faggot. Oftentimes walking through a crowd of these guys spitting at us and screaming, it was more terrifying than being in that movie theater. In the movie theater, I knew what was happening. By that point, it had happened so often I knew exactly what it was. And it was not personal. My and Kaylee’s being there was a result of chance. With these guys, everything about it was personal. They hated me, wanted me dead, they wanted me gone, they wanted her gone. Jenny assured me not to worry, to stay strong, but her voice picked up a stammer, and I noticed her hands shaking whenever she lifted one of her half dozen daily macchiatos to her lips. —This is what is necessary, she’d say. —They’re on the wrong side of history.
My family and I had to move after we found a bullet hole in the siding at the front of the house. Jenny found us a new one. To keep its l
ocation secret, its deed was signed by the manager of an LLC set up by one of her donors. It was in a town fifty miles away. I did not want to live in a town fifty miles away, I wanted to live in my town.
She and I kept giving interviews, kept writing letters and making phone calls to RSA members across the country appealing for donations to fight the Battle of Texas, in which Jenny assured them victory was close at hand but at the same time so was defeat, now more than ever their help was necessary if they wanted to save the lives of future Americans. I alone seemed to see the fight as increasingly hopeless. The more money she raised to fight the NRA, the more money the NRA was able to raise to fight Jenny. The stronger the candidates the RSA ran in local Democratic primaries, the more gusto with which the party shock-and-awed them with its vastly superior manpower, media influence, and money, tarnishing them as circus characters of the fringe Left with no chance of defeating the Republicans in the general election. Jenny and I were failing to get any lawmakers to even draft a version of the ammo tax just to get her out of their hair. The state assembly would not even hold a vote on whether to consider looking into the boxes and boxes filled with independent, peer-reviewed, rock-solid science showing the benefit of the ammo tax on the economy and public health in America. At the same time, the NRA was convincing its membership that victory for the RSA candidates in both the primary and general elections was a certainty, that Jenny Sanders’s success at passing the ammo tax and ultimately repealing the Second Amendment was imminent and assured, and, as a result, new NRA memberships, donations, and nationwide gun and ammo sales all reached heights not seen since the aftermath of Newtown.