Strange Animals

by Chad Kultgen

  Tanya said, “Yeah, but that’s one of those dipshit sites like Americans for Prosperity or World News Daily. Who cares?”

  Karen said, “I care. Those sites might be the only ones running captions like that, but the photos are all over the Internet. I never wanted my face to be part of this thing. My identity is totally beside the point, and it’s tainting what I’m doing. Beyond that, I don’t know if I can leave my parents’ house again. What kind of fucking existence is that?”

  Tanya said, “It’s the one you made for yourself.”

  Karen said, “My mom was saying it’s not too late just end this. I know it’s crazy, but that doesn’t sound like such a bad idea anymore.”

  Tanya said, “You’re a real piece of shit if you end this now.”

  Karen said, “What? I thought you’d be into that idea.”

  Tanya said, “Seriously? You’re being a pussy. Would you want to quit if no one knew it was you? If you were still anonymous?”

  Karen said, “No. Of course not. I’m saying that quitting is starting to sound better and better, because I’m no longer anonymous. That’s the reason I would quit if I was going to.”

  Tanya said, “So you’d be fine to get everyone just as riled up and pissed off as they are right now, just as long as you’re not the one they’re blaming?”

  Karen said, “That was always my plan. The idea was the only thing I wanted out there. I never wanted to be out there with it myself.”

  Tanya said, “But the idea is out there, and you are, too. You can’t just stop because you’re experiencing some personal blowback. You know how I feel about this, but you have to stick it out now. You have to prove your point, and that means following it through to the end. If you don’t, you’ll still have gone through all the shit, but without getting the result you were looking for. You can’t change the facts: you got kicked out of school, you lost your boyfriend, and now you’re holed up at your parents’ house, completely robbed of your privacy. All of that has already happened. Things can’t really get much worse. Or they could, I guess, but you get what I’m saying. Things are not good. Don’t let everything you’ve gone through be for nothing. At least get to the end.”

  Karen hugged Tanya. “You’re the best fucking friend of all time. Jesus.”

  Tanya said, “Every person has looked at the world and wanted to change it. But most of us just hope it will change on its own.”

  chapter

  twenty-six

  James walked into Corey’s gun store, which was called Right to Bear. Corey said, “Hey there, partner. What’d I tell you? Two days. No more, no less. You’re all set. I appreciate you taking the time to wait. I’ll toss in a box of ammo and a cleaning kit because you were patient about it.”

  James thanked him, and said that he’d also like some instruction on how to use the gun.

  Corey said, “You never even fired a weapon before?”

  James explained that he hadn’t.

  Corey said, “Well, you’re in luck today, friend. We got a range here, too. I’ll be happy to take you back and show you everything you need to know.”

  James paid for his new gun, and then Corey gave him some eye protection and earplugs. Then Corey pointed up to the wall behind the register and said, “Who do you want to fire some rounds into this afternoon?”

  Taped up to the wall were several paper targets. Some were nondescript black silhouettes, others were images of generic criminals pointing guns toward potential victims. Others were more Middle Eastern in aesthetic, featuring men in turbans with AK-47s or rocket launchers. And there were several targets featuring the images of various military and political figures. There was a paper target of Osama bin Laden with one of his eyes shot out, as well as a cartoon version of Bin Laden at the bottom of the sea. There were two different Vladimir Putin targets, one featuring him on a horse, the other in a business suit. There was an image of Hillary Clinton smoking a cigar. There were three different Barack Obama targets, including one that had the words This Is for Benghazi printed across his face in a graffiti style. James selected a standard, faceless black silhouette.

  Corey said, “That’s a good one. Standard, no frills. I like it.” As Corey went to the bin where the targets were kept he said, “What do you think of that Karen Holloway?”

  James explained that he didn’t spend too much time thinking about her.

  Corey said, “Good strategy. Doesn’t deserve a second’s worth of thought. I mean, can you believe that little piece of trash? Don’t get me wrong, though. You know what I’m saying?”

  James had never thought of Karen Holloway in a romantic or sexual way, because he knew she wasn’t Christian, and for James that eliminated any possibility of finding her attractive. She was a person who was actively disobeying God and very clearly attempting to derail his glorious plan. She was in league with Lucifer, which meant that she was only an enemy to James, nothing more.

  When James failed to respond to the innuendo, Corey said, “Well, whatever floats your boat, man, as long as it’s women.”

  James assured Corey that he was only interested in women, but that Karen Holloway was not the type of woman he’d ever be interested in. Corey said, “Fair enough, boss. I mean, I can imagine givin’ it to her, but I can’t imagine being in the same room with her, so I guess that’d make it pretty tough. Anyway, let’s head on back and get you set up.”

  Corey instructed James to put on his protective eyewear and his earplugs, as well as a pair of soundproof ear muffs, which Corey called “cans.” Corey then led James into a small room and closed the door behind them. Corey had to yell to James in order to be heard through the various ear protection they both were wearing. Corey said, “Now, when I open this other door, we’ll be in the range, and it’s kind of loud. We got a guy in there right now firing off a Desert Eagle, in fact, so it’s gonna be real loud. Takes a second to get used to weapons going off around you, but you’ll be fine. You ready?”

  James nodded, and Corey opened the door to the range. James jumped a little at the first sound of a gun being fired and couldn’t stop himself with each new shot that was fired. Corey said, “Told ya. Nothing to be afraid of, though. You’ll be fine. We haven’t even had a suicide in here for over six years.”

  Corey took James to an open lane. It happened to be lane number seven, and James took this to be a sign from God that purchasing this gun from this man was the right thing to do, the next step in God’s plan. James had thought that Corey might have been an angel, but his comments about being sexually attracted to Karen Holloway made it seem far more likely that Corey was just another person, like James, whom God was using in his plan, and there was nothing wrong with that.

  Corey clipped the paper target into two brackets that were connected to a long wire running the length of the room. He pushed a button and the brackets moved away, taking the target along. Corey said, “We’ll put her at ten yards and see how you do,” then opened the box of ammunition and took the gun out of its case. He said, “Okay, let’s get down some basics. This is your new weapon.” Corey slid the top part of the gun backward, and it clicked into place. James had seen a gun set this way before, with the slide locked back, in movies when characters ran out of ammunition. Corey said, “All right, this part here is the slide. You can lock it back like this with this lever. You always want to check your chamber, this little part here, to make sure you don’t have a live round in it. So you lock it back like this, then you load your clip. I assume you haven’t done that, either?”

  When James nodded again, Corey pushed a button on the front part of the handle, and a clip slid out. He said, “This little button here is your clip release. You just push it and the clip comes out.” Corey put the gun down and grabbed a few bullets from the box. He pushed one of the bullets down into the clip and then another. He said, “To load your clip, you just take a bullet, make sure the back, this flat part, is facing toward the back of the clip, push it down, and slide it back. Then you take an
other one and you do the same thing on top of the first one. So on and so forth until you get ten of them in there. Used to be that you could get a fifteen-round clip pretty easy, but times have changed. The libtards made it so we only get ten now. Anyway, here, give it a try.”

  James took the clip from Corey and pushed a bullet in. He looked at Corey for approval. Corey gave him the thumbs-up and said, “Keep going. Do the rest of the clip.” James loaded a few more bullets into the clip before it began to get prohibitively difficult to push the bullet down far enough to be able to slide it all the way back.

  Corey said, “It gets harder the closer you get to ten, because the spring in the clip gets pushed down more and it gets tighter, but if you ever forget how many you have in there already, just look at the back of the clip. There are little holes so you can see how many you got in there.”

  James saw that he only had eight rounds in the clip and forced another two in, hurting his fingers slightly in the process. James handed it back to Corey, who picked up the gun and said, “Okay, now comes the easy part. You just pop it in like so.” Corey slid the clip in and James heard it click. Corey said, “Then you push that lever down.” As Corey pushed the lever down, the gun’s slide jolted forward. Corey said, “And you got a round chambered, and now you’re ready to kill a pregnant demonic slut. Come on over here.”

  Corey led James over to the front of the lane and put the gun in his hand. James noticed that the bullets made it even heavier than before. Corey explained how to stand and how to hold the gun, then said, “But the most important part of shooting is learning to avoid anticipating the kickback. See, every time you fire, that slide blows back and your weapon will automatically eject the spent casing. Most people, the first time they shoot, have a great first shot. Then every shot after that is worse and worse, because they lean into the gun in anticipation of that kickback. You have to just get that out of your mind. You want to line up your sights so that the middle dot is between the other two, then just squeeze the trigger slowly. Don’t pull it. And don’t even think about the kickback. Just let it happen. Got it?”

  James indicated that he thought he understood and Corey said, “All right, take your first shot, brother.”

  James went through the steps Corey had just taught him, raised his gun, targeted the silhouette’s head, slowly squeezed the trigger, and nothing happened. He turned around and looked at Corey, who was standing behind him, supervising. Corey said, “Oh, and I forgot the most important thing. You have to click the safety off.” Corey came over and pointed to the safety on the gun. He said, “That little dude right there. Just click it down. That engages the firing pin and you’re ready to rock-and-rolla, Ayatollah.”

  James disengaged the safety, took aim once again, and slowly squeezed the trigger. This time the gun fired a single shot. James expected the kickback to be much more violent than it was, but he did close his eyes in reaction to the muzzle flash and the sound, so he was unable to see where his shot went. Corey noticed this and said, “That’s all right, brother. You get used to the sound and the muzzle flash and everything. For a first shot, that ain’t bad at all.” Corey pointed downrange at the target and said, “You got him in the right boob.”

  James looked and saw that indeed there was a small hole in right side of the target’s chest. He had missed the spot he was aiming for by maybe eight or ten inches. Corey said, “Keep on going, man. Empty that clip.”

  James took aim and fired nine more times. With each shot he felt he got a little bit better at understanding how to shoot. He reloaded his new gun and shot another ten rounds. With each shot his aim got progressively better until he was landing every shot within a few inches of where he was aiming. Corey was impressed. He said, “Damn, boy, you’re a natural. I can’t believe you’ve never shot before.”

  James felt that Corey was being honest, and he felt sure the only reason God would bless him with the gift of marksmanship was that he would need to use it at some point.

  chapter

  twenty-seven

  After dinner, Karen’s father, Robert, said, “Have you even been outside in the past week, or have you been cooped up in the house like an animal?”

  Karen said, “I go out in the backyard and hang out.”

  Robert said, “That’s not good. You need to be out doing things.”

  Karen said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I’d rather just lay low until whatever happens is going to happen.”

  Lynn said, “Lay low? You’re past that point, I think.”

  Karen said, “You know what I mean. Just stick around here and not give them an opportunity to get any more photos of me. I did a fucking CNN interview. That should be the only public appearance I have to do.”

  Lynn said, “I don’t think that’s how it works, honey. When you put something in the world that gets people this fired up, they’re going to want you to continue to be a part of it. What you do about that is obviously up to you, and we’re happy to have you stay here as long as you want, but your dad just wants you to be happy, and I do, too. And you can’t really be all that happy sitting around watching TV all day, can you?”

  Karen said, “Much happier than getting attacked at a grocery store and then seeing pictures of it all over the Internet. And I don’t just watch TV all day. I’m working on my dissertation.”

  Robert said, “Why? Are you going to try to get into some other school after this or something?”

  Karen had considered this, but she hadn’t yet committed to it in her own mind. She was continuing her work on the dissertation, in part, in order to stay focused on the purpose behind everything that was happening around her. Whether she used it to apply to a different philosophy program, or even tried to publish it herself, was irrelevant to her in that moment. It was just about continuing her work.

  Robert said, “You’ve gotten into something here, that’s for sure.”

  Karen said, “That is indeed for sure, Dad.”

  They finished eating dinner and Karen went to her bedroom. More and more, she found that lying on her bed in a specific position on her side was the only way to ease the pain in her back. She’d lie sometimes for hours at a time reading about herself on the Internet. Although the articles against her were far more violent in tone, she was surprised to find that there were just as many as the number supporting her. The supporters, though, usually defended her more on the basis of freedom of expression than because they supported her challenge to the Christian right. She did find a few prominent articles, however, that praised Karen’s project as the event that the pro-choice movement was waiting for but had never had the guts or creativity to do for itself. These were the articles that gave Karen hope that what she was doing was making a difference, was changing people’s minds, was forcing them to talk about this in a philosophical context rather than just the usual right-wing brainless screaming from a pulpit. One article equated what Karen was doing to the Emancipation Proclamation. It claimed that women were the most subjugated group of human beings on the planet and that this was a massive step toward ending that, toward forcing people to see the hypocrisy of patriarchal religious structures that claim to want the best for women even as they work to rob them of their reproductive rights.

  She also read countless posts and articles that pleaded with her to give the child a chance to live, even if her financial goal wasn’t met. Karen had to admit that the logic of this specific argument was sound. Most of these articles argued that Karen would be able to prove her point about the hypocritical nature of the religious right and take the high road at the same time if she didn’t get the money but still had the child and gave it up for adoption or even decided to keep it. As she finished reading one such article, she noticed that she was unconsciously rubbing her stomach. She could feel the fetus moving inside her as she rubbed. The article’s final line read, “If you do nothing else, just spend ten minutes thinking about what kind of person that child could become with you as a parent.” She lifted he
r shirt and looked down at the strange thing her body had become. Two moles on the top of her stomach had begun to grow thick black hair. She had visible stretch marks that she found hideous. But she knew that when this was over they’d serve as lifelong reminders of what she’d done, and she knew that she’d come to love them. Most disgusting to her at this point was how her belly button had pushed itself out. Her new doctor told her that it would return to normal after the pregnancy, but for now it made her gag every time she saw it. In her mind, her protruding navel was worse than her leaking nipples.

  The final line of that article struck Karen as a reasonable challenge, and she forced herself to take it. She felt that she shouldn’t have to force herself to ignore her emotions, to close herself off from any thoughts or feelings she might be having. She put her palm flat on her stomach, where she felt the last movement, and thought about the tiny person growing inside her.

  On the way home from her last doctor’s appointment, Karen’s mother had let slip the gender of the fetus, so Karen knew that it was a girl growing inside her. She imagined the girl to have blue eyes like Paul. She imagined them to be curious and smart and beautiful. She imagined this little girl growing up. She imagined herself going to a grade school PTA meeting and learning from the teachers that her daughter was the smartest student in the school, but that she also had a problem with authority. She imagined getting a call from a junior high principal because her daughter had punched a boy in the nose after the boy told her that he didn’t think his future wife should have a job. She imagined her daughter telling her that even though everyone else was going to the prom, she wasn’t, because she considered it an antiquated tradition that promoted discrimination more than anything else. She imagined her daughter getting into Harvard and being the first female student to do something so important that it forever altered the manner in which the school was run. She couldn’t imagine what that would be, but she could imagine her daughter doing it. She imagined her daughter becoming a leader in whatever the feminist movement of her time would be. She imagined her writing books that incensed the public but nonetheless pushed things forward. She imagined her daughter growing old but keeping a photo of her mother with her all the time. She imagined her daughter loving her for a wide variety of things, but mostly for deciding to have her. She imagined her daughter reading through the mountains of words that would have been written about both her and Karen, and she imagined her daughter understanding why she had done it, and she imagined her daughter having respect and admiration for her mother and her project. And in all this she realized that this child was a part of Paul, too. It was a part of the person she had come to love most in the world. And this child might be the only way she could have some part of Paul in her life. It was something she’d never allowed herself to consider until that moment, and it made her extremely sad to think of this child in those terms, as the last piece of her relationship with Paul.