And Now We Shall Do Manly Things

by Craig Heimbuch

  I was intrigued by the pistol shooting, but I was drawn more toward the clay pigeons and wide-brimmed hats. I’ve never been all that good at video games, and the extent to which I exhibit aggressive behavior is pretty limited. Plus, I like the way the clay pigeons exploded when they were hit and turned into a mist of orange dust. It seemed satisfying in a way shooting a paper terrorist never could be. Call me old-fashioned, I guess.

  The rest of the afternoon went much the same as the morning—one of the instructors stood at the front of the class and read, talked about, or segued from a chapter, then provided verbatim answers to the review questions in the back of each section. In total, we covered six of the nine chapters in the book that day, learning everything from the component parts of a crossbow to how to behave at game check-in centers on the off chance that a news camera happens to be present (the hunting community, apparently, is very media conscious).

  Tim covered in great technical detail the proper way to load a musket—“This is on the test,” he admonished, though it plainly was not—and the complicated mechanics of a compound bow and arrow. Matt was efficient with his instruction on the “attitude of safety” every hunter must adopt, and Arthur continued to frighten me. I think it had something to do with the relish with which he recounted tales of limbs lost due to improper cleaning of a gun.

  I wouldn’t say Arthur particularly enjoyed gore—more that the idea of putting the fear of God into us made him feel somehow important. Given that he would be the one grading our tests and signing our certificate of completion, I felt obligated to not only listen but nod along in reverence with every one of his haunting anecdotes.

  The class ended just after three, and I drove the forty-five minutes back home, where I was greeted by my wife and kids. They asked how the day had gone and I told them all about Tim, Matt, and Arthur; about the exploded shotgun barrel and the training I had received on dealing with the media. I told my wife about watching the men shoot clay pigeons and paper terrorists and admitted to her that, foreign as the world of hunting and shooting had been, I was getting excited about it. I told her that I could imagine joining a club like the Fairfield Sportsmen’s Association one day and prattled on a bit about my romantic visions of becoming a crack shot and respected member.

  “Arthur scared me,” I said, “but I really liked the people I met, and I think I’m starting to get comfortable with the idea of hunting.”

  “That’s nice, dear,” she said dismissively. “I’m glad you had fun at your class, but we need to be over at Anne and John’s in twenty minutes for a cookout.”

  A tad deflated, I realized then that learning to hunt was my thing, not hers. She may have accepted that I was committed to seeing this thing through, but I shouldn’t expect her to share my enthusiasm. Plus, she hadn’t been there and, even if she had been, I don’t think she would have found the concrete walls, worn furniture, and exploded clay pigeons quite as romantic as I did. In fact, I would wager that if she had been with me and seen the clubhouse, she might have been mortified and begun to clean. Hunting was my thing, but organizing? Well, that’s hers.

  I didn’t sleep well that night. I kept imagining myself accidentally shooting off a toe, because I could not remember the proper method of installing a tree stand. Or finding myself staring down a charging grizzly and not being able to properly identify the frizzen on my muzzle-loading rifle. I was still thinking about Kosta and beating him, but the more I tried to remember every detail of what had been covered, the more I worried about just passing the test.

  I tossed and turned in bed for a while before getting up around two and going out to the living room, retrieving my iPad and reviewing chapters one through six until I nodded off.

  I woke up the next morning and discovered I had fallen asleep sitting up on the couch. The iPad was off, but still in my lap and when I turned it on, the last page of chapter six was on the screen though I had no conscious recollection of having read all the way through it.

  I had a moment’s pause—Was it really worth going back? Was this really me? Perhaps Rebecca’s response to my dreamy excitement was a sign that I was doing something I shouldn’t be. For months I had been fixated on the idea that learning to hunt would somehow make me feel like more of a man, more like my dad. But maybe I was already a man, the man she had married. Maybe this whole hunting thing was me trying force some sense of identity, to shoehorn myself into a greater sense of comfort with who I am. But was it really me?

  I thought about the first day objectively. It had basically been a drawn-out and tedious retelling of course material I could have read in less than an hour. Granted, I would have missed out on all the interesting bonus material, such as the mechanical differences between military-grade triggers and those used on civilian weapons. Or how, if fallen upon at just the right angle, an arrow with a broadhead tip can bifurcate a man’s torso without the slightest bit of pain.

  But, after a lifetime of not hunting, of not being the sort to find himself enamored by a gun club, I wondered if I was trying too hard to change, to become something I never had been and never wanted to become. It wasn’t just the pressure of the test—it was the questions about who I am and who I want to be as a man that created the doubt.

  I thought long and hard in the shower and over a cup of coffee as I got dressed—this time in a pair of jeans and a nondescript polo shirt. I sat back on the couch to check my e-mail before heading out the door and noticed I had a new message on Facebook from Kosta.

  It read: “98. Beat that, sucka.”

  That did it. Suddenly, my neurotic ennui lifted and I was once again steeled in my resolve to beat that little bastard, no matter what. The mere possibility of being able to hold that over his head—at the Thanksgiving table, say, or when he receives the Medal of Honor for heroism in the army—had me so excited I skipped my usual second cup of coffee. I kissed my wife and kids, all of whom were asleep in their beds and headed out for my second day of training and, ultimately, the final exam.

  This time, I found the path to the club with ease, having remembered the particularly grimy and dilapidated trailer home situated near the entrance, and walked into class fifteen minutes early, resuming my place at the front of room. Although I had kept largely to myself the first day, the delirious anticipation with which I awaited the test overcame my desire to not be noticed. Whenever a question was asked, I found myself in competition with the articulate kid on the other side of the room—shooting my hand into the air with the enthusiasm of a second grader in need of a bathroom break.

  I was like Ken Jennings, the greatest champion Jeopardy! has ever known, on an amphetamine bender:

  Who can tell me the difference between a conservationist and a preservationist?

  My hand is the first one up.

  “A conservationist advocates the responsible usage of natural resources and a preservationist insists they not be used at all.”

  Why is it important to store ammunition of different types separately?

  Again, my hand.

  “In order to avoid accidental usage of the wrong ammunition in the wrong gun, which could result in damage to the weapon and serious injury, perhaps even death.”

  Had I not been so focused on acing the test, I might have considered my actions with a bit more remove and given myself a wet willy for being such a brownnoser. But, as it was, I didn’t care. Not even in the slightest. I was in the know-it-all zone. It was freshman English all over again, only this time there was no girl to impress. I was letting my inner geek out and he was tearing up the course. I couldn’t wait for the test, but unfortunately I had to. We had three chapters to cover that second morning and were told that a guest would be visiting the class. Every bit of me wanted to skip ahead, but I couldn’t. I liked this newfound competitive edge and wanted to take a crack at the test before the adrenaline wore off.

  The Hamilton County wildlife officer, a pleasan
tly officious man, showed up midmorning to give a little talk about what he does and how hunters should interact with game wardens in the field. He was dressed all in green and wore a tactical belt complete with a telescopic club, handcuffs, and a .9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol (which, incidentally, differs from a rifle only by length and, thanks to a rifled barrel, creates spin on the bullet as it leaves the muzzle—not the barrel—to ensure in-flight stability and greater accuracy).

  “Don’t do anything if I walk up,” he said. “Most of the time I’m just there to check in with you and see how you’re doing.”

  I can’t say I was really engaged in his lecture, as I was thinking only of how this tiny little man was further delaying my taking the damned test.

  I read ahead through the final chapter of the book—a real page-turner about bag limits and habitat reconstitution—and was finished with the review questions before Arthur had finished covering the review of the four tenets of hunter safety. I couldn’t stop my fingers tapping as I waited impatiently for the old man to finish his duties and was crestfallen when he announced that we would take the test after lunch. It was like waking up early on Christmas morning and being told you couldn’t open your presents until after Great-Aunt Sylvia put on her face.

  When it finally came time to take the test, Arthur took his sweet time reading the one paragraph of instructions on the cover of the test, telling us three mildly disturbing stories about accidental dismemberment, and admonishing anyone who dared use a pen.

  I was prepared. I had my number two pencils sharpened. I was locked, cocked, and ready to rock. I tore into the exam with such eagerness, I nearly grunted marking my first answer.

  The test itself is composed of one hundred multiple-choice questions. Perhaps thirty-five of these questions are true or false. The rest cover everything from naming parts of particular weapons to short situational paragraphs in which a hunting tragedy has occurred and the test taker must identify the likely cause.

  A passing grade is 80 percent or greater. Matt made himself available to read the questions to those who had difficulty with reading comprehension—mostly younger children, though not exclusively. The instructors also had the authority to retest those who scored between 70 and 79 on the spot, but they would only ask those questions which the people missed.

  Did I mention that a significant portion of the questions were true or false? This reinforced my doubt about the rigorous standards that these tests measure. As I understood it, for anyone scoring in the “C” range, an instructor might pass a person through by asking them a question they know they got wrong the first time, but for which there were only two possible answers.

  Forgive my incredulity here, but seriously? It’s possible for someone to be sanctioned by the State of Ohio to carry a lethal weapon into the wilderness with the intent of taking a life, and they only need be smart enough not to get a true or false question wrong twice on the same day?

  All that is neither here nor there. I was not going to need any retesting. I could feel the knowledge coursing through my veins and into my pencil as I completed the first two pages of questions—nineteen in all—in slightly under three minutes.

  The next page was true or false, and I managed to get through those in about thirty seconds before coming to a series of questions related to situational awareness. There were four or five of them, and though Tim had been careful to point out every sentence of the course book that would appear on the test—from the structural difference between a flintlock and inline black powder rifle to the distinction between field dressing and dressing out an animal—he never mentioned that there would be questions requiring logic.

  I had a moment of panic when reading the instructions, but by the time I was through with the first question, my mind was at ease. I can’t recall the exact wording, but it went something like this:

  “You are planning a day of pheasant hunting with your friends. You’ve prepared a hunting plan, and on the day they come to pick you up, you notice empty beer cans on the floor of the truck. When you arrive at the place where you are going to hunt, your friends each take out another beer, chug it, and stuff a few more into the pockets of their hunting vests. What do you do?”

  a. Join them and suggest a quick bump of cocaine because you always shoot better when you’re drunk and stoned.

  b. Shoot them both in the face for insulting your honor, then go have your way with a nearby sheep, thus proving you are both noble and mighty.

  c. Cancel the hunting trip and call another friend for a ride home.

  You can see why I was not terribly worried about this small wrinkle, particularly given that this question was the most nuanced and tricky.

  In total, I spent a hair over fifteen minutes completing my test and was, by a margin of more than ten minutes, the first one done in the class. This, in and of itself, was reason for concern. Had I missed something? A second booklet of questions perhaps? Had I gone too fast and skipped some?

  I made a quick scan of my answer sheet and checked that all hundred blanks had been filled in, then handed my completed test to Arthur for grading and returned to my seat in nervous anticipation.

  What would have taken any reasonably competent teacher fifteen seconds to grade required fifteen minutes of Arthur’s careful study, and the more I sat there, the more I questioned my answers. I only had a 2 percent margin to beat my brother, so if I missed more than two questions, I would forever bear the shame of having failed at this manly undertaking. I might as well join a nunnery to escape the relentless mockery from my younger sibling.

  I was on the very edge of a panic attack when I heard Arthur call a name: “Chris Hindburge?”

  Given that I had been done first, I figure he was simply misreading my sometimes-sloppy handwriting. I stepped to the table and awaited the verdict.

  “Chris?” asked Arthur.

  “Actually, it’s Craig, Craig Heimbuch.”

  He looked down at the registration form and exam in front of him and shook his head with an “oh, yeah, right.”

  “Congratulations, Kyle, you passed.” He handed me my registration card.

  “By how much?” I asked.

  He took a moment to process this, not because he was particularly slow, but because I’m not sure a student had ever spoken directly to him before. He consulted the answer sheet and appeared to do a little math in his head before returning his gaze to me.

  “One hundred,” he said. “You got a hundred. Congratulations.”

  I shook Arthur’s, Matt’s, and Tim’s hands furiously, thanking them all for an enlightening weekend. I was skipping out the door when Arthur called after me.

  “We’re having an NRA info session afterward if you want to stick around,” he said.

  “Not a chance,” I replied. “But thanks anyway.”

  I ran to my car and got out my phone to call Kosta.

  This just couldn’t wait until Thanksgiving.

  11

  The Interstitial Time

  Though I was now a licensed hunter, hunting season was still months off, which left me with a good bit of time to dally and daydream, but little in terms of opportunity to put to practice my theoretical knowledge. It is hard to picture yourself on a cool fall morning dressed in warm clothes and intently following your hunting dog toward an unseen pheasant when the temperature is roughly that of the surface of the sun and the humidity is enough to turn your skin into a spigot of sweat. Summers in southwest Ohio are my least favorite time of year. It is awfully, almost unbearably hot, and the air is thick with moisture, pollution, and, to my great and constant chagrin, allergens. The summer weather in Cleveland was very similar, but there we had relief in the form of Lake Erie. One could always take a dip, provided you were willing to swim amid cast-off syringes and municipal waste. But Greater Cincinnati offers no such recreational relief. I may be brave enough and even enjoy submers
ion in the lake, but swimming in the Ohio River is an act of pure madness. Rebecca and the kids spent their days at the community pool or the amusement park near where we lived while I perspired my way through twice-daily commutes and long hours trying to find a cool spot in the offices where I work to take advantage of purloined moments of Internet research on the topic of hunting and sportsmanship.

  In mid-July, we did something we had never done as a family, had not done, in fact, as a couple since our honeymoon. We took a vacation. No parents or siblings. Just Rebecca, the kids, and me and our closest friends, Anne, John, and their three kids. We all rented a house in coastal North Carolina and had what was for me, the trip of a lifetime. Born in northern Wisconsin and raised in northern Ohio, I was culturally trained to hate the beach. For that matter, I’ve never much enjoyed the sun because it seems to hate me and my pasty epidermis. But an entire week spent sipping coozie-wrapped beers and bobbing up and down in the waves with Jack and Dylan turned out to be an ideal I could never have imagined. Each night we ate as if the next day were our last and every morning began with a cocktail. We didn’t drive anywhere, apart from a trip to a nearby seafood purveyor to pick up some crabs and an ill-advised trip to discover that Myrtle Beach is, in fact, the missing ring from Dante’s vision of hell. We didn’t have anywhere to be and, because we were in a house and not a hotel, I found myself perfectly content to do nothing more than sit on the couch or sit on the porch and sip scotch. I was amazed how quickly I fell into the habit of taking long showers in the outdoor stall before bed and how good the warm water and cool night air felt on my freshly pinked skin. I felt, well, free and, judging from the constant smiles on the faces of my children and wife, like a real man, a father, a family provider in a way I had never felt before.