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?
—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.
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