Pronoun Problems: A Novel About Friendship, Transgender and (eventually) Ninjas

39 - The Most Feared of The Ostrich Diseases

July, 2011

I bought a gun. Because I wanted Man Shit and as far as I was concerned there was nothing on God's green earth that was man-shittier than a gun.

Every boy in America had an infatuation with guns. And so too did every man. Some men expressed it openly at gun ranges and on hunting trips; others nominally condemned guns but still felt their pull, their power. Guns made you a hero, a badass, an avenging angel dispensing lethal justice with the twitch of a finger.

My parents were northeastern liberal Jews and they did what they could to keep me from being seduced by the deadly allure of firearms. Not only did they make our house a gun-free zone, they also made it a toy gun-free zone as well, refusing — despite my endless entreaties — to buy me the plastic pistols I so desperately craved. This, even though there was a framed, hazy black-and-white photo in the foyer of my father when he was five-years old — with chubby cheeks and missing teeth — pointing twin Lone Ranger toy six guns at the lens, grinning like a maniac.

When I asked him why he could have toy guns as a kid but I couldn't, he said, "That was a different time." When, a few days later, I asked him again he took the picture down.

It was, I understand, a principled belief on my parents' part, but it was also incredibly naive. First off, and my father must have known this, young boys have no problem turning just about anything into a gun. Sticks, tennis rackets, the cardboard tube from a paper towel roll. I once took a razor-sharp chef's knife from the kitchen and pretended that was a gun. (Two truisms about young boys: They love guns and they are idiots.) And what was really strange, now that I think about it, was that my parents wouldn't let pretend guns in the house, but kept real knives within reach of their eight year old child.

And the second thing was I had friends and my friends had parents and their parents were gentiles and they had no qualms about arming their children with with an arsenal of silver-painted plastic. So I played with their toy guns. Bang!

Now, in my forties, I had still never held a real gun, much less fired one. My own liberal politics now overlay the childhood allure and I saw guns simultaneously as fascinating and terrifying. I looked at them in much the same way I looked at cigarettes. They were undeniably cool, but super-dangerous, and the people selling them were sociopaths.

Walking into a gun store felt like I was visiting a brothel for the first time. I felt corrupted, intimidated and completely out of place, but oh man! those babies were gorgeous! And I could have any one of them I wanted! (And no, you shouldn't read anything into the frequency with which I invoke prostitution metaphors. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.) Plus, the people who worked there were exceptionally friendly which (and here is where we part ways with our bordello imagery) may have been because they all had guns themselves in holsters at their hips, so they didn't get too much attitude from their customers.

I was helped by Emilio and he made me feel completely at ease; no small feat given that the wood-paneled walls behind him were full of anti-government and pro-Bush signage as well as targets with pictures of prominent anti-gun Democrats: Michael Moore, Harry Reid, Alec Baldwin, Hillary Clinton (which was sold out). Emilio was helpful, knowledgable and extremely patient with people like me, who didn't have any idea what they wanted in a handgun, other than it was badass.

He asked me if I wanted a revolver or a semi-automatic and I chose the latter for no other reason than I liked the idea of pulling back the slide to chamber a round, like I had seen so many times in movies. He asked me what caliber I was interested in and I said a .45 because I had heard of that caliber. I had also heard of a .22 and a .38, but they were obviously less good by .23 and .07, respectively. I had also heard of a 9 millimeter, but this was metric and this was America, so fuck that shit.