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Mr. Brendan Donovan finished cleaning the .44 Magnum and placed the rag on the workbench beside him. “So you’ve never fired a gun before, Marc?”

 

There was no judgment in the question, but enough traces of the bewilderment for me to wonder if it was rare for a 20-year-old male in the rural parts of upstate New York to have no experience whatsoever with firearms. I had handled toy guns in stores, and had gotten pretty good at firing off laser volleys at the gangsters in Hogan’s Alley on my Nintendo Entertainment System during my junior high school years, but I had never actually touched a real rifle or handgun. “No,” I replied honestly. 

 

A shade less than six feet tall, I had short brown hair that I combed back over my head, slightly arched eyebrows, and deep brown eyes. My gold, wire-rimmed glasses and goatee added at least three years to my face, often causing people to forget that I was under the legal drinking age. A third-year college student at the time, I stood with Mr. Donovan in the basement of the Donovan home. Displayed on the walls and shelves around me were an assortment of rifles, handguns, and bows and arrows used for both target practice and hunting game. All told, it was an impressive collection of weapons – the kind of collection I might have grown up with had my dad been an outdoorsman, too.

 

Mr. Donovan still had a muted concern in his eyes. “Mrs. Donovan wanted me to make sure your mother said it was okay that we take you out shooting.” 

 

I smiled cheerfully. “I didn’t tell her.”

 

Mr. Donovan raised his eyebrows. “You didn’t?” 

 

“If I told her, she’d just get worried and tell me not to do it,” I said. “I figure I’ll do it, I’ll survive, and then I’ll tell her all about it when I get back to campus. This way, I can do what I want, not worry her, and still not keep it a secret for long.”

 

Mr. Donovan massaged his jaw thoughtfully. “I just don’t want her to think that your friend’s parents are a bunch of crazy hicks that have nothing better to do than take her son out shooting.” 

 

“She’d never think that,” I said, trying to convince myself of this as much as my host.

 

Donovan gave me an easy smile. “Okay, then. It sounds like we should have a quick safety lesson before we go out.” The older gentleman held the gun aloft, facing its barrel away from me (and himself), and pointing it towards the basement wall. “Never point the gun at anything you aren’t going to shoot at.” He paused to make sure that I heard and understood the rule. He saw my nod, and continued. “It’s not a toy. You’ve been trained to think of it as a toy, but it’s a weapon. Never play with it or point it at a human.” 

 

“I wouldn’t do that.”

 

“Also, remember that every gun is loaded.” 

 

I looked up at Mr. Donovan. “You mean never assume it’s unloaded?”

 

“I mean every gun is loaded,” the man repeated, speaking with a calm deliberateness. “Even if it isn’t loaded, it’s loaded. If you start thinking a gun is empty, you get careless. You start pointing at things you shouldn’t. Better to assume it’s always loaded. Every gun is loaded.” 

 

“I understand.”

 

Donovan rested the gun gently on my palm. It weighed more than the gray plastic arcade guns I was used to carrying, but it was no heavier than I expected. The feel of the metal against my skin wasn’t cold or clammy, as such contact was often described in books I had read. Instead, it felt alive; it felt alien. It possessed a power that I was only then fully realizing, and it filled me with fearful awe. I now had the power, through either incompetence or insane whim, to take a person’s life, and I was briefly terrified of that power. The sense of distrust, of myself and of a lifeless object, had been the same three years ago when I first got behind the wheel of a car and realized how easy a thing it would be to run someone over. But I had learned to drive responsibly and I was sure I would learn how to handle weapons at a shooting range with just as much maturity. 

 

Colin Donovan appeared in the doorway just in time to see me looking down on the weapon with barely concealed reverence. “Wicked, huh?”

 

I smiled slightly, wanting to show enthusiasm for the gun to Colin without appearing too frivolous in front of Colin’s father. “Yes.” 

 

Slightly shorter than me, Colin was nevertheless more impressive because his body was muscular and well-tanned, making mine seem almost soft and undefined in comparison. We had been college roommates in the State University of New York at Geneseo for the past two years. The rural college, Binghampton’s chief rival for the title of best state institution in New York, had the advantage of being small and competitive, and it also had a student body that was predominantly female. Since the campus atmosphere was so agreeable, and since I lived more than six hours away from home, we rarely left campus for long. This visit to Colin’s house came at a time close to finals when we were in desperate need of a break from studying and from the processed chicken that the dining hall cooks served five times daily.

 

“I see you showed him Dirty Harry’s gun first, dad,” Colin said. “That’s the one Marc was the most excited about using.” 

 

I handed the weapon back to Mr. Donovan. “Clint Eastwood rules.”

 

“Well, now you can be Clint for a day,” said Colin. “Just don’t try firing it one-handed like he does in the films. It’s not really done that way. You’ll hurt your wrist.” 

 

“That’s right,” agreed Colin’s father. “These things have a hell of a kick. If you’re not ready for it, it’ll blow you right over.”

 

I was disappointed. One of the main reasons I was excited about visiting my roommate’s family again that weekend was for the opportunity to finally fire off a real gun. And one of the things I had looked forward to more than anything was firing Dirty Harry’s gun the way that Dirty Harry fired it – one-handed. “Okay,” I said at last. 

 

It took less than a half an hour for the us to gear up and say goodbye to Mrs. Donovan – who entreated me to be careful – before heading out to the shooting range. Mr. Donovan drove us just outside of town, heading in the direction of lands owned by Matt Turow, a close family friend who had always made the Donovans feel welcome to use the range on his property. As we drove, Colin gave me a tour of Strawberry Town from the car. The town, which rested just south of Buffalo, was one of the most rural that I had ever seen, but had a peaceful beauty that made me wish I lived in a place like it. I was (and am) a terrible judge of population, but I would have been surprised if more than about five thousand people lived in the area, which was best known outside its limits for its annual strawberry festival. As we drove past a particularly woodsy area, one house struck me as looking particularly modern, and it seemed as if an area of woods had recently been cleared to make room for it.

 

“See that yellow house?” Colin pointed. “Downstaters from Queens. They came up here three years ago because they were tired of the nose and the rudeness of the city. They wanted to get away from it all.” 

 

“That’s why I went to school in the Genesee River Valley,” I said. “I wanted to get away from the coarse New York personality.”

 

“Yeah, but when you moved upstate, you didn’t bring the coarse New York personality with you,” Colin said. “These people did. They thought they could cure themselves of being overworked and bitter by coming out here, but they brought their problems with them. We tried to make them welcome, but they just wanted to be left alone.” 

 

“They didn’t realize it, but they were the first to start transforming their little haven into the kind of unfriendly city they had just left,” Colin’s father observed.

 

“Since then, more trees have been knocked down to make room for even more bitter city refugees,” said Colin. “They’re spreading like a bad cancer.” 

 

“Luckily, there’s still so much untouched land up here,” I observed.

 

Colin turned away from the car window. “How long will that last? Ten years? Twenty? The forestland we drove by on the way here used to be open for the public. When I was a kid, I used to go for nature walks on it. But now fences have been put up and nobody’s allowed to walk or hunt on the land. I don’t know who owns it, only that more and more land is being lost to this enclosure crap. And each time I come home from college on a visit the town looks different than before.” 

 

“Well,” began Mr. Donovan, “we’re friends with a lot of land owners in the area, like Matt Turow, who are good people. As long as people like Matt are around, who have some sense of community, we don’t have to worry about being booted out of nature.” As if one cue, Donovan pulled the car into a short dirt road that led up to a small, two-story house. “And here we are,” he said, rolling the car to a halt beside the house and putting it in park.

 

Getting out of the car, Mr. Donovan unpacked the weapons and the supply bag from the trunk and led the two young men past the house to the grounds behind it. Turow was home, barely awake, sitting on a rocking chair on the porch as we walked past. He was a craggy faced fellow in a T-shirt and baseball cap. “Hi, Donovans.” 

 

“We’re just taking Marc here shooting,” Mr. Donovan said. “It’s his first time.”

 

“His first time?” Turow repeated with tired incredulity. “Where’d he grow up, a septic tank?” 

 

Colin chuckled, his dad looked embarrassed for me, and I reddened with anger. I must admit, that remark didn’t win me over to Mr. Turow.

 

“He’s a great young man,” Mr. Donovan replied. 

 

“I thought he was supposed to be Italian,” Turow continued.  “Don’t the Mafia use guns anymore, or just switchblades to give out Sicilian neckties and such?”

 

“You’re being rude to our guest, Mr. Turow,” Mr. Donovan warned. 

 

“I’m just askin’ a friendly question.”

 

“We’ll see you later,” said Mr. Donovan. 

 

And we moved on to the target range.

 

(What had I been saying before about rural people being more friendly and less coarse than those from New York City? 

 

Very amusing, right?)

 

The dirt path sloped gradually down until the we found ourselves in an open field. While the trees and bushes surrounding the field were still brown and dead from winter, the grass was bright green and wet from rainfall earlier in the morning. The range itself was a row of three bull’s-eye targets hung from a wooden frame at the base of the incline. 

 

“That’s the safest place for a range, because all bullets that miss or pass through the target will hit the side of the hill,” Colin explained. “If the range had been placed in front of the woods instead, bullets could go wildly through the trees and hit anyone who could be walking there. No one is supposed to be wandering around there, but you have to play it safe.”

 

We had brought three guns with them that day – a 7.62 millimeter Russian SKS Assault Rifle, a Remington model 870 12-gauge shotgun, and a Smith and Wesson .44 Magnum. We were all wearing what reminded me of giant red earmuffs made of plastic to protect our eardrums from the sounds of the gunfire. 

 

Colin’s father went first, positioning himself fifteen years from the target and resting their supply bag to the side. He loaded the SKS, which looked a lot like the AK-47s with the curved clips used by terrorists in action movies, and braced it between his breast and shoulder bones. He aimed at the target that was left of center and fired off one round, which blasted a hole through the dead center of the target. After pulling the trigger twice more and landing both shots near the bull’s-eye, he handed off the rifle to me.

 

“Here you go.” Mr. Donovan pointed to the part of his chest against which he had braced the weapon. “Place the butt here, not against your shoulder or you’ll hurt yourself.” 

 

I did so. Then I aimed the gun just as if I were playing a shoot-‘em-up video game. Once I felt I had the target in sight, I pulled the trigger. Chunks of the target exploded into the air as the bullets struck its surface. Though it was now hard to tell which holes were mine and which were Mr. Donovan’s, they were all clustered around the bull’s-eye. I almost yelled out in excitement, but stopped myself, not wanting Mr. Donovan to think I was going to get too charged up to remember the safety lecture. Mr. Donovan nodded. There was an expression of subdued surprised on his face. “Very good, Marc. That was your first shot ever, huh?”

 

“Yes.” That rocked, I thought. 

 

I then stood back and allowed Colin to take a turn. I watched my roommate pose like one of the little green army man toys that came in the plastic bag of fifty for 99 cents, with legs spread, weapon centered on target and eye set level with the rifle. Though his face looked tight set and grim, he was clearly enjoying himself just as much as I had during my turn at the target as he shot round after round into the bull’s-eye. Once Colin spent his ammo, we moved on to the shotgun.

 

As I accepted the new weapon from Mr. Donovan, I accidentally let the facedown barrel brush against the wet lawn. Colin and his father offered simultaneous protests that the end of the weapon was getting grass and rainwater on it. Embarrassed that I had gotten he gun dirty, I impulsively lifted the barrel and brushed the blades of grass off of it with my fingers. Colin and his father both flinched and winced in horror. 

 

I jerked my hand away from the barrel. “What?”

 

“Never do that,” said Colin. 

 

“It’s unloaded, isn’t it? The safety is on?”

 

“It’s loaded,” said Colin’s father, “and the safety is off.”

 

“Oh,” I murmured, realizing it has taken me less than an hour to ignore the safety instructions I had been given. I flexed my fingers before my eyes slowly and deliberately, silently thanking God that they had not been blasted off into the woods due to my carelessness. 

 

Mr. Donovan looked concerned for several moments, weighing what to say. He thought he had already said it all, to no avail. Still, seeing the muted fear in my face convinced him that the almost catastrophic mistake had mad its own impression on me. “Okay, you can shoot now,” was all Mr. Donovan said. 

 

I regained my composure quickly and raised the shotgun. When I pulled the trigger, I felt the weapon jump up more than I expected, but I retained my grip. When I lowered the gun, I saw a hole the size of a tennis ball drilled through the outside rim of the target, far away from the bull’s-eye. 

 

“Damn,” I said. I steadied myself and fired again. This time, the slug blasted through the target, grazing the red center and knocking out the large chunk of yellow. “Ah,” I smiled. 

 

The shotgun was reloaded and passed around two more times before we moved on to the final weapon. Smiling, Colin raised aloft the handgun. “Dirty Harry time.” 

 

I took the gun in the proper manner and aimed it at a fresh target. I was tempted to try it one-handed right away, but my last experience disobeying the safety lecture was fresh in my mind. With two hands on the gun, I pulled the trigger. The barrel kicked up as if it had just spat out a cannonball. (Well … not really. But it was a hefty kick.) The jolt did nothing to sprain my wrists, but it was enough of a shock that it sent the bullet too high and too far to the left to hit the bull’s-eye. 

 

Handguns are generally less accurate than rifles,” Colin reassured. “Especially this one.” 

 

“Hmmm.” I tried it again, two-handed. The shot was still high and wide, but not as bad. Then I made a decision. I slowly released my left hand from the gun and aimed the weapon with his right hand only, waiting for sounds of complaint from his hosts. No protests came – only an admonishment from the other men to beware of the sudden kick. I pulled the trigger. The gun bucked under my grip like a wild horse trying to throw its mount, but I maintained a strong hold on the barrel. The shot went high and to the left. 

 

I smiled. “That was cool.” 

 

And it was. 

 

I’ll always remember the feel of firing Dirty Harry’s gun just like Clint Eastwood, and I’ll always remember the enormous fun it was. 

 

And, on the flip side, every few months I’ll look at my fingers during a moment of quiet self awareness and be thankful that I didn’t accidentally blow them off while wiping the grass off of the barrel of the rifle.

 

Yikes!