The Gun

Imagine, if you would, a quintessential American home: two stories, attic, basement, wide screen TV, and all the comforts that an upper-middle class American family would have. And also imagine, if you would, the nuclear family – father, mother, and child. The parents both have successful jobs, and a six-year-old daughter, Janie. Melissa and Vincent Clemmings both love each other and their daughter very much, and have outlawed guns in the house as a policy of that love.

Two weeks earlier, however, they were almost robbed of their most priceless possessions, including Mrs. Clemmings’s life. She took a gunshot wound to the spine during the incident and has been in the hospital since then in intense physical therapy.

Father Clemmings told himself he had no choice as he made his order at “Gun Depot,” and told this to himself again as he eventually picked it up two days later. He spent extra money to get a well-made revolver that would shoot quickly – and shoot intruders dead, as the salesman promised. He also spent a pretty penny on a good trigger lock that would prevent little Janie from accidentally shooting herself. Or, hopefully, it would also prevent him from accidentally shooting someone else.

“What’s that, Daddy?” his daughter inquired as he walked through the door with her. She had been alone for a half hour on the porch while waiting for him to get home; she seemed to frown slightly, too, as his eyes were brewing a deadly frost. He shut the door silently behind them, regretting his tardiness on such a cold day and holding the brown paper bag as if it were the manifestation of that guilt. His eyes calmed down by the time his nose stopped feeling numb from the wintry cold, taking the gun out so she could see it. He replied in a chilled and shaken tone, letting her stare down the black barrel.

“It’s a..a..gun, pumpkin.”

“What’s it for, Daddy?”

“For our protection. Ever since we got robbed by the bad men…”

“Can I hold it?”

“No! I mean…No, sweetie, it’s too dangerous for you to hold. Only grownups can hold it.” Mr. Clemmings put the gun back in the back out of fear of accidentally pressing the unlocked trigger. Janie looked back in acute curiosity.

“Why?”

“Because only grownups are big enough to use it. I’m so sorry, sweetie…”

“Will I get to see Mommy this weekend?..”

“Well, Mommy might need a little more time, sweetie. Daddy and the doctor’s done all they can to help Mommy so she was able to see you..but she’s still sick.”

“When will she come home?”

“Daddy doesn’t know. Come on, I’ll fix up your favorite treat tonight.”

“Goodie!”

And all was well for the moment. Mr. Clemmings set up the lock and placed the gun in a dresser drawer and regretted ever seeing the black barrel. This went against the rules he and his wife set up since they were married; this went against everything they believed. But ever since the robbery, he felt something was lost within him. The “bad men” threatened his sense of security and his role as protector of the house, and he had to have something to reestablish that role. He also had to feed that hole of loneliness he had now with his wife missing from their bed, and that gun, that loaded black barrel became his new partner until his beloved Melissa was back from the hospital.

The next morning, Mr. Clemmings dreaded having to leave the cold metal gun behind as he left for the office – what if someone stole it?, he thought. It couldn’t be avoided, though. Mr. Clemmings held a high position in the firm and would be disgraced if he were caught in the metal detector with a loaded weapon. He locked the dresser drawer securely with the gun inside, waited with Janie for the bus to arrive, and went on with the day as usual. Vincent rationalized the gun again and again as just another routine, another weapon against intruders, and another way to save his family.

Meanwhile, Janie was confused. Her mother was still hurt, and her father started acting strangely, even over something as small as sweeping up glass. Although they almost lost everything, she was only shaken by how her parents reacted. After all, she did not know the true value of money at the time, nor did she know how to react when it was taken away. She became lonelier as a result, but took to her friends and her classwork at kindergarten to cheer herself up. To cheer her parents up, she made a black bowl with a yellow smiley face painted in the middle. Then she wrote in light blue fingerpaint around the edge of the bowl, “I love you Mommy and Daddy,” to seal her discomfort about the event. She was going to show Daddy when she got off the bus stop and Mommy when she got back from the hospital and everything would be perfect!

Daddy was not at the bus stop. Nor was he at their porch, waiting for her with arms wide open (as he did occasionally to surprise her), but the door was unlocked. She held the wide black bowl with eagerness as she opened the door with mitten-clad hands. As she entered, she saw him sitting at the table with the gun in hands. His hands were visibly shaking, and some weird thing was on the gun. She walked up behind him and shouted “Daddy!” to get his attention, smiling brightly, her face full of innocence.

With a loud screech, Mr. Clemming’s chair turned about on all fours, his eyes staring straight at his daughter’s, and his daughter’s stared at the barrel of the black gun. She screamed, falling to her rear end. If it were not for her caring in the fruits of her labor, she would have dropped her faith in family and shattered to pieces.

“Da-Daddy?…”

“Oh, I’m sorry, honey…I’m so sorry...I didn’t mean to do such a horrible thing…are you okay, Janie?…”

“I feel all weird inside…”

They hugged, holding each other close. The trigger lock held. “It’s going to be okay, honey…Daddy was just surprised…Daddy’s been sad lately…”

“Did I make you sad, Daddy?”

“No! Never! Daddy just misses Mommy.”

“I miss Mommy, too…”

Daddy became Mr. Clemmings to Janie. Other than dinner and story time, he did little with her for the next day or so. She became lonelier, but did not understand why. He did not seem to be interested in her bowl; though he praised it, she felt like the black gun was more important to him than her black bowl with the loving smiley face. Mr. Clemmings became lonelier as well without the time with his daughter and his wife, but he repeated in his head over and over again that it was a routine and that the gun would make things better and that it would keep his family from falling apart. In the meantime, his daughter waited for him to truly notice the bowl that was on the kitchen counter.

When Mrs. Clemmings finally returned from the hospital early the next day with her husband, she immediately became hatefully infatuated with the gun. They argued well before Janie got home from kindergarten about how it was or was not a stupid idea, how it and did not jeopardize their family as a whole, and the like. She questioned him about the trigger lock, finding it easy to disassemble. She questioned its policy; she questioned the impression it left on Janie, the lesson it taught her. Let alone the difficulties in incorporating it into their lifestyle, with their therapy and all.

At around that time, they were neglecting to come and pick her up. In the argument about the gun, they both forgot about what their support and love meant for their daughter, especially Mr. Jennings, who had been there all along and done just enough for his daughter. The gun tore Mr. Jennings from his family and into a different dimension, one of paranoia. Janie was trying to cope, but found the topic to be a strange one to bring up to her friends and teachers. She did not think her mother was returning that day, and nothing but sadness was brought to her heart when she walked home again, alone. Though she was cold, she was soon to be plunged into this heated argument.

When she stepped inside, all she heard was yelling, grownup yelling. Neither parent heard Janie entered, the violence escalating. As she stepped up to the kitchen, they were becoming incoherent as they yelled about policy – the content of the argument itself is unimportant. Though she did not see her mother in the wheelchair, she watched as her Daddy held the gun in one hand and with the other smashed the bowl into smithereens.