This is the story I wrote. I like it.
I made my wife read it and she cried. I didn't know she would. It was a surprise to me that she did. I thought this story was a mix of horrible and hilarious.
Let me know what you guys think.
It was Timmy Johnson’s eighth birthday today and his badge and gun would be arriving by mail some time this afternoon. Everyone received a license to detain or kill evil-doers on their eighth birthday. Eight years old is what they called “an age of responsibility.” It was supposed to keep everyone honest. That’s what they said anyway. When they passed the legislation, those in favor of it asked their constituents, “Who in their right mind would commit a crime if they knew that every citizen around them over the age of eight was carrying a loaded firearm and duly obligated to dispense justice?”
To their credit, the majority of Americans held it in their hearts that this was both foolish and stupid. Sadly though, the majority of their elected officials were in support of the Mandatory Firearms Protection Act of 2081. The majority of Congressmen received money from their campaigns from the National Rifle Association. The National Rifle Association was a group of people, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of them, who got together as often as they could to shoot guns and talk about how great it was to shoot guns and to talk about how sorry they would make anyone who wanted them to stop shooting guns or take them away.
They were gun-crazy.
So, because of this minority of gun-crazed individuals with deep pockets, little Timmy Johnson would be receiving his badge and gun that very day.
Timmy couldn’t wait. Although he couldn’t wait, his mother, Helen, could. She wasn’t very enthusiastic about all of this. She was one of those Americans that thought it was both stupid and foolish to give anyone a gun, let alone an eight-year-old child. She didn’t like guns at all, even hers. She hid her pistol in her nightstand drawer, unloaded and in its holster, as often as she could. She did this despite the fact it was illegal.
Not carrying your Government Issue firearm and badge was an offense punishable by a one thousand dollar fine and up to ten years in jail.
Displaying a reckless disregard for the law, Helen cooked a large, hot breakfast for her family without the aid and comfort of her gun. As her husband arrived at the table with his morning paper she was laying out this feast of pancakes and eggs and hash browns and bacon and French toast and milk and orange juice and coffee. Fred Johnson had stopped arguing with his wife about the bad example she set, vis-à-vis her gun. He’d given up threatening to report her a long time ago.
Sitting down with a sigh, he folded his newspaper around to the third page. “War, war, war. That’s all they seem to print these days and I’m tired of reading about it…”
“Well, you know dear,” Helen offered after she set down a skillet of crispy bacon, “that’s what’s going on in the world.”
“Mm-hmm…” He ignored her and continued reading between bites of breakfast and gulps of coffee.
The next to sit down at the table was Billy, Timmy’s older brother. Both he and his father were wearing their pistols in leather shoulder holsters. Billy had received his gun in the mail four years prior on his eighth birthday. He still had four more years until he could get behind the wheel of an automobile.
“Morning, Mom. Morning, Pop.”
“Good morning, Billy,” his mother echoed.
Fred merely nodded, then added, “Hmmm…”
“Billy, be sure to say Happy Birthday to your brother. He’s terrified you’ll forget.”
Exasperated, Billy rolled his eyes. “Mo-o-o-m… How could I forget? It’s all he’s been jawin’ about for the last three months.”
“I know, I know. But I’m your mother, dear. I worry about things like that. And I worry sometimes that you aren’t good enough to your brother.”
“He’s lucky I ain’t shot ‘im.”
Helen dropped a bowl of pancake batter on the floor, her face instantly streaming tears of appalled shock. These words out of her eldest sons mouth cut her deeply. “William Leroy Johnson, don’t you dare say something like that. You promised me you’d never say such things.”
“But, I got a right to, if’n…”
Fred interceded, cutting Billy off, “William. Listen to your mother. I’ve had plenty of reasons to shoot you, but have I?”
Red with shame and staring at his plate of hash browns, Billy allowed only two words to squeak out: “No, Dad.”
“That’s right. It’s because I’m your father and I love you. And you should love your brother the same way.”
“I know, I know…”
“I don’t want to hear anymore about shooting your brother again. How can I enjoy my paper if you keep scaring your mother half to death?”
Helen had begun cleaning the pancake batter pooled on the floor. She sopped the mess up, muttering to herself after each teary sob, “Stupid… foolish… guns… all of them… they’re just babies…”
She stopped every few moments to wipe the tears from her eyes.
Shooing his mother’s sentiment away with his arm, Billy told his mother to hush up.
“Talk to your mother like that again and I will shoot you, son. And I’ll have just cause to do it, too.” Fred folded his paper over, becoming interested in an article about a twenty foot wall that had been erected between his country and his country’s neighbor to the south.
When Timmy entered the room, wearing pajamas that made him look like his favorite super-hero, Helen did everything she could to hide the tears, but to no avail.
“Happy Birthday, Timmy,” was all she could eke out between heavy breaths.
Fred folded his newspaper over again, this time flopping it onto the table. He offered his son a birthday tiding as well, “You’re a big man now, Timothy. Eight years old.”
Begrudgingly, Billy said, “Happy Birthday.”
Timmy wiped the sleep from his eyes and yawned. “Is all this breakfast for me?”
Helen responded to this, “For your birthday, sweetheart.”
“Is it here yet?” The excitement in Timmy’s voice was unmistakable.
“No Timmy, It’ll be here sometime later.” Helen was in no condition to answer this. Fred did, “You know how rare it is for the postman to arrive before you go to school.”
Helen cried, “My babies…”
She turned her back to the family, hiding her tears and disgust for the idea that her eight-year-old son would, within hours, be a gun-toting time bomb, ready to kill at a moments notice.
“Oh, man… I was hoping I could take it to school so I could show Brad.” Brad was Timmy’s best friend at school. Brad had his pistol sent to him on his birthday about three months ago and had spent the time between then and now lording it over Timmy.
But the doorbell rang.
“Who could that be” Fred wondered this aloud.
He got up to answer the door, but Timmy was off like a shot.
“It’s the postman!” Timmy shouted to his family who was trying to catch up with him. Everyone but Helen ran to the door.
She remained in the kitchen to weep.
“Is there a Timothy Johnson here?” The postman was dressed quite officially.
Timmy’s eyes grew wide when he noticed the butcher-paper wrapped package under his arm. “It’s me! It’s me! I’m Timmy!”
With a paternal chuckle, the postman bent down to one knee and handed Timmy the package. “Well young sir, I have a very important and special delivery here for you.”
“It’s here! It’s here!” That was all Timmy could think to say.
“This package I’m delivering you is a very solemn thing. And I need you to sign this paper before you open it or carry your gun.” The postman handed Timmy a clipboard and a pen. On the clipboard was a statement of responsibility.
Timmy let his box fall to one side, grabbing the clipboard and pen. “What’s it say?” He scratched his head with the pen.
“It says you’ll be careful with your gun, not take it out unless it’s necessary and that you’ll use it if you have to.” The postman had become a more important aspect of daily life in America when the postal service was given the task of ensuring that everyone who had attained the age of eight received their badge and gun.
The postman was looked up to and respected once again.
“All right…” Timmy signed the document in his best penmanship, though even his best was scraggly and uneven. I
The postman stood up, taking his clipboard back. With a chuckle he mussed Timmy’s hair. “Just in time to show your pals at school.”
The postman tipped his cap to Fred and said good day.
Timmy closed the door and ran straight to his bedroom, both to get ready for school and to strap his pistol to his belt. “Oh boy, oh boy.”
The thought of his boy all grown into a man now forced Fred to get a bit misty eyed. Billy was a little jealous that he was no longer the only Johnson child in the neighborhood with his own gun.
Helen tried to compose herself enough to watch Timmy go to school, firearm strapped to his hip, but couldn’t quite contain herself.
“It’s okay, mom,” Timmy tried consoling her. “I’m just going to school. I go to school every day.”
“It isn’t that, sweetheart…”
“What is it then, mom?”
“Just be careful with that… that…” She choked on her words…
“My gun and badge, mom?”
She burst into tears all over again. She kissed him on the cheek, told him she loved him and he was on his way to his second-grade classroom.
* * *
Timmy thumbed the hammer on his gun a hundred times on the school bus. He uncocked the hammer as many times.
He couldn’t wait to show Brad.
Recess was the only time they were allowed to see each other because they’d been put in different classes this year.
Recess came quickly enough. Fifteen minutes of largely unsupervised bliss.
A little over two-thirds of the children on the playground had a loaded firearm strapped to his or her shoulder or belt. Timmy Johnson was now one of them. It made him feel good.
“Timmy!” Brad spotted him and called out his name in his high-pitched, pre-pubescent voice.
“Brad!” Timmy shouted back. “I got my badge today. My gun, too!”
They met under the monkey bars, as they did every day, and crouched in the woodchips, showing each other their guns. “These are so cool.”
“Did the postman make you sign that paper?”
“Yeah.”
“Mine, too. Did your dad show you how to clean your gun?”
“Not yet. I got it right before school though.”
“I bet he’ll show you how to clean it after school.”
“I bet.”
Brad raised Timmy’s pistol at arms length, getting a feel for it’s weight and aim. He pretended to target children on the other side of the playground.
“Wow.”
“Mrs. Ulnick taught us about the cowboys in the wild west today and how they used to duel at high noon.”
“Oh yeah?” Timmy felt Brad always knew more about everything than he did.
“Yeah.”
“What’d they do?”
“Well, they’d start back to back and they’d count ten paces and then turn and shoot. Then whoever was left standing, won.”
“Why did they do that?”
“That was how people settled things. Arguments and stuff like that.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Pretty cool, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Across the playground, a fight erupted between two kids. Timmy recognized them as being fifth-graders. They were shoving each other and throwing sand at each other and hitting and kicking each other. Each had a gun strapped to his hip.
“We should stop ‘em.” Timmy didn’t like to see people hurting each other.
He was a good kid.
“Yeah.” Brad didn’t like seeing people hurt each other either. But Brad had an idea. “I know what we can do.”
Soon, Timmy and Brad had broken up the fight and explained to the fifth graders how they used to settle fights like men in the old west. A pair of children that young could only respond to such a romantically barbaric notion in one way: “Sounds like a good idea to me.”
The older fifth-grader said that. He had dirt from his altercation smeared down one side of his face like chocolate. A bird could have easily nested in his curly locks of hair with the amount of twigs and bits of grass that were tangled in it.
“Me, too,” the other fifth-grader agreed. His nose was broken and had a brownish crust of blood covering most of his upper lip.
“Timmy and I can be your seconds.”
“Seconds?” asked the older one.
“We’ll stand by you. I think that’s what they do.” Brad wasn’t exactly sure, but it sounded good. “Yeah. We’ll stand by you.”
“We’ll stand where you’re supposed to turn and shoot. I guess.” Timmy was getting excited to see this happen.
Brad set the fifth-graders back to back. He and Timmy stood next to them and carefully counted ten paces. They turned to face the quarrelling pair.
“All right!” Brad shouted, “This is where you’ll shoot. I’ll count to ten, then I’ll call out to turn and fire.”
“Okay.” Both fifth-graders shouted in unison.
“They were both sweating and caressing the handles on their pistols with excitement and dread.
“One!”
They took a step at Brad’s command. Then two.
Soon five and six and so on.
“TEN!”
There they stood. Twenty paces apart, backs turned. The anticipation was brewing. The gathered crowd, half a dozen students, was frenzied with curiosity and fright.
“Turn and FIRE!”
* * *
Helen was the only one home. Fred was at work and the children were still at school. She was putting together a shopping list in the pantry when a loud knock at the door startled her.
“Mrs. Johnson?” came a muffled voice from the other side of the door.
Helen asked herself who in the world that could be and put her list down on the table, heading for the door.
She opened it, not looking at who it was…
“Can I help you?”
She gasped when she realized it was a Public Safety Officer. He had two partners with him. All three were dressed in Kevlar armour and riot helmets. They wore black from head to toe except for their shining gold law enforcement badges.
“Mrs. Johnson?”
“I’m Mrs. Johnson.”
“We might want to talk about this inside.”
“Talk about what?”
“Inside, ma’am. Please. For your safety.
Helen’s mind raced with possibilities of what could bring them here at this time of day. Someone must be hurt or in trouble. A gnawing pit at the bottom of her stomach caused a pain so sharp it forced the breath from her.
She was frozen.
“Ma’am?” He had to repeat himself twice before she let them in.
“Of course.”
They followed her to the living room. Helen couldn’t bring herself to sit until the lead officer told her to. She was so nervous she would have smoked two cigarettes at once if she were prone to smoking them at all.
“What… What is this about?”
“Well, ma’am. There’s been an accident.”
“An accident?”
“Yes. An accident. And before I tell you what happened I want to inform you that this sort of thing happens every now and again. There’s nothing to be done about it. It’s just one of those things.”
“One of those things?”
“Yes, ma’am. One of those things.”
The dread filled her belly with warm worry and crept up her face, making her ears hot and red.
“Well…” She couldn’t remember what she wanted to say, so she said this instead, “why don’t you sit down before you tell me what happened.”
“I’d rather stand, ma’am.”
“Mm-hmm…”
“You are Helen Johnson, correct?” She nodded in the affirmative. “And you are the mother of one Timothy Johnson, correct?” Again she nodded.
Tears appeared in her eyes, but the moisture clung to them. It was if they couldn’t decide if they should roll down her cheek or not yet.
“It is my duty to inform you that your son has been shot and killed in a minor firearms accident.”
She was in shock. The officer doubted she heard what he’d just said, so he repeated himself. “Ma’am. I regret to inform you that your son is dead. There were shots fired in his playground at school. He was killed in the crossfire.”
He wondered if she was going to say or do anything.
“I’m very sorry for your loss, ma’am.”
Her focus suddenly snapped to the officer’s eyes. They locked gazes. He could see the rage in her, welling up like a spring.
“Ma’am.”
“You…” She said this calmly. None of the officers could have expected what happened next. “You bastards killed my boy!”
She was hunched over now.
Crying.
Hard.
“We didn’t, ma’am.”
“You killed him…” she fell to her knees and began pounding the officer in the waist, holding on to him.
“Ma’am, you’re hysterical.”
She pounded harder and harder, then screamed, “Why?! Why did you do this to me?!”
The officer backed up and drew his own pistol. “Ma’am, you’re hysterical. One more move and I’ll be forced to shoot.”
“GOD-DAMN YOU AND YOUR GUNS!”
She was shrieking now, no discernible words left her lips.
Standing up, she lunged at the officer.
He fired four rounds into her body before she hit the floor.
“We better go report this.”
The officer standing behind him, watching the whole thing, shook his head. “You think they wouldn’t do this…”
The third cop was a little surprised. “This has happened before?”
“All the time.”
“Seems like more and more, people just don’t know how to handle themselves.”
The man who shot her looked down, examining the body. “She wasn’t wearing her badge and gun, either.”
“No wonder she attacked you like that, she was crazy to begin with.”
“Mm-hmm…”
And they left to report this. They left Helen laying on the floor and paid Fred a visit at work to tell him about the tragic deaths of his wife and youngest son.
To them, it was business as usual.
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