“One. Two. Three.” He counted, but I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready. I squeezed the trigger and slammed backwards into his body. My glasses went flying off of my face while my arms went straight up into the sky with the force of the gun. My dad’s hand thrusted forward catching the barrel with a smack right before it went in a line straight down his face. This was the thing about him. He never missed. Never.
Since he was holding the gun now, I shoved my hands in my pockets and kicked the dust. Something else I sucked at. Awesome.
“You hit it.” He said. “I’ll be damned.” He walked towards the tree that the target had been nailed to. I grabbed my glasses off the ground, and while I ran to catch up, I was squinting my eyes to see while wiping the dry Georgia dust off my glasses.
He ripped it off the tree and handed it to me. Sure enough, the bullseye was blown out of the center. I did it. I actually did it! I looked up at him as he lit a cigarette, and squinted off the sun that was lighting up the hair on the top of his head making his hair look more red now than brown.
“I’m proud of you.” He said. “That was a great shot.”
Cool. Way, way cool. I can’t believe I did it.
“Ok. Now, one more thing I got to show you.” He lined my body up against his again and we faced the open field behind the tree I shot. “You gotta cock it again, because sometimes when you cock them, you don’t end up having to take the shot, so you need to know how to uncock it.”
“I don’t want to.” I said. I was done. I didn’t like that feeling bubbling up in my stomach again, and biscuits just don’t taste as good the second time around.
“Not a choice.”
I knew that voice. He wasn’t giving in.
“You got to cock it and then to release the hammer, you got to pull the trigger at the same time.”
“But it will go off if I pull the trigger!”
“Not if you do it right, you’ve got to learn, and it’s the only way to do it. Point the gun to the ground and pull the hammer back, I ain’t got all day.” He stomped his cigarette into the red clay.
The gun was so heavy it was hard to not let it touch the ground since my hand was sweaty and slipping on the barrel.
“Hold still.” He said.
I felt the ridges under my thumb pressing hard willing it with all my might to stay in my control as my finger found the trigger.
There was an explosive ringing in my ears as if a thousand cymbals smashed within my head. Suddenly I was in a cloud of dust, tiny rocks pinging my face so hard they felt like bee stings. There was a hole the size of my head within an inch of my right foot, which seemed to be buried in the dirt that had come out of the hole.
“No need to tell your mother about this.” He said stifling a laugh as he walked to the truck putting the gun on the rack in the back window while I dusted the dirt and pebbles out of my hair.