Echo in an Open Field

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She gave me the handgun and locked the door.  She and her four compadres watched me expectantly from outside.  The room I was in was like a glass box—it was only about six by three feet, only the ceiling and the floor opaque.  The only light was from the adjoining room.  It smelled like basil, the only sound the incessant buzzing you hear in your mind when it’s silent.

“Kali,” I whispered.  “I hate you..”

Deep in my mind—maybe as deep as my subconscious—I knew it wasn’t Kali I hated; it was me, and it had been me my entire life.  That was why she’d given me the gun, wasn’t it?  So that I could show her and the rest of her gang what I was made of?  So I could end it?  The silver gun shined in the dim light.

Do it, Jake!  Shoot, you worthless screw-up! something in my mind yelled.  It hadn’t been my voice, I knew, but it was definitely me who’d said it.  That was what I’d really thought of myself for three years, although I’d never before admitted it to myself.  And now that I had, it seemed so merciful—“worthless screw-up” was only the top of the grave gate.

I felt like a lab rat, with Kali and her gang peering into the glass room at me.  A sinking feeling grew at the pit of my stomach, like I’d eaten a bag of rocks, as I examined the Ruger in my hand.  Without checking, I knew the clip was full; none of the bikers watching me from outside thought I could pull the trigger without quivering and missing, although I knew already that I could.  I’d done it once before.

&&&

Three years ago, my name was Andrew Keely.  I was an honor-roll student who had been described as decent and caring.  And I had been just that, for a while.

My home life then was fine, and I had no problems at school (nobody at school gives the fifth graders any problems—how many kids would want to get into it with the oldest kids in the school?); but rules at the playground were different.  I always wanted to be friends with the older kids like my brother Mike, but all they did was bully me and treat me like trash.  Every day, though, I went with Mike to the basketball court and weathered the abuse from his peers, hoping they’d start to like me better if I put up with it.

The way they treated me only got worse.  One of my brother’s classmates, Jeff, beat me up playing basketball on the afternoon after the last day of school.  The next day I came back with Mike, armed with my dad’s handgun.  The black pistol tucked into the waist of my jeans gleamed in the sunlight when I checked to make sure it was still there.  It was cool against my stomach, but still I began to sweat as I made my way toward the basketball court.  I knew who I was going to shoot.

When I pulled the pistol out, only a few kids noticed.  They started to scream, and soon everyone started to scramble.  I shot at them; or, at least, at everyone except my brother, who was coming toward me.  I made sure to aim low, because although I was angry I didn’t want to actually kill anyone.

Mike took the gun from me and shook me violently.  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he screamed at me.  We both tried not to look at the kids I’d shot, with their legs and backs gushing blood from their wounds.  I was glad, on some level, that I had done it, but when the reality of what I had done hit me, I drowned myself in guilt.  The police came and took me away less than five minutes later, paramedics rushing the wounded kids into ambulances and to the hospitals.

Nobody died—I’m glad for that now.  All twenty-four of the kids I shot recovered, although Jeffrey Ghomers was paralyzed from the waist down, and almost all of the victims went to see grief  and trauma counselors for a long time after I disappeared.  My trial lasted for over a year, along with several law suits being filed against my parents.

I was sent to the juvenile detention center at the eastern edge of town for eleven months.  My family rarely visited me, and the kids who’d called themselves my friends never came anywhere near the center.  The whole time all I could think of was ending my life, and how much easier that would be; they obviously didn’t need me anyway, right?  Maybe they were better off without me?

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