Bull's Eye

I scan the dirt horizon taking careful note of the multiple shredded pop cans and other random objects. Most of the stone seats are broken and covered in shells of every flavor. It's heavier than I thought and I take care not to touch the trigger until I intend to squeeze, lest I do it accidentally. I take aim, later learning I was closing the wrong eye, and fire. It misses and I realize that in real life, my cross hairs don't automatically line up the target. They make it look easier than it is.

Just a few months ago, I got to go with my dad and one of his friends to fire his arsenal of weaponry. Now in most situations you hear of guys with a gun or two under the bed or whatever, but not this guy. This guy brought seven. He had two pistols, three revolvers, what I'd call a sniper because of its scope, and a rifle. For the sake of this man's safety, we'll call him Andy. (Of course, with that many weapons, he doesn't need my help.) Now, in a lot of situations Andy might seem like a dangerous person, but I don't think you understand how well he knows his weaponry. While we rode out to the range, he explained how he loads his own bullets and reuses shells. This isn't a concept many people hear about. In video games, you click on the gun you want and *poof* there it is: shiny, new, and full of perfectly filled bullets. In real life, however, bullets are carefully filled and measured with what you can only guess is a good amount of powder. To me it's just whatever works, but to Andy, it's a science. That's what made the experience fun.

Once we got to the range, he started by pulling out a small black case. He delicately placed it on the mangled stone table and opened it to reveal the angelic glow of the first weapon I've ever touched. He handed it to me gently and gave me a quick explanation of how it worked. His warning about the hammer of the gun being capable of tearing off the skin between your thumb and your index finger when it reloaded kept my hand awkwardly low on the handle. He set out three little spinny targets, which I quickly failed to dispatch. Sensing my discouragement, Andy gave me a different weapon, with which I also failed to hit anything.  He, however, expertly removed the cap of a standing Pepsi bottle.

I got my courage back after I took out three cans in a single clip with my new gun. Then he pulled out one I'll never forget: the infamous .44 Magnum. It was heavier than any of the other guns thus far, and I could practically feel the kick already. Andy took from his car a 2-liter bottle filled with water and placed it neatly on a cinder block on the range, after which he suggested I try a stance specially designed for firing guns. The bang of the bullet's release distracted me while the force of the kick of the gun almost hit me in the face. I staggered backward and barely kept the gun from bashing my nose in. As soon as my eyesight came back, I looked to see that I had chipped the edge of the cinder block and the bottle lay helpless, but still full of liquid, on the ground. Andy congratulated me and handed the .44 to my dad, instructing him to aim directly for the cinder block instead. The molded stone turned to rubble after the bullet passed through it. Andy, having made sure we experienced it, then took the .44 and quickly blew the downed bottle into a watery explosion.

He then gave me the rifle with .44 ammo in it and instructed me not to let it sit on my shoulder loosely because it would probably hurt if I did. This weapon, unlike the others, had a kick that went straight backward instead of up. I wasn't ready for that. Again I staggered and recovered to see I had missed. After that, he handed me a holster and said to put it on. After a minute of me reversing my belt and putting the holster on backwards, I was packing a .44 just like a gunslinger. (O Discordia!)

Next in line was Andy's personal favorite: the python. He told my dad and me how it was completely hand crafted and the rotating chamber didn't give an inch. After a few practice shots with that one, we decided to have a little free for all. Andy handed each of us a pistol, and we began to shoot at whatever didn't move on the rifle range. Bottles fell into even smaller pieces, coke cans fell and then were executed, even the remaining cinder pieces were turned to dust. Then came the gun I will truly never forget: the "sniper" rifle. Fitted with a scope I later learned was aimed to 100 meters, he drew it from his car by the polished stock. I didn't yet know that it would be my greatest triumph.

He placed the "sniper" on his homemade sand bags and made sure it was balanced. He placed another target on the field, but this one was a great deal farther away than the others. "How far is that?" I asked. "Hundred meters," Andy responded. I flashed back to my video games where I was an experienced sniper. Then I remembered the difference between games and reality, and my heart sank. If we were this far away then I could miss it by a lot. I had visions of somehow ricocheting the bullet off a tree and blowing up Andy's car. He invited me to sit in front of the gun and aim down the sights. Once we adjusted the zoom so I could see it, he took a step back saying, "Whenever you're ready."

I gripped the weapon tightly and tried to forget about my angst for a minute. I saw the target's center through the scope, 100 meters away from where I sat. The sight wobbled nervously around it, every breath I took shaking it around even more. I managed to turn the shaking into more of a small vibration centered around the target. I placed my finger on the trigger and just before I fired the first (and last) bullet, I relaxed with the sudden thought of a video game's message: "Press L3 to hold breath." Before I considered it, I pushed out all my air and held my lungs closed. The crack of the gun echoed through my ear plugs. Andy's disbelief sent him at a tense jog up to the target. My dad smiled at me, and I quickly followed Andy up the field. He stared astonished at the target and began to remove something. Before what I had done set in, he handed me the center circle of the target, which was actually a quarter. I smiled at my accomplishment and looked down the field at my father through the oblong hole in George Washington's face. Bull's eye.