I’d always heard that the definition of insanity was repeating the same behavior and expecting a different result. But something didn’t click with the dart gun. There was no high afterward, not even a little.
In a bold move, I pulled a Britney and shaved my head. I get why she did it. It’s freeing. I once read that Britney Spears shaved her luscious locks to strip herself of her sexuality. I didn’t buy it. It was all the crap you battled, day after day, month after month for years that finally reached its apex. To the naked eye, it looked like she snapped when really the girl was tired of being a puppet. I totally got it. Sometimes, the most shocking acts were the sanest.
My phone chimed with a text that my Uber driver was five minutes away from the apartment. I slung my black ski bag over my shoulder, tucked the fake ID into the front of my wallet, and was about to lock the door behind me when I remembered the bag with my disassembled dart gun. I grabbed the bag and was locking the door when a voice hit my ear.
“Wow, check you out.”
I turned around. A neighbor I barely exchanged hellos with was right outside my door. The dude was in my bubble.
“Thanks. Thought it was time to mix things up.”
He chuckled. “Respect. Not sure I’d go into the winter with a shaved head, but”—he shrugged—“it’ll save time in the morning.”
I nodded.
“You headed to the mountains?” He nodded toward my ski bag.
“As soon as they open.”
“Huh.” The guy seemed fixated on the bag.
“Fucker.”
Agreed.
I elbowed my bag. “Yeah, picking up new alpine skis.”
When he didn’t seem convinced, I told him the truth. “Actually,” I said, leaning toward him, “I ordered an Uber so I can go buy a rifle. You know, something small like an AK-47.”
“Sure.” The guy laughed. “You get the guns and I’ll line up the dope.”
“Next time,” I said, heading toward the stairwell. I wasn’t about to take the elevator and have to deal with someone else.
“Fucking people.”
I know, right?
I passed the dumpster on my way to the Uber and chucked the remnants of the dart gun into the trash before tossing the bag in as well. I separated them on purpose. People got caught because they were stupid.
“You’re anything but stupid.”
Precisely my point.
Both Ohio and Wyoming allowed people to openly carry firearms without any state permit. Anyone twenty-one years or older could openly carry a weapon. Neither state required a universal background check at the point of sale either, unless I was stupid and bought it from a licensed firearm dealer. But like David reminded me, I wasn’t stupid.
When my Uber driver pulled alongside the pawn shop, a credit card linked to a prepaid debit card paid my fare. For anyone interested, David Ducharme took an Uber from the college apartments to the pawn shop.
I hopped out of the car and headed toward the pawn shop that was sketchy as fuck. It was in one of those strip malls beside other random shops that sold useless shit like rugs, lamps, and lightbulbs. There was even a VCR repair shop.
“What the hell?”
I scoffed, agreeing.
I opened the door and bells rang.
“Jesus. Bells? What is this, church?”
I grinned.
“Be right with you,” a male voice said from the depths of the store. The place was huge, like a bulk store for people’s castaways.
“It’s okay, Pedro, I’ve got it.” An Asian woman who was probably a few years older than me approached the counter. “Is there something I can help you find?”
Her super-short blue hair matched her eyes. A black scarf was tied around her slender neck, and big hoop earrings dangled onto her narrow shoulders. She had on a white thermal and black leggings and wore both exceptionally well. She reminded me of someone so much that I found myself staring at her.
“Looking for skis?” she said.
“Oh, uh, not really.” I felt heat rush to my face, so I quickly glanced toward the tower of DVDs on the wall behind her. A stack of anime movies caught my attention, which was when it hit me. I returned my focus to her and stared into eyes that were as blue as the ocean and just as deep. “Has anyone told you that you look like Bulma from Dragonball Z?”
When she smiled, dimples appeared on each side of her face. “Yeah, I’ve heard that.”
“You an anime fan?” I asked.
“If you pick the right year, yeah.”
That did more than pique my curiosity. It flat-out wooed me. “I’m a fan of One Piece, early 2000s.”
She grinned. “Fairy Tale is more my style, 2009.”
I shook my head. “Nah, doesn’t count. The first season is always the best.”
Her entire face and parts of her neck turned red. “Okay, Korea Boo, then, 2014.”
I laughed. “Korea Boo? Good try. Those are Japanese anime.”
“Just checking if you knew the difference,” she said.
I stole a quick glance at her name tag, which was upside down. All I could make out was that it began with a K—or maybe it ended with a K—and had a lot of vowels in between.
“Are you Japanese?” Asking someone their ethnicity wasn’t something I normally did. But neither was taking an Uber to a pawn shop to buy a gun. It seemed to be a day of firsts.
“Well, at least you didn’t ask if I was Chinese, Japanese, or my favorite, Asian. Or better still, where I’m really from.”
“I don’t even know where to start. First off, I apologize if I was rude.”
“You weren’t,” she said. “You were actually straightforward, and I appreciate that. I’m Korean.” She flipped her name tag around.
“Katie?”
“I was adopted.”
“Cool.”
Her dimples appeared again. “Is it?” She shook her head and shades of blue swooshed back and forth. “My name is as American as it gets.”
I shrugged. “It’s a stupid cultural thing Americans do—we either name our kids after ourselves or someone we want to impress.”
She laughed.
“I gotta tell ya, I’m still stuck on the Asian thing. People really ask if you’re Asian?”
“All the time.”
“Don’t they realize that Asia is an umbrella for multiple ethnicities and geographies? Are they total morons?”
“Yes,” she said with a chuckle. “They usually are. Or they ask if I’m Asian American, as if I can only be from one particular place.”
“I’m sorry.” It was all I knew to say.
“It’s okay. After you’ve been asked what kind of Asian you are, you learn tricks to mess with them.”
I leaned toward the counter that separated us and got a hint of honeysuckle-scented perfume. “Such as…?”
“When someone asks where I’m from, I tell them that I’m from Utah and then ask where they’re from.”
I laughed. “Oh shit. What happens?”
“There’s usually this pause like they’re really confused. Because clearly someone who looks like me could not be from America. So of course they press.” Her eyes narrowed when she spoke. “‘No, where are you really from?’ they ask. As if Utah couldn’t possibly be my home state.”
I shook my head, which would’ve looked better if I still had hair. “That’s bullshit. No one’s really American. We all migrated here or were forcibly brought here. We’re all immigrants of some sort. America is too young a country to pull that card. Older countries are smarter. In China there are more than fifty ethnic groups. If the US ever conducted an honest census, I’d bet money there are hundreds of thousands of ethnic groups thriving in our country that just aren’t recognized.” I paused and took a step off my soapbox. “Sorry.” I paused again. “I’m in my last year of college, and current events are really all I get excited about anymore. And I tend to get a little crazy when I hear stupid shit.”
“No apology necessary. It’s refreshing. Most people don’t know their own state, let alone the geography or history of another one. I don’t mind if people ask me, like you did, if I’m Japanese or Korean or, hell, from outer space. I’ll answer a direct question, no problem. It’s when they follow it by telling me how much they like pad thai, which isn’t a Korean food, and even if it was, why tell me? What does that have to do with anything? Somehow who I am reminds them of a meal? It’s not like I go up to Americans and say, ‘Hey, I like hamburgers and fries. Nice to meet you.’”
I laughed. Her candor was invigorating. She was a stunner both physically and mentally. I knew I had to bring my A-game, which included a healthy dose of realism. “In four years of college, I’ve learned one thing—people are stupid.”
She giggled.
“Do you speak Korean?” I asked, and her blue eyes practically danced.
“No one ever asks me that. I wish I did, but I left Korea when I was six months old, and my parents only speak English.”
When I didn’t comment, she smiled again.
“So you’re not going to ask me how much they paid to get me?”
Shocked, nervous laughter escaped me. “Jesus, no. What the fuck?”
“If I’m not grilled about where I’m from, which shuts some people down when I don’t give them the answer they want, what always holds their interest is when someone finds out I was adopted.” She leaned her elbows on the glass counter and barely took up any space. “Adoption brings up a whole new round of questions, like how much my parents bought me for.”
I rolled my eyes. “Seriously, like I said, people are stupid.” I scratched the back of my head, which was usually covered with hair.
“Trying to get ahead of a receding hairline?” she asked with a flip of her chin toward me.
“How’d you guess?” I palmed my scalp and stubble moved back and forth across my fingers.
“So, baldy, what can I help you find today?”
Suddenly the reality of why I was there didn’t press on me with the same intensity as it had when I left. But David did.
“Buy the gun.”
I shook my head and scanned the contents of the glass-enclosed counter. Rings. Pocket watches. Knives. My focus returned to the rings.
“Could I see that ruby ring?” I tapped the glass with my finger.
“Excellent choice,” she said.
“It’s not what you think.” I smiled. “My mom’s….”
“Don’t be the pathetic loser with the sick mom.”
“My brother and I got my mom this really awful fake ruby ring for Mother’s Day once, and I’ve always wanted to make it right.”
“Ahhh.”
I purposefully exaggerated my eye roll. “If you saw what we gave her, you’d understand.”
“I bet it was perfect.” She unlocked the glass cabinet and fished out the ring, then handed it to me.
“Well fuck, if you aren’t going to get a gun, at least have the balls to ask her out.”
“Uh.” I shook my head and stared at the red stone. “There’s a really dope anime conference in California that I was thinking of going to.” I glanced up into her blue eyes. “Road-tripping with another anime nerd would make the trip a thousand times better.”
Before she could reject my offer, a dude in a camo jacket approached. “Hey, babe, need help with anything?”
“Pedro, I was just showing….” Her face and neck blotched red. “I forgot to get your name.”
I shrugged. “David. I’m David.”
She grinned. “David was interested in getting his mom a ring.”
It sounded as pathetic as David warned me it would. I instantly handed her back the ring and directed my attention to Pedro. “Actually, I was hoping to look at your guns.”