I wait for Dad to roll over on the couch and enter the REM state of sleep before I go back and sneak into his closet with a black garbage sack. It’s in the corner, behind his flannels, and I pray it’s not loaded because the thought freaks me out.
I grab a throw blanket off his bed and tuck it in around the rifle, then peek down the hallway to make sure Dad’s still out (although I know he’ll be out for at least two hours).
It’s a go.
I feel like a criminal.
I am a criminal.
Is it considered stealing if it comes from your own house?
Surely not.
Ever-so-quietly, I sneak out the front door and choose to leave the door open since I’ll be right back.
I’m eighty-five percent sure there’s a pawn shop next to this buffet restaurant that I’ve eaten at before. Before now, I’ve never given much thought about pawn shops, and basically all I know is that they give you money for items that you can come back and get.
I’m extra attentive to the speed limit signs because getting pulled over with a gun in a trash bag would not be a good thing. My hands are at ten and two on the wheel, and I’m using my turn signal like never before.
It’s about five minutes from my house, and approaching the major intersection I squint to see the shop on the corner of the strip mall. Bars are in the windows. They buy gold and silver. The sign says All-American PAWN Shop. I wonder what this has to do with being American. I pull around the parking lot once. It’s disgusting. Trash, excessive oil spillage from broken-down cars, and faded yellow lines giving people a vague idea of where to park. I feel sketchy already.
I find the closest parking space possible, one reserved with two old Happy Meal boxes that have been run over a time or two. I sit in my car for just a few minutes to observe the people going in and out of this place. A young couple, about my age, gets out of their beater—a faded chalky red color—and the dad pulls an infant carrier with a baby from the backseat. The baby is asleep. What are they here to hock? Trading a necklace for diapers wouldn’t be a bad thing at all. You gotta do what you gotta do.
I sit for a while longer, glancing in my rearview mirror a couple of times.
The gun isn’t going to walk in and pawn itself, so I get out of the car and open the back door. Without opening the bag I feel around to make sure I grab the gun barrel-down. Am I really doing this?
The sidewalk is uneven so I walk extra slowly and extra carefully.
A gun.
I’m carrying a gun for God’s sake.
As I push through the door a buzzer rings. It’s a department store on a smaller scale. An electronics department showcases flat screen TVs, and they’re all on the same channel showing the evening news. I pass through kitchen appliances then walk back to the counter, and I notice the security monitors showing about nine angles of the parking lot before I even notice the worker.
“Whatcha got?” He looks down at my bag.
My response is delayed because I’m incredibly distracted by the handgun holstered to his hip, partly concealed by his belly fat. Good grief—could a hiccup trigger that gun?
“Uhh,” is all I can come up with. I reveal the rifle and place it on the counter. I smell power tools and electronics with a hint of men’s cologne. Cheap cologne.
“Uh huh . . . You’ve gotcha an old twenty-two, do ya?” I begin to shake when he opens it up and starts making all those loud gun-cocking noises.
“Yeah.”
“What, you givin’ up deer hunting this year?” He cracks himself up.
I fake laugh then respond, “Yeah.”
He pulls out a blank order form and starts filling out information about the gun in all capital letters . . . serial number and description. There’s a box with a dollar sign showing that sixty dollars is the principle amount of the loan. I don’t bother with reading the volume’s worth of fine print because I’ll be back by tomorrow to retrieve it. He points to a place for me to write my information and sign at the bottom. I decide—on the fly—that I’ll give all correct information, and it’s a good thing I do because he asks for my driver’s license.
It takes no time for him to verify my information and pull three twenties from the cash drawer. And boom. I’m pulling out with sixty bucks.