Squirrel

      BY THE TIME I noticed the squirrel, it was way past too late.
      The squirrel had already eyeballed my driver’s license and the paper forms for the gun purchase with all my private information on them, and so had a firm fix on my telephone number, home address and who knows what the fuck else.
      In other words, the squirrel already knew who I was.
      Not a good thing when you just laid down $1,788 cash for a brand-new, top-of-the-line H&K semi-automatic and all the beautiful .45-caliber shit that went along with it.
      Not a good thing when you looked like a clean, decent American who probably held down a cool job.
      Not a good thing when the squirrel now knows you live in a nice house full of bright and shiny objects and where that is, exactly.
      The lazy gun store clerk, a stooping, fumbling old dork with a beer-stained mustache that needed the attention of a hedge-trimmer and a little soap and water, had spread everything out, all the identifying paperwork, for his own convenience atop the long glass table near the cash register.
      All out in clear sight of any fuzzball who happened to sidle up and pretend to scope out the heavy artillery behind him or in the gun case below.
      There Andy the Clerk worked at his own pace, oblivious to the obvious security risk this posed to the customer, namely me, taking his time even though he had filled in these same goddamn BATFE forms a hundred times, a thousand times, glancing from license to form and back again as if he had never done this shit before in his life.
      I found some room next to my hat that I had earlier set down near Andy’s paperwork buffet and dumped some of the additional purchases I’d been making in anticipation of playing with my first handgun.
      Beside the black plastic gun case in which my prize beauty lay, I heaped a pair of ear protectors and safety glasses, a box of Winchester 230-grain hollow-point Self Defense ammo, one of the best according to gun guru Ayoob, a range bag to throw it all in, handfuls of cleaning supplies: the works.
      Yet when I stepped up to the dumbo and his forms, I was waved away for the third time and told, pleasantly at least by Andy the Clerk, “We’ve still got a ways to go yet.”
      That was when I laid eyes on the squirrel, a muscular douchebag of medium height with the word “felon” imprinted all over his meth-lab, scuzzy face.
      Like the clerk, the squirrel also sported a mustache, this one more red than brown.  It was the same color as his abundant hair.  At least it was all neatly trimmed.
      A peel of thunder rocked the store and everybody looked outside to watch the rain hammer in from the dark clouds that rolled along the sky.
      Everybody looked, that is, except me and the squirrel.
      I stole another peek to make him good.  The squirrel wore a thin light blue nylon sports shirt, non-descript, like the rest of his clothing.  I thought it interesting that there was a ring on the wedding finger.  No tattoos, no obvious signs that he was a squirrel, other than the fidgety, furtive looks he was giving me now that I’d come back to the front table to check on the progress of my paperwork.
      ​Jesus H. Christ, it was so fucking blatant.  Even before I got up front I could see the squirrel reading my driver’s license upside-down and scanning the BATFE forms.    
      My stomach churned.
      The squirrel shot me a weaselly side glance after the realization struck HIM that HE was being scoped.
      Then it dawned on ME what he was really up to.
      ​He knew that I knew and immediately began babbling to another clerk, a tall college-age geek with a blonde crew cut and orange fingertips, an obvious clue to his Doritos addiction.  
      I couldn’t hear exactly what they were talking about, but the clerk reached up to his nose and pushed back his steel-rim glasses with one finger, then dipped under the counter for a well-used Ruger that he laid on the glass after jacking the slide open.
      ​The squirrel picked up the weapon and sprung the magazine to examine it for shells.  He gripped it like a pro and racked it three or four times.  At arm’s length, left eye closed, he sighted down the weapon, moving it slowly across his front, like the rotation of a battleship turret.  When it got too close to the clerk’s chest, the kid stuck his finger up so it touched the end of the barrel before it could zero in on his chest.  
      The squirrel laughed nervously, said he was sorry, put the gun down on the table and eyeballed it some more.  He and the clerk continued to jaw back and forth in low tones.  The clerk reached behind the counter and brought out an American flag patch.  It was some kind of freebie.  The squirrel put it in his side pocket.
      From then on, whenever he thought I wasn’t watching, the squirrel stole looks at me, sizing me up.  Against his will, since he knew I was on to him, his eyes kept zipping to the paperwork again, as if he were trying to nail the numbers in what was left of his mind.
      I was in a goddamn jam and I knew it.  Predictably, I started to sweat, like I always do when I know I’m fucked.  My armpits got soaked; my forehead gushed.  This wasn’t cool at all.  I turned away and went shopping again down the holster aisle.  I had to think.  I had to figure out what to do.  The smell of fresh gun leather had a calming effect.
      It was my wife that worried me most.  Today I put her right into danger’s path with my own stupidity.
      She had begged me not to get the fucking gun.  She said, “Stan, what do you need it for after all these years?”
      I said, “Everyone has a gun.  It’s no big deal.  What if somebody breaks in?”
      “Stan, no one’s ever tried to break in.  Our neighborhood’s safe.  It’s a good neighborhood.  There’s no crime.  There’s never been a crime.”
      No use.  My mind was made up.  I always wanted a handgun.  I wanted to feel it in my palm: solid, a weapon, potent … excuse me; all the crappy Freudian terminology applied.  But, yeah, a weapon of my own meant no one could hurt us, or come through my front door or a window with the intent to kill and us defenseless.
      So I started shopping around.  I read gun magazines.  I watched gun videos on YouTube.  I searched the Net for information.  I went to a few gun stores, hefted the pieces, gripped them, imagined shooting them.
      I signed up for the beginner’s gun class.  They gave us .22s to futz with, and all the different calibers to pass around and handle.  My instructor talked too fast.  But on the range I shot better than anyone.  I liked sighting in, looking at the top of the “pumpkin” and squeezing, slowly squeezing, the trigger.  I dug hearing the muffled “BANG!” through my ears protector when the gun thuggishly pushed my hand back after it fired.
      When the one-time class was over, I was sold.  They let us check out any guns in the store we wanted.  After that I knew what I had to have.  I was excited.
      I told Suzy when I got home, “I’m going to get that gun.”  
      She told me, “You’re crazy.”
      As the weeks passed, she resisted less and less.  I wore her down.
      Yet the more I thought about it, the more the doubts grew. I got spooked.
      I thought about where I would keep the weapon, and even though the kid was away at college I worried whether he would come home depressed again and find it. I read an article about gun owner liability in case of an accidental discharge.  I worried if I’d remember to flip the safety off when the bad guys busted in. There’s a lot of stress in a home defense situation.  I don’t handle stress well.
      Tell the fucking truth, I was about to chicken out on buying the gun when fate intervened.
      The model I was lusting after, an expert’s .45, was being discontinued.  I found that out strictly by chance after I had called the factory again to talk about the gun.  They rarely took my calls but sometimes they did.  It was always the same guy.  He was bored with customers who wanted to talk about the product.  Go figure.
      I think to get rid of me the H&K guy told me they sent all the rest of the models they had in stock I was interested in to a dealer in Oklahoma.  So I called down to the old Sooner State for the hell of it and I spoke to a great guy.  The upshot was they were fucking GIVING these gorgeous weapons away.  The price was more than right.  The guy even threw in a set of tritium night sights for the piece.  The four magazines cost extra, though.
      “Have fun,” he told me.
      The big day finally arrived on a Tuesday.  I had ordered the gun on a Friday.  They sent my weapon to the store in the next town as I requested.
      You see, I was trying to be careful and not attract any attention in the gun store in the city where I lived by buying the best gun H&K sold.  So I figured I’d drive over to Cedar Heights and get in there and get out.  Then I could drive home and play with it, learn it, clean it, shoot it, with no one I personally knew the wiser.  I was being smart, see?
      That morning I drove to the sheriff’s office to get my purchase permit.  No big deal.  I aced the silly little pissant gun safety quiz the badges used to weed out the doofuses.  I signed everything in quadruplicate, fueled up on coffee and gas and drove into town with the small yellow permit card inside my loaded wallet.
      But I was already sweating bullets, as they say.  It was dark and gloomy, ready to pour, as I’ve noted.  The calendar in the sheriff’s office reminded me it was the 13th of the month, a bad omen.  Nor, as I drove to pick up my gun, did I relish coming home later and showing Suzy my surprise purchase, even though I used all my own money I got from this and that, not the family’s.
      Now this.  I had opened myself up to this.
      The squirrel was a threat I would never in life have ever encountered, let alone bumped into had I not gone into that goddamn gun store with that stupid goddamn clerk.  Now I had to worry about this shit, about the squirrel killing me and raping her.  It was unbelievable.
      I came back to the desk and added a box of .45 target ammo to the pile.  Andy had good news for me.
      “We” were all done.
      So was the squirrel.  He had seen all he needed to see.
      Now he was somewhere else, behind me several aisles away.  
      I checked him out again.  He was definitely with some other guy I never even noticed before, although this one was less threatening and more normal looking.  They held a fake conversation while they pretended to shop.
      In front of me, all my purchases were logged in.  I furtively handed over my wad of cash.  Andy the Asshole Clerk slowly counted it bill by bill while I looked around to see who else was watching.  I turned back.  Andy was happy.
      “We’re all set,” he announced cheerfully.  “Now let me show you this gun’s safety features.”
      “It’s required by law,” he added when he saw the angry look on my face.
      I wasn’t pissed about the mandatory safety lecture.
      I cut to the chase:  “Can we do this in the back room, please? I don’t want to stand out here anymore.”
      I grabbed the big, heavy plastic bag full of all my gun goodies.  Andy carried out the gun case and my new .45.  We went to the armorer’s table out of sight of the customers.  I finally stopped sweating.
      “Look,” I lit into him before he could launch into his safety features spiel.  “I was damned uncomfortable out there.  You had all my paperwork spread out, and my home information on the counter.  Anybody could see it.  That squirrel was looking at it.  You know who I’m talking about.”
      Andy looked properly downcast.
      “Yeah, I hear you, Mr. Logan.  I’ve tried to get them to change how we do that.”
      Oh, fucking bullshit.
      “Well, Andy, now this guy knows who I am and he knows where to get this gun if he wants it.”
      Andy rubbed his jaw.  
      “I know his friend.  I think his name’s Tunney.  I’ll ask Tunney about him.  I’ve talked to his friend before.”
      “Well, Jesus Christ, don’t be obvious about it!  I don’t want to create a big scene, you know.”
      “Sure.”
      “Call me if he’s like bad news, you know?”
      “Sure.  Sure I will.”
      Sure I will hell.
      The safety features segment was less than worthless.  Andy the Clerk didn’t even know how to field-strip the gun.
      He fumbled with the slide lock and after he took the barrel and recoil spring out, he dropped them.  All the metal pieces clanged when they hit.  It was all I could do not to put the piece back together, load it and shoot his stupid ass.
      I trembled all the way home in the driving rain.
      The gun was in my trunk, as required by law.  But when I had slammed the trunk shut, my license plate popped out of its holder.  So I had to drive home with the plate propped up by my coat in the rear window, bait for any cop who wanted to pull me over with my new gun in the car.  It was legal, but who wanted to go through that hassle?
      Suzy was working.  I had taken the day off.  I was alone.  The street was deserted when I drove up.  I had made it home without any further shit.  The garage door clanked shut behind me.  I sat in the seat for a few minutes, calming down, listening to the rain pound.  Now what?
      I popped the trunk, now minus its license plate, and got out.  The bag of gun stuff and the gun case was still wet.  I looked at everything without touching anything until the garage light winked off.  There was a pair of windows looking out onto the street.  The storm blew a swirling parade of brown leaves past them.  I went inside with my arms full of stuff and upstairs to the bedroom and the bed.  I felt sick to my stomach.  A cold killer knew where I lived, where my wife lived.
      There was nobody outside, but then again the weather was shit.  The squirrel wouldn’t come at me today anyway, I figured.  He’d think I was ready for him with the gun loaded since I had just brought it home.  He’d wait until my defenses were down and after I had grown careless again.
      Then I thought, maybe he wasn’t even thinking like that.  Maybe he didn’t want any trouble, just the weapon.  Maybe I was just one on a list of target addresses he kept, and that when he came to my town he would just cruise by, check to see if there was anybody home and then steal my gun.
      I called the gun shop and asked for Andy.  Andy was supposed to call me and warn me about the squirrel.  Somebody else, I think it was that tall Doritos junkie, told me Andy had gone out.  Shit.
      I didn’t want my house ransacked by some maniac.  
      Sometimes, I read, after they got what they wanted, they trashed the place for the hell of it.  Just trashed it.  Smeared shit all over the walls, plugged the sinks, ran the water, went wild with sledgehammers.  All my stuff, all our antiques, just completely wasted.
      So I mulled that over.  I looked out the windows every 10 minutes for strangers, or cars drifting by too slowly, trying to catch a house number.  Nobody yet.  I sat back down on the bed.  Hours passed.  I loaded the gun just in case, following the manual exactly.  Putting the bullets into the magazine was harder than it looked.  But I kept the magazine separate.  I didn’t want any accidents.
      My cell phone buzzed. It was an advertisement to upgrade my service.  I called the gun shop again.  Andy was still on his fucking break or whatever.
      A thought struck.  If it was me, I’d wait until morning.  I’d watch the house a few times and nail down the schedule, when we both left and what time.  I’d make sure I had the pattern right.  Then I’d hide and wait for one of us to come out in the dark, stupid with sleep and thinking about the office.  I’d take the hostage, make her or me come back to the house and take over, have my way, you know.  That scenario got me sweating again.
      I called the store again.  No fucking Andy.
      There’s so much to do.  I can’t fire the gun without cleaning it.  I have to sight it in first.  I have to go to the range.  I never got a holster.  Fuck!  Where do I put the thing until I get a chance to explain the gun to Suzy?
      I stuffed everything into the range bag except for the gun and put the satchel on the floor next to my side of the bed.  I went from window to window, looking out, .45 in one hand, loaded magazine in the other.  More rain.  No people.  It was getting dark out.  I looked at the clock.  Holy shit!  It was almost 4!
      What the hell do I do?  My cell phone was still open.  I hit the gun store number and asked the Doritos clerk with the steel-rimmed glasses where the fuck was Andy.
      He muffled the phone against his chest, but I still heard the son of a bitch:
      “Hey Andy!  That squirrel’s calling you again!”  

— DAVID JOSEPH KOLB

David Joseph Kolb of Grand Haven, Michigan, is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune and elsewhere. Kolb has written one novel, the critically acclaimed saga of murder and madness during America’s first century, “Devil Knows”.