Punk and Zen (16 page)

The paper fluttered and grew larger as it came closer,
and I could see the results for myself—a neat hole with slight scorch marks
around the edges went through what had been the drawn shirt pocket of the
figure.

“Man, oh, man, straight for the heart—great shot!
You’re a natural, Nina. Let’s try that again.”

Cap pressed the button, and as the chain wound its way
back, another target appeared at the end.

I could smell something in the air, I didn’t know
what, and my ears still rang. Oh, my God, I had a loaded gun in my hands and
was afraid to let go, to drop it, to move in any direction and accidentally
hurt someone.

That possibility kept repeating itself in my head. I
could decide at any second to turn that gun on Cap, on myself, at anyone, and
that would be that. I could kill someone, including myself, thanks to this
thing in my hands. How could someone not be overwhelmed by that possibility?
There was, there is, no other purpose for a gun. I couldn’t use it to dig, or
to plant, or to build. All it did was what it was made to do—make holes in
things, and maim or even kill living ones.

I couldn’t find anything redeeming in that fact, and I
couldn’t put it down because I couldn’t think or see any place that would be
safe.

“Put the earphones on this time,” Cap reminded me.

I cocked the safety with my thumb and pointed the gun
at the floor, then looked at him. “Um, which hand should I use?” I asked a
touch more acidly than I’d meant to, “the one that steadies it or the one that
pulls the trigger?”

“Give me that,” he laughed, “and put those on.” He
indicated with his chin toward the ledge where my phones sat.

I let my left hand relax off the grip, but still
careful to point it down, I handed him the gun and noticed as I did that he
wore both a pair of green-tinted shooting glasses and bright orange earphones.

My rental ones were blue, and they felt heavy as I
slid them on, not at all like my DJ headphones.

“I’m gonna take a shot, okay?” Cap asked, his voice
muffled and distant through the protective ear gear as he squeezed beside me to
aim down the range.

“Yeah, sure, go ahead,” I answered as loudly as I
could so he could hear me, and nodded as well, just in case he didn’t. I backed
out of his way as he leaned his elbows on the ledge and took aim.

“You so do not shoot like a girl,” he chortled,
thumbing the safety and taking position at the ledge. I watched over his
shoulder as the sound of a distant firecracker went off and light flared for a
moment from the end of the pistol.

I tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked him with real curiosity and a touch of
annoyance.

“I’ll show you.” He grinned, then quickly set himself
up to pop off another two rounds.

He pushed the recall button, and as the target swung
its way back to us, I could see three holes: one in the same place mine had
been, another in the belly, and the third dead center of the pants zipper.

“You see,” he explained, pointing, “girls tend to go
for the gut and the groin, even when they’re not looking at the target.”

He pressed another button that would set up a new
target, then glanced at me with a slitted, sidewise look.

“Always remember that, Nina. Girls will always go for
the gut or the groin.”

“Hey!” I protested, “that’s not fair. I’m a girl, and that’s
not what I—”

“You’re a woman, Nina,” he interrupted me, waving a
hand, the other one holding the gun securely on the ledge and pointed toward
the range, “a young one, but still a woman. And one with an edge, at that. Even
more, you’re an adult—something rare.”

He looked at me very seriously, and I arched an
eyebrow in return.

I didn’t feel very adult or womanly—edgy, maybe, but I
figured that was due to hormones. I mean, I didn’t think I knew what I was
doing or had some sort of internal sense of, I don’t know, certainty maybe, or
direction, something—something I assumed that adults had, but I didn’t.

Cap must have understood the expression on my face.
“Keep shooting straight for the heart, Nina, and you’ll be fine.”

We were silent, Cap letting his words sink in, and I
quietly absorbing them. Then Cap grinned. “Come on, it’s your turn. Let’s work
on your technique and make sure you know what you’re doing.”

We spent a whole lot more time getting me comfortable
with a gun, and between that and the whole morning thing, I had a lot to think
about on the drive back to the apartment.

I so wished I didn’t feel like I was always trying to
catch up to everything and everyone around me, I thought as I watched the
streets fly by from the window.

“Trace,” Cap said quietly as he drove, “she’s not it
for you, right?”

Great. Awesome. Straight to the one thing I didn’t
want to talk about. Forget shooting for the heart—this went straight for the
gut.

Pain bubbled up in my chest, so big, so hard, it
squeezed me airless, and even worse, it
hurt
, throbbing in time with my
heartbeat, because deep down, I knew what, I knew who was it for me and it was
never going to happen.

Cap swung the jeep over to the curb so quickly we
almost tipped. He set the car in park and twisted in his seat toward me. “Nina,
what happened?” he asked me, his voice full of concern. “Is it Trace? She get a
little too, ah, nuts with you?”

I faced the window, took a breath and then another as
I got swamped between waves of memory—this morning and Van’s eyes and the very
visceral memory of my Samantha, my Sammy Blade. I missed her so much my blood
flayed me within as it flowed and all my brain was able to form was her image
and Van’s expression, and they were twisting together over and over and making
me nauseous.

But it wasn’t just that or them—thinking of Samantha
made me think of all the other friends I’d had, friends I hadn’t seen in years.
Fran, Francesca, whom we’d called “Kitt” on the swim team and her perfect
smile, a really good friend, someone I’d even liked and spent a lot of time
with outside of school. Laura and her flaming red hair, so determined, so
fierce. Even my first girlfriend, Kerry, who’d been my best friend for a time.
You’d think she’d have shown up at the Red Spot every now and again; after all,
she’d introduced me to it.

But I saw no one—except Nico when he was around and
very occasionally our parents and little sister Nanny since I’d moved/been
kicked out/run away—that perspective depended upon who you asked. But still,
even with the buffering presence of my aunt and cousins, that was strained at
ABC best. Everyone else was new to me in one way or another, and I
always felt like I was struggling to catch up or something, because I just
wasn’t where they were at.

God, it sucked. After some unknown time, I was finally
able to breathe through it, the nausea, the weird coldness that sucked at my
skin and left my chest hollow. I tore my gaze from the window to answer him.

“It’s not Trace, I mean, not right now, anyway,” I
said finally as I faced him.

Yeah, that was lame, but that was all I had—I couldn’t
tell him about this morning, I mean, what the fuck, Trace went out and got
laid, big deal, right? She had every right to, didn’t she? I should’ve either
just played it off or stopped down later. Dammit, though, why should it have
bothered me? How did I explain that? How could I explain it? Silence settled
between us like the heavy humid air.

“Why don’t you tell me about whoever it is, then?” Cap
asked, his words cutting through the silence. “I can see that someone still
means a lot to you and…Trace will never be it, and she knows it, too.”

Floored, I stared at him wordlessly. Trace made me
hurt, in ways I didn’t know I could, and I’d been through quite a bit already,
but the ache Trace left in me was a ghost, a ghost of the yawning chasm
Samantha’s absence had left within me. He was right—it would never be Trace,
but it would never be Samantha, either. It had been years since I’d seen her,
and even had I wanted to, I had no way of even knowing where to start looking
if I wanted to find her—or anyone else, for that matter.

Who knew? Cap had taken me out to teach me how to
handle a gun, and he’d given me the key I needed to break free. That…was the
past, not the present. And not the future either, my brain told me mournfully,
but I told that part to stop. It was way past time to get over it.

I took a deep breath and considered before I answered.
“Cap, Trace could’ve been it. We could’ve really had something, something
really good, if she just didn’t—”

“Attempt to seduce every living being in front of
you?” he finished wryly. “You know she’s just playing the I Dare You game,
don’t you?”

“Huh?” Did he know what had happened this morning? If
he didn’t, I wasn’t going to tell him. I fished my cigarettes and lighter out
of my back pocket. If this conversation was going to continue in the direction
that I thought it was, I was going to need nicotine.

“Nina, come on. You show me yours, I’ll show you mine,
that game?” he hinted.

I thought he’d left his mind behind in the shooting
range. Besides, it wasn’t as if Trace and I hadn’t seen each other naked. We’d
taken showers together, for chrissake, and slept skin to skin half the time.
Well, before now. That was never going to happen again.

“Um, Cap? I’ve seen Trace naked.” I blushed as I said
it, thinking of just how naked I’d seen her this morning. But otherwise, it
wasn’t as if he didn’t know. Plenty of times he’d bounced into the bedroom and
onto the bed, waking us both up and forcing one or both of us to cover
ourselves or each other. Actually that kind of—no, wait. It did piss me off.
But now wasn’t the time to discuss it.

Cap snorted. “Yeah, I don’t mean that. I’m talking
about feelings—show yours first, then she’ll show hers.”

I exhaled slowly and let the smoke drift away. I’d
been on the right track, then. It really was about mutual surrender, and one
concession on mine would have meant one on hers. But I wasn’t comfortable with
that scenario. Why did it have to be this whole dramatic submission thing? I
voiced that part to Cap.

He grabbed a cigarette of his own and lit it. “Why did
you turn her down, kid?” He exhaled. “You had no problem with that chicky you’d
just met—the one up in the DJ booth.”

What was this about? Did he and Jackie and Trace get together
to discuss my affairs, or had the story merely made the rounds? Or was I just
currently their only topic of conversation? Either way, I wasn’t happy about
it.

“Hey, look,” I began, defensively. I mean, none of
this seemed fair, you know? “First off, Trace sent her in there. Second of all,
it’s nobody’s fuckin’ business, and you know what? She didn’t play any fuckin’
games with me. She was honest about what she wanted, and I was feeling loose
enough to go with it!” I retorted. What the fuck was up with these people?
What, everyone’s allowed to screw around but me? Oh, hell, they probably all
got together when I wasn’t around to laugh about me.

Cap’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll bet you didn’t let her
touch you, though, did you?”

My cigarette burned unheeded as I stared at him in
shock. “What the hell did you just say?” I finally blurted out.

Slowly and methodically, Cap ground out the end of his
cigarette into the ashtray until the unburned tobacco fell out in shreds. “I
said,” he began very slowly and evenly, “you don’t let anyone touch you.”

I shook my head from side to side in disbelief. “I
can’t”—I waved my hands before me in negation—“this is just…” I didn’t know
what to say. I flicked that dead cigarette far out into the street, then ran my
hands through my hair, making it stand up higher.

That was it. Enough was enough. I’d had it, and this
conversation was over. I unsnapped my seat belt and hopped out of the jeep.
“I’ll meet you back at the apartment. Thanks for the lesson,” I told Cap as I
closed the door and started walking. Oh, hell, it was only about a mile back to
the apartment. I ran more than that, so this wasn’t really a big deal.

I stared blindly at the sidewalk as I mechanically
moved my feet. God, ABC how unfucking-believable, though. What made him
even think of saying that? True or not, that was beside the point. What gave
him or anyone else the right to discuss whether or not I allowed anyone to
touch me? My body. Period, end. There should be no discussion; at least, that’s
how I saw it.

Cap and his jeep pulled up alongside me. “Get in the
jeep, Nina. This is a bad neighborhood. You don’t want to walk through here.”

“Yeah, well, I know how to handle a gun now. I’ll be
fine,” I shot back at him with a glare. I stopped and quickly lit a cigarette,
then kept going. Cap paced me with his jeep.

We traveled that way for a few moments, me walking,
him trailing me with the jeep, until finally I stopped and faced him. Cap cut
the motor.

“Why do you care?” I asked him across the space
between us. “What does it matter, anyway? It’s my body, and I decide, not you,
not anyone else, what I want and don’t want on it, in it, or around it.”