My grandfather cleans his gun on the split-pea-green velvet couch in front of the TV. The Macy’s Day parade has just begun; A large red shoe floats down seventh avenue. A surrounding crowd cheers. I can smell the warmth of baking bread mix with the subtle scent of the chemical solvent my grandfather is wiping down the barrel of the shotgun. The morning light is near golden. My hands are clenched into tight fists and my armpits itch with the slight irritant of sweat.
My mother and grandmother are in the kitchen. My father is reading downstairs. My sister is still asleep. This is the time my grandfather made to turn me into a man; this is the time when I would show my family that I am growing in his likeness. That in my coming adulthood I will be strong, steady. I will be cold, I will be bright. I will be a ruthless yet magnanimous man. These are the words I’ve been taught to grow into; and today I prove my worth as such, in the same way my mother’s brothers did and the same way my grandfather did to his father.
I am the oldest in my family to do the ritual; most of my cousins did this around the age of ten, and I at 15, am considered something of a grotesquely late bloomer. In years past I’ve found every excuse not to do it: I’ve made myself sick with two fingers down my throat. I’ve knocked out teeth on table corners. I’ve claimed migraine nearly every other year. I’ve sought the defense of my father who claims the ritual to be barbaric. I’ve sought an argument in my grandfather’s own Jesus to no avail. Without choice, I concede to the ritual at last, to simply get it over with. One and Done, my grandfather says beneath the smirk of his bright silver mustache. One and Done, He says as he gets up off the couch and gestures for me to follow him. We walk through the kitchen. My dog whimpers at the sight of the gun. My grandmother turns around and remarks that she’ll be here waiting to get it ready when we’re all done. My mother stands silently, sadly, as I pass her by in my penultimate moments of boyhood. She says Love You beneath her breath. I say love you too beneath my own.
We slide open the glass doors leading from the kitchen out to the deck, looking down upon a clearing of dead grass. Deciduous trees staggered across the lawn fencing it off from the outside world. The anxious light of morning shimmers through crooked branches. My grandfather walks me to the edge of the deck, points down at the turkey peckings nuts from the bowl he’d set out at dawn. He tells me he’s proud of me then asks if I remember where to put the bullets. I say yes. I stare at the bird just a few hundred yards away as he puts the gun in my hands. It sinks in my arms. I hold it tight. I prop it on my leg and take bullets from the Remington box my grandfather placed on the banister. I drop them in like quarters to a gumball machine, hearing each drop with the weight of a heavy click. Five bullets in total: four in the mag and one in the chamber. He asks if I’m ready and I say yes.
Yes. I think to myself as I remember my posture as was taught to me, yes this is right, I think to myself as I shove the brick thick stock against my shoulder. I balance weight with perfect distribution between my legs, I breathe in and bring my chin to the cold metal stock of the gun. Feel it rub against my face. Close my left eye and line it all up; between the sights the bird bobs its head down to the little blue bowl. I remember to shoot with a slow breath out, steadying my hand on both barrel and trigger. I begin to say the mantra: one and done. I feel my index finger caress the trigger. I remember the feeling of learning to hold a pencil. I flick off the safety and lean back, accepting the coming blow. The violence I will share with the bird, the stock will kick back and bruise my shoulder, and for the better I will take some of this hit. I let my breath turn to mist and I grip the trigger. Clench my teeth and yank back with my whole body. Fall against the hard chest of my grandfather. My eyes unopened. I can hear the sounds of birds fluttering through bone like branches taking off from the floor of dead leaves. The world is cold as I consider what I’ve done. My grandfather’s hands tightly grabbing my shoulders. I understand that the carnage I’ll see in just a little while will have brought me somewhere better; somewhere close to the heart of tradition. No part of this feels good. The clenching of his hands is not that which holds in love, but rather the feeling of squeezing my shoulders as if to violently wake me into a nightmare. I open my eyes. The bird is waddling back into the thicket of twisted branches. The sun is bright and hits me like a warm shower. The sky a faint blue, the clouds sheepish. I drop the gun. My grandfather pushes me away in a rage, and slams open the door to the kitchen. I realize I’ve held the same breath this whole time. I let it go, go and live with whatever it is that just happened. I follow my grandfather inside, I hear him say to my mother and grandmother I’ve disappointed him again. That there’ll be nothing for them to do now. I feel tears warm like the sun not so long ago well up around my eyes. I head up the stairs after my grandfather. To say an apology maybe, to say something I don’t yet have the words for. I stomp up. He is in the storage room returning the gun to its case. He turns around and sees me. I take a deep breath, look him in the eye as if I’m looking down the line of the barrel and say, “I’m not sorry. I am happy I missed.” He slams the gun case shut and pushes me up against the wall. One hand on my throat lifting me just a hair’s width of the ground. I feel my body shake. I feel the scratchy fabric of his tweed jacket rub against my throat. I fail to breathe. Just faintly smell his aura of tobacco. And swiftly winding back his open arm he wallops with the weight of a cannonball. Everything clenched. I feel a slight brutality brush against my cheek and hear a crash bigger than gunshots. Lightheaded and airless, I pivot my head to see the crater just an inch from my face. He drops me to my knees, looks down and says “I’m not sorry either.”
At dinner there is an absence : The table is set with potatoes, stuffing, peas, bread, and pie. My family is gathered around, my mother drinks wine and my father sips cheap beer. My grandfather stares sadly into the empty oblivion of his protein-less plate. My grandmother looks thoughtfully at him. My sister at me. He makes a comment during prayer apologizing to everyone for the lack of Turkey. Everyone seizes up and brushes it off, my father looks at me with a grin untraceable to anyone else, it is kind, and I see the face of my mother and sister and they wear the same painted sympathy. I look at the hole in the table and know that it is for the better, I look at my grandfather and understand the same. While whatever hunger could linger from the lack of meat could easily be forgotten by the love brought here through the small act of understanding, it could all be forgotten by everyone except Frank. So while he passes the years expecting the world to never change, I’m watching it happen; even if it is an absence, it is an absence that leaves room for something kinder than the cold world he infinitely insists upon perpetuating. But I know my choice was right, I know there is nothing for which to be sorry, and comfort myself in the subtle understanding that Frank feels the exact same way.