10GAUGETALE
(A number of years ago I wrote 13 stories about some of my experiences growing up – which in turn I had bound and gave to my three children as Christmas gifts. In the spirit of Christmas, I share one of those stories with you.)
As a youngster, it was one of the scariest things I can remember.
It was kept in a recess to the right in the coat closet off the kitchen – behind the ironing board. The shells were kept in the same closet, only on a shelf up and to the left, and only adults could reach them without a chair.
It was Dad’s 10-gauge, double-barreled shotgun. It was a thing to behold – and to give a wide berth.
It was a hammerlock, meaning that in order to fire it, you had to pull back -cock – the hammer behind each barrel.
The barrels were 48 inches long. The stock was wooden, with some fancy carvings that I remember thinking had to be some coded message from Transylvania about disfiguration and death. It weighed 16 pounds – meaning even if it just fell on you, it would hurt you.
When I was a toddler beginning to expand my world on two legs, my mother must have put the fear of God in me about this gun. Otherwise, it would not have carried the fear and fascination it did from the time I can remember to the day when I was old enough to shoot it.
I remember sitting in the closet many times, just looking at this phenomenon through the legs of the wooden ironing board – too afraid to reach through and touch, but still enthralled enough with the sight to want to watch. Maybe it was like when we witness the scene of a car accident after the paramedics have arrived but before the injured victims are removed.
Dad was not much of a hunter. But I remember one Christmas when I was 6 years old that my brother, who was four years my elder, got a 22-caliber rifle. The next day Dad took my brother hunting for small game in the woods on the property. That was the first time I remember seeing the gun out of the closet in the big, strong hands of my father. Upon their return, they had a squirrel – or at least what was left of one. I remember seeing the quarry in a pot after it had been cleaned. It had been shot by Dad in the front left-hand quarter, and a large portion of the squirrel was damaged beyond saving, and more had little bruises from stray shot.
When I was 10, Santa brought me a 410-gauge shotgun. It was a dwarf against Dad’s.
It was later that winter, after I’d been schooled in the handling of long guns, that I was given permission to shoot the cannon – Dad’s 10 gauge.
I had shot my 410 many times by then, and even my brother’s semi-automatic 22 once or twice. I was very confident, maybe even cocky about the thing that had so awestruck me ‘as a kid.’ I remember smiling at the silliness of being afraid of that gun. It was, after all, just another shotgun…
My Dad and brother waited outside in the slowly melting snow while I went to the closet for it. It was heavy, and only a little shorter than me. Its size and weight surprised me. I awkwardly and loudly put the firearm on the kitchen table. My four younger sisters looked at the gun the way I had for most of my life – with wonder and fear. Their stares gave me another dose of machismo. I pulled a chair over to the closet shelf and brought down the box of shells. The box was heavy too.
The shells were huge, I thought, as I placed the one-fourth empty box on the kitchen counter and opened it. They were four times the size of my 410 shells. I placed two of them it my coat pocket, making a weighty bulge on my right side. I picked up the gun again, too far back from its center of gravity, and the barrel ends rudely hit the floor. My Mom cleared her throat rather loudly, and I knew this event was not on her agenda for me today. She didn’t say anything, but it was clear to me that she did not approve of me with that gun, and the probable nick that had just been added to her kitchen. I reached farther down to where the stock met the barrel, picked it up, and headed for the door.
As competent as I was trying to look, the fact that this gun was a little big for me was given away by the fashion in which I had to back up to the front door to both open and close it. Making it outside had turned out to be a major achievement in my young life, and one that I wished there hadn’t been so many witnesses.
My Dad and brother moved up closer to the house as I exited. I wasn’t going to shoot anything, or even at anything in particular. I was just going to discharge the weapon in the general direction of the pasture to the South. Dad instructed that the lever on the top of the stock was the key to ‘breaking’ the gun, thereby opening the rear of the barrels for loading. I was barely spared the embarrassment of dropping the weapon into the snow as I flipped the lever and the heavy barrels dropped to a 45-degree angle.
The sudden downward weight shift rammed the stock into my armpit. I didn’t make a sound for the bruise I had just given myself, but the look on my father’s face told me he was enjoying the wince on mine. “Hang on to it there boy,” he admonished with a definite tone of glee in his voice. It didn’t help that my brother seemed to be enjoying this too, but I was thankful that he was keeping his mouth shut.
I had the gun under my right arm. The shells were in my right pocket. “Another stupid move,” I thought to myself. I was grateful that at least I had enough presence of mind remaining to clumsily shift the gun to my left side rather than try to reach the ammunition across my body – and the gun – with my left hand.
My body was pumping adrenaline as the time was getting closer to the moment of truth, and this symbol of manhood. My right hand fumbled for a shell, and I finally pulled one out and shakily dropped it into the right-side barrel. I reached in for the other, but Dad sternly suggested that one at a time was enough. It took most of my strength and all of my frame to lift the barrels back to alignment with the stock and firing mechanism. I was breathing heavily – both from exertion and excitement.
Now to cock the hammer behind the loaded barrel. I couldn’t do it with a thumb alone and had to turn and position the gun to get the heel of my palm on it. As the gun turned with the maneuver, father and brother made a quick and conspicuous move from my right to my backside. As I struggled and finally cocked the hammer, I caught a glance of the covey of eyes watching from behind the windows in the house. There were going to be plenty of witnesses if I shot myself in the foot – either literally or figuratively.
There were two triggers. The one on the right was about an inch forward of its parallel mate.
I shifted the gun back to my right side. After all that had occurred in the last ten minutes, it took all of my remaining strength to raise it to my right shoulder and get it somewhat balanced. I shifted my head to the right slightly to get an eye looking down the barrel.
“Hold the butt tight against your shoulder”, advised Dad, “It has a bit of a kick.” Aiming out toward the pasture, I pulled the trigger.
The sound was deafening. My right ear was within inches of the explosion.
That wasn’t the half of it. The energy from the recoil, produced by the detonation of more than a tablespoon of gunpowder concentrated down the long barrel, passed almost simultaneously to my right shoulder. The power of the blast propelling the shot also had the effect of throwing the barrel end of the gun upwards. These combined forces, coupled with the concussion of sound, sent me back and spinning to the right, and flat on my behind.
I could hear a distinctive and constant ringing in my right ear – like I was getting earphone tested for a high tone and the technician had turned up the volume, forgot me, went to lunch, and left the sound on. My left ear was recording what I quickly surmised was some loud laughter, interrupted with even louder guffaws.
“Ha, Ha” I said smugly, trying to regain some dignity. I was really trying to figure out what happened. There I was, sitting in the snow with this now dormant, fire breathing dragon, its tail still stuck to my shoulder, its body draped across my right leg, and its hot head buried in snow that was melting around its last exhale. I sat there, disoriented, for what seemed like an eternity – unable to move.
Semi-consciousness then told me my brother was trying to pick up the gun from me. He obviously didn’t realize that it was now part of me – a third arm embedded in my shoulder. I let go. It was crude and non-sterile surgery.
Next, from behind, I felt the strong hands and arms of my father lifting me to my feet. As my left ear rose farther from the ground and closer to his face it registered that he was still chuckling. He held me upright for a minute, then asked, “Are you OK?” The insincere question was followed by more sniveling chuckles. He let go.
“Yeah, I’m fine” I said as I started to brush the snow off my tush. I was immediately reminded that my right shoulder was extremely sore and quickly switched the brushing job to the left. The heat on my face told me that it had to be bright red.
“That gun demands a little respect, doesn’t it?” asked Dad. Without waiting for a reply, he went on. “You didn’t have the butt tight against your shoulder, and your left foot was too open. You’ve got to stand sideways to your target when you use it.” Being a man of few words, his critique was finished.
“You’ve got another shell,” he reminded me. “Want to shoot it off?”
All that was reasonable in me said no. No, it was stronger than just no. It was more like “You’ve got to kidding.” “Hell no!” “There ought to be a law against the thing!” Higher and more definite degrees of no. My ear was ringing, my shoulder was badly bruised, my ass was wet, my ego was in the outhouse, and I wanted to leave for South America on the next boat. No. No! No!!
“Absolutely,” I lied.
My brother handed me the gun with the streaks made by his tears still on his face.
I went through the ritual of breaking, loading, and cocking again – with more deliberation but less confidence than the first time. As I put the stock up to the crevice between my arm and torso, I squelched a moan from the intensified pain that it provoked.
I took my time this time. Taking my father’s advice, I put my left foot farther away from the right, and directly in line with my left arm and hand that were holding the gun. I really didn’t want to do this now. I rigidly braced my body and legs – and let the dragon loose again.
The sound likely sent all the livestock scurrying again for cover and woke any of the neighbors within a mile who may have been trying to nap. Small children within earshot undoubtedly rushed to their mothers’ aprons. Local civil defense officials were likely trying to verify whether the Russians had indeed landed, and the Cold War was over.
The blast severely rocked me, but my right foot and leg held – and I was still standing.
It was a major accomplishment of my young life – both mental and physical – acknowledged this time with words simulating “Well done.” My shoulder hurt like hell, but the puffiness in my chest overcame it, at least temporarily. I lowered the gun, shifted its weight to the left side, broke the breach and removed the spent shell.
It was still hot and smoking. I flipped it to my Dad who caught it with an approving nod, and a look of satisfaction on his face that likely resembled mine – but for different reasons. A look toward my brother brought a half-mocking clap of his hands toward me. The females of the family were still at the windows on the first floor facing south, and all rushed to the door as I entered like St. George coming home with the slain dragon.
The gun was returned to its spot in the closet. I did not shoot it again for years.
Merry Christmas!
