Smith and Wesson

That scorching sun wasn’t lying. It made every blistering moment of my torment feel intentional. I looked up at it, squinting like always. That made me frown and wonder if that day would be my last. Finally.

I felt for my 38, clipped in the holster at my side. Five rounds only with a covered flap. Sometimes I would pull it out in the sweltering car and marvel at the scratched bullets. Like someone took the time to handle each one, squeezing the lead tip as if they could make a better bullet.

But what could be better? You’d hear stories about others who played with theirs, and then what? Forgotten heroes, dreaming of what exactly? To be these targets while the real heroes rode around in their air-conditioned cars and collected special constable salaries? RCMP wannabes who took a three-month course so they wouldn't have to be doughboys like us who endured the heat of the day.

Radio Check. The crackling lives of the others came to life for their brief call signs. Nanoo Nanoo. Wise Charlie and a motley crew of others, giving evidence of their willingness to guard the embassies and residences of diplomatic staff. Reporting their fitness to the task of laying down their lives for a minimum wage. Some were students who took courses at a local university during the day and then worked evenings and even nights to pay their living expenses. How they endured the twelve-hour night shifts and then still went to classes was something none of them could explain.

I asked one. It was still cool. Morning, even, the dew glistening on my regulation black boots. I was standing there beside the decrepit car that always smelled of heat and expired clothing. He wouldn’t even look at me as he packed his textbooks into his bag.

I, of course, came a half hour early so he could be on his way. Then my relief would do the same for me twelve hours later. A courtesy we extended when we worked the same site for more than just a day or two.

“Huh? Quiet Night?” I asked, as if I didn’t already know the answer.

“Yeah” was the reply. “But did you hear the one about a doofus who shot himself by accident! I heard it on the local channel.”

“You’re kidding!”

“I think it was Wise Charlie who is in the hospital. They’re going to try and save his leg.”

“The same one that would aim his gun at squirrels and scream up and down the street at three am?”

“Same.”

Of course, those were the days when they still gave you warnings for things that would get you instantly fired now. “Those poor squirrels,” one wise ass joked when I was his relief one day. “They got themselves a real nut for a change.”

I’d laugh. Some of those security guards were real kidders. Long hours staring at nothing will do that to you.

But this day saw someone I had only heard about in stories do something with his gun that only a nut job could do. I found out later that his leg was saved even though the bullet had travelled down so far it went through the floorboard of the car. Like he had been playing with it while it was still in his holster.

I emptied the bullets from mine that very day and tried to see what angle you’d have to point it to do such a thing to yourself. It wasn’t something I enjoyed doing. Then I put all those beaten-up bullets back. Only five bullets for six chambers. I always wondered about that. Then someone told me that Smith & Wesson revolvers typically had only five chambers, whereas our “specials” had six. But still only five bullets.

“One chance in six of not offing yourself,” another kidder joked at another time. “Sort of like reverse Russian Roulette.”

But that time I didn’t laugh. And he was only smiling as he regaled me. Smiling like I was any old idiot selling myself cheap for the sake of a job.

#

Being full time part of the time did have some advantages. I was classified as part-time even though I worked up to 40 hours a week. The full-time employees did 60 hours or more. A few worked 12-hour shifts for weeks on end. Especially when there weren’t enough bodies to fill all the uniforms needed on site.

The Royal Mounted Police would punt the security guard company off their contract with External Affairs if it became general knowledge how many hours we were working. Or maybe they did know, and they didn’t care. In our training, we would fire five rounds at a target at a firing range. If you hit the target once you pass. It was all a joke until it wasn’t. The day of reckoning came fast.

I wasn’t working. In fact, I had moved on. Teacher’s Ed was my stint now. It came over the news. Or my mind only half took it in. The sleepless nights and depression only came later.

The Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia had a plan for Turkish embassies worldwide. They picked their targets carefully. It was not hard to guess why the Turkish embassy in Ottawa, Canada, became a target. We had it coming for us.

Claude Brunelle had five bullets for three terrorists. He hit none of them. When they found him, his gun was empty. All the security guards were fired shortly afterward. The RCMP, in their air-conditioned cars, would have to serve as sitting ducks.

Luckily for me, my first year of teaching was uneventful. Somehow, I was gifted a pair of dress pants in the exact shade of the uniform I used to wear. I hated wearing them and eventually threw them away.

No one remembers Claude Brunelle. He wasn’t a hero. No one working for a minimum wage ever could be, could they? At least that’s what I told myself.