The Day He Left His Gun at Home

By the time Grant Keller hung up on the IRS, he wanted to break something. Not metaphorically. He wanted the tactile satisfaction of destruction. A coffee mug against the kitchen wall. His phone through the television. His fist through drywall. Something that would make a noise proportionate to what was happening inside his skull. Instead, he put his phone on the counter.

               Carefully.

               That somehow made him angrier. Forty-seven minutes on hold had become 63 minutes of being transferred, repeating his Social Security number, explaining the same problem, and listening to a woman speak to him as though financial hardship were a character defect. Before that had been the argument with Melinda. Before Melinda had been the checking account. Before the checking account had been three months of bills arriving faster than money.

               Grant stood alone in the kitchen of his house in Douglas, Wyoming, staring at absolutely nothing. His keys were beside the sink.

               Wallet.

               Phone.

               Sig Sauer P229.

               The four things he carried almost everywhere.

               He had owned the pistol for years. The unique .40SIG was heavy compared with newer carry guns, but Grant liked heavy. He liked knowing it was there. He had carried through grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants, road trips, hardware stores, movie theaters, and thousands of ordinary days during which absolutely nothing happened. He had never drawn it on anyone. Never pointed it at anyone. Never needed it. He hoped that remained true forever.

               Grant reached for the pistol. His hand stopped six inches above it. He thought about the argument. Melinda crying. His own voice becoming louder. The IRS woman. The fantasy about smashing his phone. The pressure behind his eyes. He withdrew his hand. “Not today,” he muttered. It was perhaps the most responsible decision Grant Keller had made in months. He grabbed everything else and left.

               Casper was 45 minutes away if traffic cooperated and Grant drove like somebody who wanted to get there. That afternoon, he did. Wyoming rolled past him beneath an enormous blue sky, miles of brown grass and open country offering precisely what he wanted: nothing.

               Nothing asking him for money.

               Nothing disappointed in him.

               Nothing playing hold music.

               By Glenrock, his breathing had slowed. By the outskirts of Casper, he almost felt stupid for leaving angry. He considered turning around. Instead, he stopped for lunch, wandered through a sporting-goods store without buying anything, then drove aimlessly until he remembered they needed furnace filters. Home Depot. Of course.

               Even during an existential crisis, apparently somebody had to maintain the fucking furnace. Grant parked near the contractor entrance. For perhaps the thousandth time since leaving Douglas, his right hand brushed his hip. Empty. The absence bothered him. That surprised him. He had deliberately left the Sig behind because he had been too angry to trust himself with it, and now that the anger was fading, he felt naked. He almost laughed. Years carrying the thing and never once needing it. One afternoon without it would not kill him. Grant walked inside.

               The Casper Home Depot smelled like lumber, fertilizer, cardboard, and concrete dust. Normal smells. Safe smells. A forklift beeped somewhere near the back. A toddler screamed because his mother would not let him carry a toilet plunger. Two employees discussed somebody's lunch break. Grant found the filters. Twenty by 25 by one.

               He stared at the options. Cheap. Expensive. More expensive with promises about allergens that sounded suspiciously like marketing bullshit. He picked the middle one. His phone buzzed.

               MELINDA.

               He stared at her name. The fight returned in fragments.

               You don't listen.

               I'm trying.

               You're always trying, Grant. When does anything actually get better?

               He declined the call. Immediately regretted it. His thumb hovered over her name. That was when the first shot sounded. Grant looked toward the front of the store. Something heavy had fallen. That was his first thought. Then came another. And another. Three flat cracks. Screaming followed. Grant dropped the furnace filter. For years, he had imagined this moment.

               Most people who carried probably had, whether they admitted it or not.

               Restaurant.

               Gas station.

               Parking lot.

               Some psychopath kicking open a door.

               In every imaginary version, Grant had his Sig. In every imaginary version, his hand knew exactly where to go. Now his hand slapped empty denim. “Fuck.”

               People began running. The transformation happened instantly. Customers ceased being customers. Employees ceased being employees. Human beings became a herd. A woman crashed into a display of five-gallon buckets. An elderly man stood motionless in the center aisle while people flowed around him. Somewhere a child shrieked for his father.

               Another shot.

               Closer.

               Grant's body wanted to run. Every civilized thought vanished beneath one biological command.

               Move.

               He ran. Not toward the sound. Not yet. He made it halfway toward the rear before seeing the little girl. Maybe eight. Maybe nine. She crouched beside a pallet of mulch, hands clamped over her ears. Everyone passed her. Grant nearly did too. He stopped so violently his shoes squealed. “Hey.” She looked up. Her face was wet. “Where's your mom?” The girl pointed toward the front. Of course she did. Another series of shots answered for her. Grant crouched. “What’s your name?”

               “Emily.”

               “Okay, Emily. You're coming with me.”

               “My mom…”

               “We're going somewhere safe first.”

               He took her hand. The strange thing was how calm his voice sounded. His heart was trying to break his ribs, but his voice belonged to somebody else. He moved Emily toward the rear. A young employee waved frantically from an open receiving area. “Here! Come on!”

               Grant pushed Emily toward him. “Take her.”

               The employee grabbed her. Emily refused to release Grant's hand. “My mom.”

               Grant looked at her fingers wrapped around his. Then toward the front. Another scream. Then silence. Not complete silence. Worse. Whimpering. Running feet. A distant alarm. But the gunfire had stopped. Grant peeled Emily's fingers away. “I'll look for her.” He had absolutely no fucking idea why he said it.

               Grant moved back through the store. Everything inside him screamed that this was stupid. He was unarmed. He was 44 years old. His knees hurt when storms came through. He had never served in combat. Never been a cop. Never shot anything more dangerous than paper and prairie dogs. Yet he kept moving. He saw blood near Appliances. A man lay facedown beside a refrigerator display. Grant did not stop. Then he saw the shooter. Young. That surprised him.

               Grant would remember stupid details afterward. Gray sweatshirt. Black pants. Thin shoulders. A face that looked almost bored. The rifle looked enormous in his hands. Grant ducked behind an endcap before the man saw him. His body shook. Every fantasy he had ever entertained about stopping a bad guy evaporated. This was not exhilarating.

               It was fucking terrifying.

               Grant wanted his Sig. God, he wanted it. He imagined its weight. Thumb. Grip. Sights. Everything familiar. Instead, his hands were empty. The shooter walked past the next aisle. Grant remained still. He could leave. The rear exit was accessible. Police were undoubtedly coming. He had gotten Emily out. He had done enough.

               Then he heard a woman crying. “Please.”

               Grant closed his eyes. The shooter said something Grant could not understand. The woman pleaded again. Something inside Grant changed. It was not courage. Courage was too clean a word. This felt filthy. Primitive. His fear remained, but something moved underneath it. Grant looked around. Hardware. Shelving. Tools. A thousand objects designed to build civilization. Funny how quickly civilization disappeared. He moved.

               The woman was on the floor. The shooter stood several yards away, distracted by something toward the registers. Grant saw him from behind. There should have been thought. There wasn't. Grant rushed him. The shooter began turning. Grant hit him with everything he had. They crashed into shelving. The rifle struck concrete. The sound was deafening. Grant felt something tear in his shoulder. The shooter swung wildly and caught Grant across the mouth.

               White light exploded behind Grant's eyes. He tasted blood. They fell. Grant had imagined gunfights. He had never imagined this. Sweat. Breath. Fingernails. Teeth. The smell of another terrified human being. The shooter clawed toward the rifle. Grant grabbed his ankle. The man kicked him in the face. Grant's nose erupted. He held on. The shooter kicked again. Something inside Grant's mouth split. Still, he held on. The rifle lay perhaps three feet away. The shooter stretched toward it.

               Grant saw his fingertips touch the stock. Then Grant was on him. He did not remember deciding. One second he was holding the man's leg. The next he was straddling him. Grant punched him.

               Once.

               Again.

               Again.

               The shooter covered his face. Grant hit around the hands. The man's head struck concrete. Grant hit him again. Someone screamed for him to stop. He didn't. The shooter was no longer reaching for the rifle. Grant punched him. Blood covered his knuckles. The man beneath him made a wet choking sound. Grant hit him again. “Sir!”

               Hands grabbed Grant's shoulders. He threw them off. He struck the shooter again. The face beneath him barely resembled the young man he had seen walking through the aisle. Something cracked beneath Grant's fist. And that was the moment. The moment he would never tell Melinda about.

               Never tell police.

               Never tell reporters.

               Never tell anyone.

               Because Grant realized he was not afraid anymore. He was not protecting Emily. He was not protecting the crying woman. He was not thinking about the dead man near Appliances. He was not even thinking about the rifle. He simply wanted to hit him again. For the mortgage. For the credit cards. For the IRS. For the months of waking at three in the morning calculating numbers that never worked. For Melinda asking when anything was going to get better. For every humiliating phone call. Every overdue notice.

               Every time he had swallowed anger because there was nowhere appropriate to put it.

               Here was somewhere. Here was something he was allowed to destroy. Something everyone would thank him for destroying. Grant raised his fist. The shooter looked at him through what remained of one open eye. There was terror there. Pure animal terror. Grant recognized it. He had felt the same thing minutes earlier. Now he was causing it. And God help him, that felt good.

               “GET OFF HIM!”

               Grant froze. Police. Weapons trained. Commands. Grant lifted his hands. Only then did he see what he had done.

               They called him a hero. Grant hated the word before sunset. Seven people had been shot. Two died. Others survived. Emily's mother was among them, wounded in the shoulder but alive. The crying woman Grant had seen on the floor hugged him so hard he could barely breathe. Someone had recorded part of the struggle. Of course they had. By evening, his name was online.

               WYOMING MAN TACKLES HOME DEPOT SHOOTER

               Then someone discovered the detail reporters loved most. Grant Keller had a concealed-carry permit. Grant Keller normally carried a .40SIG. Grant Keller had inexplicably left his firearm at home that day. That became the story. Reporters wanted to know whether he wished he had been armed. One asked whether more lives could have been saved. Another wanted to know why an experienced gun owner had chosen that particular day to leave his weapon behind.

               Grant gave them nothing. Melinda drove from Douglas. She found him sitting on the back of an ambulance with gauze beneath his nose and somebody else's blood dried beneath his fingernails. She slapped him. Then hugged him. Then slapped him again.

               “What the fuck were you thinking?”

               Grant laughed. He could not help it. She started laughing too. Then both of them cried.

               It was after midnight when they got home. The house looked exactly as Grant had left it. Coffee mug on the counter. Mail. A chair slightly crooked from the argument. Sixty-three minutes of IRS hold music somehow belonged to another lifetime. Melinda went upstairs. Grant remained in the kitchen. His Sig Sauer P229 was still on the counter. Exactly where he had left it. He stared at it. For years, Grant had believed carrying the pistol meant accepting responsibility. Perhaps it did.

               He had imagined himself protecting his family. Protecting strangers. Being ready when other people were not. Yet the only day violence had actually found him was the day he had consciously chosen to be helpless. Except he had not been helpless. That was what bothered him. Grant looked at his hands. The knuckles were swollen purple. Skin missing. Someone else's blood remained beneath two fingernails despite washing them repeatedly at the hospital.

               He remembered the shooter's face. Not the ruined version. The expression immediately before Grant's final raised fist.

               Fear.

               The same fear Grant had once imagined a criminal seeing when confronted with the muzzle of his .40SIG. Except there had been no gun between them. Nothing separating Grant from what he was doing. Just flesh against flesh. Animal against animal. Melinda appeared in the doorway. “You coming upstairs?”

               “In a minute.”

               She noticed the pistol. For several seconds neither spoke. Then she asked the question every reporter had asked. “Do you wish you'd taken it?”

               Grant looked at the Sig. He thought about Emily. Her mother. The rifle. The concrete. The sensation of bone yielding beneath his fist. He thought about how badly he had wanted to continue. If he had brought the pistol, perhaps everything would have ended differently. Faster. Cleaner. Maybe two people would still be alive. Maybe Grant would be dead. There were a thousand alternate versions of the afternoon. He would spend the rest of his life imagining them.

               But only one thing was certain. If Grant had carried his gun into Home Depot, he might have learned what it felt like to shoot another human being. Because he had left it home, he had learned something far worse. He had learned what it felt like to kill with his hands. And how difficult it had been to stop.

               Grant picked up the Sig. For the first time in years, its weight did not comfort him. He opened the safe. Placed the pistol inside. Closed the door. Melinda waited. Grant switched off the kitchen light and followed his wife upstairs.