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Jane Dabate
Breaking It Down The Preface:
The silver 0.22 calibre was packed in the basement safe like a fish in a tin. Elvis was gaming with his boys upstairs when Nancy cracked the code and held the firearm for the first time. Guessing the passcode was no painless feat. First she tried her own birthday and then Elvis’ birthday, both times producing the sharp beep and red blink of error. Then, she finally and correctly supposed it to be the birthday of his mistress. Nancy knew about the mistress because Elvis smelled like aldehydic amber when he got back on weekday evenings late. She knew the mistress was named Katie because of push notifications.
But Nancy did not know anything about Katie. She had not cared to. So before the locked safe in the basement, two incorrect attempts deep, Nancy thought to check Facebook. Katie was friends with her husband. After punching in the birthday, the safe door hinged open like a tomb. She reached for the pistol.
The Pistol’s Soliloquy:
I am no Saturday Night Special. Latency is grace and grace is power. I am just like a dormant volcano, whose unknowable catastrophic potential provokes unease across ages, without discharge let alone devastation. But I could. My power is in my promise. Virtuous restraint enacted by my licensed owners, who handle me wonderfully. Their personal agenda a mystery to me, and I am not curious. I am, however, bored.
I have had the same eight bullets lodged inside me like necrotic organs since my purchase in ’08. Like the jellies of your gut, like a child imagining swallowed gum. I am full. I am yet to spit, locked in this tin box. A sardine, the narrator says. The punchline of a summer salad.
I have never cried or had a nightmare because I am literally a gun, very tough. I was made for punching out blood. I was sold in a contentious political context. As a moral statement. I was purchased at the mall of all places.
The Mall Speaks:
Imagine my surprise: Let’s sell Glocks by the food court! Talk about politics all you like. To me, this was personal. While I am no ‘temple of solace’ I do not irreverently condone violence either. Even my cops are phony and armed with nothing more than plastic badges, out of deference to my credo.
My credo is a sloppy paradox about vacancy and bounty.
You might wonder what kind of entity a shopping mall is. The word ‘institution’, perhaps? But that is not quite right. Institutions have a public face, a univocal posture, whereas a mall is a loose conglomerate, a pale summit, all delegates and no charter.
Make no mistake, I am, discreetly, more than the sum of my enterprises. To most, the mall seems as open as the road, as made for roaming as any park or piazza. But above the atrium there is an invisible corporate ownership. The CEO of the mall is an absent parent who kicks back on alimony.
The aesthetic that malls such as I embody is so tipsy on consumption and divorced from the sublime that only preteens could truly find solace in my veins.
The Pistol Provides Context For His Acquisition:
I could not say whether Elvis wanted anybody dead when he bought me, loaded me, and locked me up. Likely not, because I laid in the safe until Nancy picked me up and stroked me nice like a domestic shorthair. The purchase of me by Elvis was legal and traceable and I cannot resent him. That day I sensed he had big plans but nothing came to fruition. Was I sad? I was not. I was proud and unfeeling. The bottom line is that everything is forgivable. Everything is forgivable, and circular. The second Nancy touched me gently, I wanted to sneeze a bullet clean out.
I think back to my purchase at the mall. Back then, a child I was, exposed behind glass which glared by the fluorescence of the shop. Outside the mall was warmer, a blondely lit fountain and the pink loungewear store beyond. But I was a boy thing, seriously gray, zoo’d up and for sale. Elvis tossed me between his palms, tested my weight.
Nancy touched me like a girl touches her sister’s hair, oohing. I am graceful because I wait my turn. Elvis might not have believed in me, but Nancy knows I am capable of delivering private justice, and that makes me feel marvellous.
Nancy’s Hand:
She does not know exactly what she is thinking, but I do. Whether this renders me an accessory or an accomplice, I don’t mind. I go where Nancy goes. Sometimes I even go a step further. Right now I’ve gone up the stairs with this gun flat on my palm, pressed close against me like after a bad lay with a twin bed. I am shaking with anger about Elvis’ Katie.
My primary function over the years has been to gently comfort, hold, touch Elvis. I offered that man care and guided him into pleasure. Now my devotion is shot, and Nancy does not know what to do. But I know what to do.
Nancy’s Nail Polish:
I’m a newborn: shy of a week old, still pink and sparkly and perfect. I was presented to the hand of Nancy in a moment of tranquility and equilibrium. We met inside the shopping mall, in a pretty salon with gold lights and beige leather chairs and hundreds of other colours to choose from. I had always existed there as a force yet to be animated. A twinkle bottled in glass, dreaming of conception by purchase and happy use. In this way I relate to the gun, who is also from the mall, who Nancy is introducing me to. I see him as I peek over her fingertips. He is one handsome toy.
When Nancy plucked me from the vitrine, she paid with a credit card at the beginning. The card she laid down had Elvis’ name on it. She was my vessel and he the provider, like a good family. I am thankful for him, and pray that the Hand will remember this act of generosity and others like it and show him mercy in the following moments.
The skin beneath me is now cold and trembling. I am stretched thin but holding.
Elvis’ Video Game:
Three soldiers. Elvis, Johnny, and Lou. Three assault rifles. One gun to each man. As they appear on my stage, these pixelated militants are beefy. They have gunned down countless bad guys without hesitation and are heavily decorated for the fact.
The footsteps were almost as loud as the gunfire.
In the heat of combat, every sound rings out like gunfire.
The Mall Whispers An Aside, Not From Off-Stage So Much As Above-Stage, A Little Like Paternal AI Or The New World Order or Something:
Consumption promises satisfaction, but never delivers. This simple trick keeps me going and it keeps you going too.
The Nail Polish, Again:
I look perfect on the trigger finger.
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