I was a complete waste at work that day. I kept checking my watch, wondering if James was in class or at his locker. If maybe we got lucky and Kevin stayed home. I owed Janet, my boss, a short script for a commercial that would be shot soon, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I sat in front of my computer, slumped over. I drew a sketch of the .44. Casey would never let me take James shooting. He’d make me listen to statistics about gun violence. He’d quote studies on children raised with guns in the home. I’d hear about it for days. By the end of it, he’d have me thinking it was time to buy James a tutu. Guns never did me any harm. I etched in the front sights on my picture and wrote BANG! down the side of the paper.
I remembered when Dad gave the .44 to Casey at dinner a few months after we were married. Dad was streamlining his collection and couldn’t imagine another man wouldn’t want a shiny .44 like Dirty Harry owned. I’d shot the gun a few times growing up, always with my back to Dad’s brick-wall chest to absorb the shock. I knew the gesture was something special — his way of welcoming Casey into the family, man to man. I could tell Casey had no clue what the act meant. He told me later he thought it was some kind of omertà, as though my dad had handed him a dead fish wrapped in a newspaper. You take-a my daughter, I take-a you life.
“Wow,” Casey said. A plate of spaghetti sat on the table in front of him. “Thanks.”
“I like knowing you can protect my daughter. And that gun can kill a wild boar.”
“Boar attacks are up this year,” Casey said, turning the guns in his hands. “Thanks, Tom. I’ll keep it in a safe place.”
Dad grinned and grabbed Casey’s free hand. Then he became serious, staring into my husband’s eyes and gripping his shoulder. “If it ever comes down to you and someone else,” he said, “it has to be you who stays standing. You’re in charge of her now.” After a long moment, in which Casey and I both shifted with unease, Dad smiled again. He smacked Casey on the back of the neck. “You may not be an Italian, but you’re a good kid anyway.”
Later that night, Casey laughed about the absurdity of needing a gun. He put it in the closet. Then he tried to pull off my panties.
“Why don’t you want it in the nightstand?” I gripped my underwear.
“It’s too big.” He worked on my bra.
“It makes me feel safe,” I said. “My dad told you to protect me.”
“Stop worrying.” He kissed my neck and worked his fingers up my leg. “You’re safe. You’re safe with me,” he whispered. “You’re safe.”
In the end, I trusted him and let him lock the gun away. Casey did what he said. He provided, protected. He worked long hours and gave us a stable home. I was safe by his side; I was safe in his arms. There was comfort in lying next to him at night, while the wind tossed the curtains around, knowing that I was important enough for him to love. I’d feel the muscles in his chest flex against my back as he moved into sleep. I’d smile. He gave me more security than I ever expected.
Casey was just so damn smart. Everything he did was gilded with wisdom and success. Even our neighborhood; he moved us out here right before the boom. There was nothing for miles then, but we paid so little for our home. If we tried to buy it now, we couldn’t afford it. I’d be an idiot not to do what he said.
But new Vegas suited Casey. He had almost no connection to what it used to be, where I had come from. There was no grit to him and no way to adapt. Instead, he was making the town adapt to him, taking apart one casino at a time. Stripping their primitive wires and bringing them up to speed. There was something nice about the old ways, the plumes of smoke that hung over the slots, the burnt-out haze of electric lights on Las Vegas Boulevard. The fact that I could walk barefoot down the Strip. The fact that my dad could bust a guy in the head and still find another job. I always wished a little that some old-time aggression would find Casey. That he’d go blind with emotion, let something muss his hair, even if it meant we’d have some hard times. With Kevin harassing James, I wanted something to snap in Casey worse than ever. But when that bug of insanity hit, it wasn’t Casey it got, like I’d vaguely hoped. It was James.
I’d been taking a stab at the copy in front of me when my line rang. It was the clerk at James’s school. He’d done something, gotten in trouble. I needed to pick him up.
“Janet,” I said, grabbing my coat, “I gotta pick James up from school. I gotta go.”
“Is he sick?”
“No, he’s in trouble.”
“James?”
“I know!”
“You’re worthless today anyway.”
James had never been in trouble at school before. He charmed his teachers and got A’s on all his tests. His homework was always neat. He enjoyed presenting projects to the class. I wondered if there had been a mistake.
At the school, the secretary ushered me into the dean’s office. The dean was a tall man, balding. “Your son has something to tell you,” he said, leaning back in his chair. I felt almost as scared as James sitting in the light-blue office in front of the big oak desk.
James’s head drooped. “I peed on Kevin’s ball.”
“On the playground,” the dean said.
“You peed on his ball?” I asked, confused.
“It was a soccer ball,” James replied.
I leaned back in the chair. Stumped. Then I imagined my son, fed up with the pushing around, whipping out his little pecker in a show of machismo, screaming at the bigger kid, Iain’t scared of you, asshole!
“We’re going to suspend James for three days,” the dean said. “We have a no-tolerance policy for things as inappropriate as what your son did.” He stared at me as though I’d been there to unzip James’s pants. “I trust it won’t happen again.”
“He hit me at recess,” James said. He looked at me. “In the stomach.”
“Now, son, you need to take responsibility,” the dean said. “Regardless of what Kevin did, it’s you who violated his property. If you’re going to become a good young man, you need to not make excuses for your actions.”
“Bullshit,” I said. They both stared at me. I grabbed my purse. “Do you see my son’s face? That’s from Kevin. And he’s sitting in math class right now with no repercussions.” I looked at James, threateningly, then back at the dean. “It won’t happen again. But do me a favor and make sure that other kid keeps his hands off my son at recess or we are going to have a problem.”
I had to sign something. James needed his backpack. Soon we were outside again, James at my heels, making our way to the car.
“That guy’s a schmuck,” I said as I started the engine.
James didn’t say anything.
“I’m not mad at you,” I said.
“You’re not?”
“Nope. Actually, I’m a little proud of you,” I smiled. We pulled onto the street.
“Why?” he asked. He pushed hair out of his face.
“Because you stood up for yourself.”
“But all I did was pee on his ball.”
I shrugged. “You didn’t let him push you around.”
“So I’m not in trouble?”
“When I was little, my dad always told me that no matter what I did, he would stick up for me, even if I was wrong. He’d always be on my side. And he always was.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, even when I didn’t always do the best stuff.”
“Like what?”
“Like when I threw a container of coleslaw at a boy because he was picking on me. Or when I punched a guy in the stomach because he called my friend Pimple Puss.”