The Way of the Gun

[The previous chapters of this long piece of dreck may be found here. I don’t think this will make any sense if you haven’t read the previous parts.]

Sterling woke up curled in a small, warm earthen room. There was a side-table next to him, and the only other feature of the room was an opening to a corridor that led up and out. The room was so comfortable both in terms of scent and temperature that he did not want to leave, and wouldn’t have, had not the pressure on his bladder forced him to get up.

As he found his way up the corridor and through a series of hallways back towards the kitchen, it occurred to him that since entering Badger’s den he hadn’t used the bathroom, nor felt any need to, despite the fact that he had been drinking all night. The more he thought about the subject, the more acute the pressure on his bladder became.

He found Randy the rabbit in the kitchen, smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee. He was reading something on his phone, and his glasses were on the table in front of him.

“Randy, where is the bathroom? I have to pee very badly,” said Sterling.

“I bet you do,” said Randy, looking up from his phone and putting on his glasses to look directly at Sterling. “The only bathroom inside the den is for extreme emergencies… wolves at the door, blinding snowstorms, that kind of thing. You just go outside, but don’t mark on top of your host’s scent. That’s bad form. I’m sure you can smell Badger and Mole. You better not pee on top of me or Shash either, but feel free to pee anywhere the brown fox has. You can piss all over that bitch’s marks for all I care.”

“I thought you two were getting along,” said Sterling.

“Getting along?” said Randy. “Vixen stole my lighter before she left last night.”

Sterling would have liked to have heard more about the lighter, but his bladder pressure was urgent, so he exited the kitchen and made his way to the front door.

When he stepped outside it was late, late afternoon. The sun was long. He headed downhill into some myrtle, which seemed like a good place to pee. He could smell the other creatures without trouble. After a little bit of sniffing he extrapolated two large interlocking circles. One made by Badger and the other by Mole. The pattern was like an invisible Venn diagram written in scent with the den at its center. He could also “see” some crude shapes begun by Shash and Randy. It was clear that they had been outside just a little bit before him.

An image appeared in his head, a map of the area that overlapped some of the shapes now obvious to him. Despite the urgency of his need, he used controlled jets to mark the beginnings of his pattern. It was quite obvious what to do, and he had the bladder control to make the marks he wanted to make. There was the satisfaction of accomplishment mingled with joyful relief when he finally finished the last of his jets. With no more to give, he sat for a second smelling his creation and eyeing it in his newfound smello-vision before deciding to take a crap in the center of his crude circle. The dump was ordinary. Beautiful and pleasurable in every way, but not that different from the regular bowel movements of his human form.

Sterling lingered for a while on Badger’s terrace outside the Den, enjoying the feel of the wind. When he re-entered, everything was in an uproar. Shash and Randy were standing in the mud room packing ruck sacks, Badger was in the hallway talking to someone on the phone, and mole was running back and forth between rooms. The wizard, who was talking loudly to Shash, seemed not to notice Sterling when he stepped in the door. Shash handed Sterling a ruck sack and said, “ put this on.”

The wizard turned his attention away from Shash and towards Sterling.

“You have to hurry up!” He shouted. A broad, toothy smile illuminated his face. “You don’t want to be late for the war!”

Sterling put the rucksack on his back. It was heavy.

“What’s in here?” He asked.

“Everything you need to carry,” said the wizard. “Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up,” he shouted.

Sterling stepped out of the door.

As soon as he was outside he heard the wizard yell from inside, “now wait!”

Shash and Randy soon followed. Both looked annoyed. When the wizard emerged, he looked as strong and lively as he had the night before. His white tee shirt was still just as white as ever. The “I Am A Motherfucker” letters still black and flat across his broad chest. He had on an enormous backpack on, and a web belt with a canteen.

“Come on, come on,” he said, “Let’s start marching.” He stormed to the front of the group taking giant strides. He had grown since he emerged from the den. Now he was much larger than Shash, and his big feet were shod in black combat boots that now stomped up the trail.

Sterling, Shash, and Randy reluctantly followed. The pack was already uncomfortable on Sterling’s shoulders and he could feel his fur chaffing the skin under the shoulder straps. Randy mumbled something about being in the Navy and not needing to do this shit, and Shash went quiet, with a squint-eyed reserve that Sterling now knew indicated displeasure.

They hadn’t gone a hundred feet when the wizard stopped, turned around, dropped his pack, and said “fall out.”

“What the fuck?” said Randy.

“We can’t go on,” said the wizard, “we have to wait for Badger and Mole. Badger has to lock up. If I know him, it’s going to take him about forty minutes to secure that place.”

“Then why the fuck were we in such a rush?” Randy asked.

“Because,” said the wizard, “that’s what you do when you’re in the army. You hurry up and wait. It’s called ‘logistics’, which means ‘everything is fucked up and what you need is back there somewhere.’” He pointed back towards Badger’s den.

“So what do we do now?” Sterling asked.

“Well,” said the wizard, suddenly unsure. “Usually you read fuck books and tell bullshit stories. I think nowadays you play video games on your phone. Randy’s Navy, so he really should be painting something.”

“What about complaining?” asked Shash. “Aren’t we supposed to bitch about the officers and how dumb they are?”

“Yes, of course,” said the wizard, with no hint of offense. “But you can’t complain about the officers in front of them.”

“Are any of you officers?” Sterling asked.

“You are among some of the cream of the Mushamaguntic Wild Forces,” said the wizard. “That rabbit right there is Admiral, Lord Randy. Shash is a non-commissioned officer, a…”

“First sergeant,” said Shash.

“Badger is a major general, and Mole is a military adjutant to III Corps.”

“I don’t understand any of that,” said Sterling.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Shash, “I’ll teach you how to shoot your Springfield and tell you where to stand.”

“That’s right, Sterling might not know how to shoot a gun.” Said the wizard. “Do you know anything about guns, Sterling?”

“Not really,” said Sterling.

“What kind of American are you?” Asked the wizard, “Surely you know something about guns. Have you played with Nerf, airsoft, paintball, or bb guns?”

“Yes, I’ve played with Nerf guns.”

“That’s plenty! I can teach you the ‘way of the gun’ while we wait for Badger and Mole.”

Shash and Randy both slumped down to sit.

The wizard was suddenly brandishing a shiny handgun. Where it had come from was anyone’s guess. Sterling didn’t know it, for Sterling knew nothing about guns, but the wizard was holding a nickel plated, pearl-handled, semi-automatic M1911 Colt .45.

“Let me explain, as simply as I can, the philosophy and moral code of the ‘Way of the Gun’,” said the wizard. He then pointed the gun at a tree and squeezed off seven shots in rapid succession. His muscular arm bent dramatically with the recoil of each shot.

Randy and Shash didn’t react at all, even though the noise was deafening.

When the wizard was done he squinted at the tree.

“Nothing.” He said, “I didn’t hit a duck-damned thing.” He laughed and offered the pistol to Sterling. “Here, want to try?” He asked.

“I missed the part about the ‘Way of the Gun’,” said Sterling.

“That’s the beauty of guns,” said the wizard, “you don’t have to know a fucking thing to use them. Any idiot can point and shoot a gun, and it doesn’t matter if it is Albert Einstein or Bruce Lee standing in front of you. If you plug him with a bullet, chances are, he’s going to die.”

“There’s nothing more to it?” Asked Sterling.

“That’s it. Well… sometimes the gun jams.” Said the wizard.

“What do you do then?” Asked Sterling.

“Try to fix it without looking down the barrel.”

“Anything else?”

“No,” said the wizard, “That’s the way of the gun in its entirety.”