Tuesday Tidbit: The Fun Store

In which Lelia discovers that her husband is on a first name basis with a store owner . . . Before you start fussing about terms, remember that Lelia is the one thinking, not the author.

Two weeks later, Lelia peered at the items inside the counter of Baker’s, a place her husband apparently frequented, based on the enthusiastic greeting by the manager. “Good morning, André! You’re out early. Your ammunition’s still en route.”

André had the grace to turn a little pink and cough as he studied the carpet. “Neil, my wife Lelia Chan. Lelia, Mr. Neil Baker. She needs something for self defense that can tolerate purse carry. Not semi-auto, I don’t think.”

“Ah.” The manager hitched his belt up a little. He wore a fancy tooled leather belt with a very large pistol in the holster on his right side, as well as suspenders holding up brown work-pants. He had a little pot belly, and kind black eyes. “Have you ever fired a handgun before, ma’am?”

“No, sir. None of the gun-owners I knew before our marriage were interested in letting someone else handle their weapon.” True, polite, and diplomatic, I think.

Apparently her choice of phrase worked, because Mr. Baker nodded. “That’s good, since it means that you will have less to unlearn, no bad habits. May I see your hands?” She held them out, palms up. “Hmm. Not too small, but not as large as some. I can see why you want her to have her own pistol, André.”

André folded his arms. “Yes. The grip size is one thing, and my trigger-pull is another.”

“You do know that there’s a safety you can use, instead of making it too hard to pull the trigger?” The older man winked.

“Yes, and I know that you just want to sell me one of those feather-trigger modifications so you can finish paying for that four carat peace offering.” He winked back.

I am totally lost. She studied the various things in the glass case. A very large range of sizes met her eye, from little ones that looked as if they were from a Victorian illustration to a monster that had to be a joke. The price certainly was! That’s almost three house payments, good grief. They also came in various colors, including one horribly pink thing. Ick. No way. The one with the rainbow-colored wooden handle didn’t look very good, either. “Sir, what’s that one?” She pointed to a medium-sized gun toward the back of the case. It had a black handle and was darker than the others.

“Ma’am? Oh, that’s a .357 with rubber grips. The bluing is custom.” Mr. Baker unlocked the cabinet and removed the revolver. He tipped the round part out, checked it, and started to hand the pistol to her. “Do you know the four rules, ma’am?”

She nodded. “Yes, sir. The gun is always loaded, do not put your finger on the trigger until you are ready to fire, do not point the gun at anything you are not willing to destroy, and always know what is behind what you are aiming at. And God doesn’t like having guns pointed at Him.”

The store owner chuckled at the last. “Not one of the big four, but very true, ma’am. What goes up also comes down.” He handed her the revolver handle first. “You can point it at that red square on the wall there, ma’am.”

She did, careful to keep her finger well clear of the trigger. André had moved to stand close behind her. “It’s heavy,” she said.

“Let me have your other hand, love,” André said. She nodded, and he took her left hand, wrapping it around the revolver’s handle. “OK, relax your hold on the grip for a second.” He repositioned her right hand. “Like that. Two handed is much more stable, and you will feel less recoil. Plus you’re more accurate that way, despite what the movies and TV show.”

It felt more comfortable to hold it that way. “This feels better. It doesn’t feel too big.”

“Ma’am, raise your thumb, right hand, up and touch the hammer, that’s the lever on top, but don’t pull it back.” Lelia did as Mr. Baker asked. “Hmm. André, go on and cock it.”

“Yes, sir.” André lowered his right arm. “Love, use your thumb to pull that little lever back until it sticks. Take your time.” It felt a little awkward, but not too bad. “Look past the sights to the red square on the wall.”

“Sights?”

“The little metal nubbins.”

Lelia peered that way. “I can’t keep them in focus and also look at the wall,” she complained.

“That’s fine. You’re more interested in the target than the sights.” His chuckle was not amused. “If your sights fall off, you can stare at them. Not until then.”

The young man who had come to stand beside Mr. Baker asked, “How much did the scope cost, sir?”

André stepped away from Lelia before answering. “No idea. Wasn’t mine, wasn’t a good time to ask.” She lowered the pistol, and he asked, “Can she dry-fire it to check trigger pull, sir?”

“Sure. It’s a center fire. But let me get a cap just for peace of mind.” The young man beside him glanced into the cabinet, went to a set of boxes, and returned with something like a bullet but blue. “Thanks. Ma’am, please hand me the revolver.” She did, carefully, very aware of where the end was. Mr. Baker set the blue bullet on the counter, did something with the pistol out of sight, and opened the round part again.

“That’s the cylinder, where the bullets go, pointy-end to the front,” André murmured into her ear. “In mine they go into a flat holder called a magazine, pointy end to the front.”

“Ah, so, how do you put more in?”

She heard his smile. “That’s for later. A revolver’s not as fast to reload in a hurry as my semi-auto, but there’s also fewer moving parts to break or get gunk in.” He made an unhappy noise. “And gunk will find a way.”

That sounds like a lot of things with moving parts. She’d found stuff in the lawnmower that should not have been able to get in there.

Mr. Baker smiled, then handed her the revolver back. “Point at the red square, cock it, and fire, ma’am. It won’t make any noise or get hurt.”

“Yes, sir.” She cocked it again, then put her pointer finger on the trigger. She pulled. The hammer popped forward. That was it.

“How hard was the trigger to move?” André inquired.

“Very easy.”

Mr. Baker extended his hand and she returned the pistol. He did something, then handed it back once more. “Now try it without cocking. This is a double-action, so it will be much stiffer, harder to pull, or should be.” He glared at someone behind a door, or so she guessed.

She pointed it at the red, put her finger on the trigger, and pulled. It was hard! Well, harder than before. “It’s harder, but not too bad,” she informed the men.

“May I?” André asked both her and Mr. Baker.

“Sure. You know the drill.” Mr. Baker said. Lelia handed André the gun and got out of his way. He moved faster than she did, and stood a little differently than she had. Mr. Baker observed, “You could one-hand that one.”

André shook his head. “Not for long. My shoulder’s being a pest again.”

The young man who had been there earlier came by with a box, and said, “You have two hands, sir.” He hurried past before something bad happened.

“Kids,” André grumbled. “You’ll be old and achy some day.” He returned the pistol to Mr. Baker. “What do you think, love?”

She shrugged. “It’s not too heavy, and it doesn’t hurt my hand. I don’t know much more than that.” She glanced into the display inside the counter. “I take that back. I like the color. That pink thing is appalling.”

The men both chuckled. “That’s what most women say, which really makes you wonder what the sales department was drinking,” Mr. Baker said.

“We’ll take it,” André said. “It needs to be in her name, so she can get the lessons, and in case I’m hard to reach if there’s question.” He squeezed her shoulder, then kissed her cheek.

He is so hard to stay irritated at when he does that! Grrr.

“Right. So, we start with the paperwork. May I see your driver’s license, please, ma’am?” Mr. Baker produced several forms. “There’s a waiting period until everything clears, so what we’ll do is send these in with the fee, then call you when everything checks out so you can pay for the revolver then, and talk to an instructor.”

“How long does it take for the paperwork, sir?”

He shrugged a little. “This time of year? Between five days and a month, if there are no problems. Sometimes faster, but since you’re not in the database, plan for a wait.”

A few minutes later, task done, she looked around for André. She hadn’t really seen the store, and blinked at the amount of boxes and stuff. Several animal heads hung from the wall, including a rabbit with antlers. She blinked at that, and at the cigarette in the rabbit’s mouth. OK, that’s gotta be a joke. The counters were laid out in a U shape, and things like shotguns appeared in the back of the store on a long rack. Holsters and belts and some handbags hung on the walls below the animal heads and metal gun-stuff signs. The shop smelled like something oily but a little sharp, and like leather and something else she didn’t quite recognize. Most of the men and the woman working the counters and cash register openly carried handguns. Shoplifting was not going to happen. So, where was André?

He was on the other side of the shop, part-hidden behind a stack of boxes with a large red bow draped over them, looking at something. A different man’s voice said, “. . . nothing bad so far. I’ve put six hundred rounds through mine with one failure, and that was ammunition, not weapon. I tried some of the big-box’s house brand. Don’t do that.”

“No. I’ve had more than enough moments of mild interest thanks to bargain-bin ammunition and parts, thank you.” André was holding a tan, flat-sided pistol, turning it this way and that. “Is there much of a bite from the slide?”

The young Hispanic-looking man shook his head. “No, and I think my hand’s wider than yours.” André held out his left hand and they compared. “Yep. Between the thick stack and the grips, you’re well clear even in gloves.”

They’re speaking a dialect of English, I think. She glanced into the display case and saw that all of the pistols had flat sides instead of bulgy. “Is that real gold?” She pointed to a large black pistol at the back of the case. Gold patterns and writing covered everything but the grip, and the grip appeared to have a gold button in the middle of it.

André made a semi-rude noise and handed the tan pistol back to the sales clerk. “Yes. That is a commemorative fifty caliber that jams when a butterfly sneezes in Argentina, and that costs more than my pickup is worth at the moment.”

“Hey, now, sir. You don’t shoot a gem like this,” the young man protested, grinning. “It’s for appreciating in your gun cabinet.”

“No work, no eat, no come home with me,” André replied. “And no matter how well it fits my hand, I do not need a .45.”

Except Lelia recognized that look as her husband started to turn away from the display case. “Does it fit?”

“Um, yes, love.”

She nodded once. “The we’ll take it as an early Christmas present, one I won’t have to worry about sneaking past Ears and Rings.”

The young man leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Sir, does she have any sisters at home who need a husband? I’ve got a steady job and my mother lives in a different state, if that helps.”

André bared his teeth. “Sorry, Pancho. No sisters that I know of, and she’s taken.”

The clerk drooped as he got the forms. “Story of my life—always five minutes too late.”

“You have to do forms too?” Lelia blinked a little at the paperwork. He was military and had the reserve police thing, why have to get permission?

André nodded as he entered his information. “Yes. There’s almost less paperwork to check a main battle tank out of the tank park than there is to buy a handgun. Almost.”

Mr. Baker had come over to supervise, or something, and laughed. “That’s because it’s a lot harder to conceal-carry a tank, at least with the engine running.”

André chuckled in turn. “A valid point. Silent they are not.”

The Hispanic man grinned. “I want an A-10.”

“You just want the cannon, Pancho,” Mr. Baker said.

“Well, you gotta have something to carry it with, sir,” Pancho protested.

I am totally lost. I recognize the verbs and that’s it. Army truly was a different dialect, sort of like Street in its own way. Although she’d noticed some overlap, especially in invective.

“Do you want to look at holsters now, André?” Mr. Baker asked as he took the paperwork.

André shook his head. “No, thank you sir. I’ll need to decide how I want to carry it, among other things.”

They left with receipts and three boxes of ammunition. “This is heavy,” she protested a little as she tucked the ammunition into the back seat.

“It’s brass, lead, and other things. The brass and lead are what weigh so much.” He stared into the distance. “And it gets heavier the farther you carry it.”

She got into her seat, shut the door, and buckled in. “Thank you, love.”

He took her left hand and kissed it. “Thank you. And you’re welcome. I want you to be safe.”

“Even if I want to throw the thing at you out of frustration?”

“All the more reason to get a double-action. It’s less likely to go off if it gets dropped onto a hard surface while loaded, or knocked off of a table.” His evil grin faded as he let go of her hand. “Uncle Joseph and my oldest brother got to repair the sheetrock in the city house, and repaint the living room, after they discovered a problem that way. They were really lucky that Cousin Sarah’s cat had fled the room, because the round went through the cat’s bed before it got to the wall.” André shook his head and sighed. “If my Uncle Joseph ever offers to show you a power tool or firearm, make a polite excuse and leave the county. He’s really good people and should not be around anything that has a moving blade or that goes bang.”

Lelia tried to remember if she’d met Uncle Joseph. “Ah, he was the one who was attacked by the tablecloth at the reception?”

“Yes. Aunt Tamsin has the patience of Job, and should be a professional bootlegger, because she can smuggle anything out of the house to the repair shop.” André checked traffic and pulled out of the parking lot. “Otherwise he tries to help fix it. No matter what it is.”

“He sounds like the spiritual brother of the guy working on the road crew who made the news three weeks ago. The one in the hole.”

André laughed. “I will neither confirm nor deny that there might be a resemblance.”

(C) 2020 Alma T. C. Boykin All Rights Reserved

 

Advertisement