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Ralph had kindly offered to teach me to shoot a handgun. I had never owned a gun, and if I was to survive the coming crisis, I would need to know how to handle one. We set some coke cans on top of an old tree stump in my back yard. As we did so, the conversation turned to the subject of his wife and whether he intended to let her share the shelter with him. If she decided to come back, that was.
"Hell, no!" He took aim and blasted a small tree about two feet to the left of the coke can. "Damn bitch!" Bang! A bush a foot to the right of the can took a hit." Friggin' mortgage broker!" Bang! The ground a yard in front of the tree stump. "Shit," he rubbed the top of his head, "they're using that damned thing in here to screw up my aim now."
Ralph was referring to the tiny microchip which had been implanted in his brain by the CIA, while he was under general anesthesia for an operation to repair a hernia about six months previously. He had told me about it on several occasions.
"You know," he said bitterly, as he reloaded the pistol, "it's just another way of stealing our constitutional rights. They can't actually take our guns away, so they're screwing with our aim. It comes to the same thing. Commie bastards!" He tapped his head with his forefinger. "I hope this thing isn't Y2K compliant. I might get my brain back before they turn me into a queer or a vegetarian or something." He closed the gun and handed it to me.
I think that if I had been more used to handling guns, I would probably have been less nervous and the ghastly chain of events that followed could have been avoided. If I had not been concentrating so intently on the unfamiliar and deadly weapon in my hands, I would not have stepped back into the 8 foot deep hole that I had dug with the mechanical thingamabob. As I fell, I inadvertently squeezed the trigger and discharged a shot, before the gun and I fell separately to the bottom of the hole, which, in the only piece of good luck associated with the whole incident, was still covered with loose earth, providing a soft landing. I got up, brushed the earth from my pants and grabbed hold of the hand Ralph extended over the lip of the hole.
"Look," said Ralph, as I scrambled to my feet. "You shot a hole clean through your window." We stood for a moment, staring at the shattered basement window. Ralph seemed impressed. "Holy Shit!" he said. He seemed about to say more, but at that moment, the basement door flew open and Ray, the air conditioner man, came hurtling out. A moment later, the darkness behind the window lit up a vivid orange.
"Fire! Fire!" panted Ray, as he ran toward us. Smoke was now billowing out of the broken window and the open door.
"Holy Shit!" said Ralph.
By the time the firefighters got there, it was too late. The fire ripped through the house like a tornado and there wasn't much left by the time the flames had been put out. Ralph, Ray and I watched in horror from the road.
"We'd better make a statement to the police," said Ray.
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