I read a haunting narrative this morning. This is the story of a woman growing up with guns in the house. It is called “The Day I Told My Father To Shoot Himself,” and it’s written by Jennifer Fliss. It starts out with her being called in for jury duty and being asked her feelings on guns.
Then she starts talking about her drunken father who used to point guns at her whilst drinking. After drinking one to three cocktails, he would point loaded guns at her. Her mother was curled up on the bed crying, and her father pointed the gun at himself. He asked her if she wanted him to shoot himself. At 12-years-old, this is possibly one of the most horrific things you can do to a child.
“Do you want me to shoot myself?” My father asked me, thick metal in his thick hand – loaded, I knew. It was always loaded. After one or two drinks, the gun was directed at me. Three or more and he turned it on himself. “Is this what you want me to do?”
I was twelve. We were in my parents’ bedroom, strewn with papers and empty vodka bottles and an unmade bed.
She said yes because she was so tired of living in a house full of constant violence; she just wanted it to stop.
During one incident, he began chasing her around, and it became loud enough that police were called. They asked if he had done anything to her, but she couldn’t muster up the words. The one word, yes, would have gotten him put away for a long time.
He pushed himself up from his chair and gave chase, his gun waving wildly. He could move remarkably fast for an obese man in a messy house. I didn’t even think about running in a zigzag; something I now think about often, as I’ve heard it makes you a more difficult target. His thick footsteps rumbled down the hallway and pushed my heart into my throat. I hid under my bed. Of course he knew where to find me. Somehow, he coaxed me out with a soft voice, promises, and string cheese.
We hear stories all the time about children playing with guns and hurting themselves. But, what about the children who grew up around guns?
My father did not keep his guns locked away. He did not hide them from the little curious hands. Guns in his bedside table, guns under the chair with lost puzzle pieces and lint, guns in the kitchen beside a box of Fruity Pebbles, guns on the desk, guns scattered throughout our apartment, like they were household tchotchkes and not tools that could turn someone’s head into brain confetti.
They were the deepest black. Heavy. Terrifying. They fit comfortably uncomfortable in my hand before I reached my teen years. Their oily metal smell and significant heft, the scent and weight of deadly things. Opening the drawer by my father’s bedside, bullets rolled up and down the wood drawer sounding like a tiny bowling alley. I would open and close the drawer to hear their dense music.
What happens to an adult who dealt with violence during their whole childhood? This poor woman is haunted by the violence that she grew up with; she will probably always associate guns with him. She told the judge in the jury selection:
We hear about the deaths, the unfortunate myriad corpses. We hear about crime-ridden neighborhoods, about war veteran suicides. They are tragic and they are too many. But also this: bullets don’t have to rip through our bodies to leave shrapnel in our hearts.
This just proves that we need better gun control. A man afflicted with addiction should never have been allowed to have been allowed to get a gun. Children should not be exposed to weapons at young ages. We need better background checks for guns AND ammunition. Hopefully, these laws will eventually be passed AND enforced. No child should grow up around violence.’
Follow Jennifer Fliss on Twitter or her blog.
Images via Jennifer Fliss, narrative.ly
