Beet Roots and Soft Penalties for Lying

The gun-running came about… well, it was funny. The gun-running came about because my Mom wouldn’t let me run with scissors, knives, forks, popsicle sticks, toy guns, branches, or knitting needles.

Running with long-ish, potentially sharp, given the right velocity and force, objects became my raison d’être. Yes, I realize this was sad. However, I was six, and raison d’être’s were easy to come by, week in and week out. The week prior my main focus in life had been burning holes in leaves with a magnifying glass (I was unsuccessful, due to a particularly overcast week and the nerve-jangling impatience of a six year old in the early summer).

I felt the desire for speed itching from my little Ked-clad feet up to my twitchy fingers, rubber band gun dangling and spinning there while I scoped out the coast. It was clear.

And I was off! Running like the wind, if the wind was encumbered by a t-shirt that was stretched a size or two too big, a Busch baseball cap that was a treasured gift from an uncle, and that gun. That sweet, sweet gun. Rubberbands locked and loaded, my thumb caressing the clothespins holding the double-barreled load in place not quite in time with my feet. The gun was painted in camouflage green and brown, which blended in with nearly nothing as I ran around the house, feet stirring up ant hills and nearly kicking the dog, lying at the foot of the porch steps. I took a tumble, trying to avoid him, rolled in the grass, the gun twisting in my hand, contorting my wrist along with it. I did not stab myself, puncture a lung, or even damage the lawn (well, slightly). I scooted from the lawn underneath the porch, where eventually the dog joined me, and we hid out the rest of the day.

Hiding out, underneath the docks by the Charlestown pier, I couldn’t help but think of that day. When I got away with it. For the first time. And the only real difference between then and now was the lack of a dog now, and the presence of three duffel bags full of handguns.

disclaimer

What day is today? Wednesday? Thursday? Who knows? Not your weather man, that’s for sure.

And not me. With our fancy new mailer thing confusing the heck out of people and me forgetting my medicine, this is sure to be a week.To remember. Had I not forgotten the medicine. So there it goes. Consigned to the dustbin of lost memories.

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