Complex Numbers

Tougher Than the Rest

PROMPT January 12th

Describe a time when you exhibited bravery.

Well, one time I touched a cat's belly fur...

Or... no, I shouldn't talk about it.

Okay, fine; I've been drinking, so I'll talk about it.

Long, long ago, when I was young and stupid (as opposed to now, when I am old and stupid), I was banging this married chick. She lived a couple hours away, right on the edge of the state, and sometimes I'd go over there on Friday nights and stay the weekend. The alternative was staying home and dealing with my first ex-wife, who hadn't yet moved out.

The woman's husband, a long-distance trucker, was never home.

One time I went over there, on invitation, and he was home.

So I played it cool. Just friends. Hanging out. No big deal.

Until he brought out the guns.

"Hey, Bob, let's go target shootin' in the woods."

Gulp.

Oh well. I'd recently been in bed with two hot redheads (the wife in question was one of them), so I figured this was as good a time as any to slip the bonds of this mortal coil. I just hoped he would make it quick. So I agreed, and he handed me one of the rifles.

A bit more background: as I've noted here before, I spent my childhood in rural Virginia. Rifles and shotguns were just tools to me - like tractors or scythes, things with a purpose that also happened to be dangerous, so my dad had instilled in me safety procedures for the various farm implements, including guns. Some of these procedures actually stuck. There wasn't any of the modern-day abject fear of the weapons themselves in me; I'd been shooting rifles, shotguns and even pistols since I was old enough to stay upright after the recoil.

Fear of jealous husbands, now, that's another story. I'd always said that I wanted to die by being shot in the back by one whilst trying to escape out a window, but what I meant was it should happen when I was 100 years old.

Not 30.

Besides, the guns, as it turned out, were old-fashioned single-shot muzzle-loaders. I'd never fired one, and I was curious. As I recall - this was, of course, some time ago - you stood the weapon upright, packed in a charge of black powder in a little sack, and then packed the lead ball on top of that. After, you didn't want to point the gun down, lest the bullet fall out. All of this, The Husband explained to me as we stood out back of their house, a paper target tacked to a tree just over the property line on National Park land (this was probably illegal, but that was the absolute least of my worries at the time).

Spoiler alert: he didn't shoot me. In fact, I think that either he believed that I was just some random friend she'd found on the then-nascent internet, or - more likely - he knew that his job kept him away from home for extended periods, and he didn't begrudge his wife the occasional dalliance.

(I should further note, here, that I was between wives at the time. My first wife had just asked for a divorce, harsh things were said, and she finished with "I hope you get what you deserve." She'd said it in a way that implied that she thought I deserved getting my nuts stuck in a paper shredder. So we officially separated. It was that weekend that I found myself between two hot redheads. Later, after we'd divorced and gotten on speaking terms again, we had a good laugh about that.)

So, in retrospect, I think The Husband just wanted to see if the dude his wife was banging had the stones to go out back with a larger guy who was holding a gun. Whatever the reason, I learned my lesson. No more married chicks for me. Well, except for the one other time, but my excuse there is she was married to me.

Oh, and for the record? I was a much better shot.

Some girls they want a handsome Dan
Or some good-lookin' Joe
On their arm some girls like a sweet-talkin' Romeo
Well 'round here baby
I learned you get what you can get
So if you're rough enough for love
Honey I'm tougher than the rest