I was beginning to lose
patience as a sling bellied old man mounted the dais at the front of the hot
box of a church annex building in which I was sitting. I could tell from his
stiff legged taking of the steps that a lifetime of heavy Southern cuisine and
front porch sittin’ had taken their toll on his knees. The black trucker cap
that sat gingerly over his white hair did nothing to match his slightly too
tight cream colored suit. When he turned to face his standing room only
audience I was able to see the “NRA” splashed across the front of the cap, and
it seemed like the cap fit in with the rest of the room better than the suit.
“Afternoon, all.” The old man said in a voice of
sandpaper and rancid honey, a voice that said he had been smoking for just a couple
of decades too many. “Most of y’all know me, but for those of you that don’t, I
am Pastor Rutherford, preacher of this here church. I am very proud and mighty
honored to have our little church hosting this cause, and it does my heart good
to see so many of my fellow patriots come from far and wide to take part.”
He leaned full tilt into a prayer to open the day’s
proceedings, but I couldn’t force myself to pay attention. Rutherford was not
the man I had made the trip from California to Tennessee to meet, and I
certainly was not interested in closing my eyes and pretending to listen to his
prayer. My eyes scanned over the bowed heads in the humid confines of the
modular annex, and I had to stifle a smirk that nearly insinuated itself on my
face. Never had I seen so many people, men and women, in camouflage clothing in
one place before. Jackets, pants, shirts, I was even able to spot at least two men
wearing camo neckties. The assortment of baseball caps acting as political
billboards was just as fascinating; Dozens of NRA caps, Stars’n’stripes, several
NObamas, and the hat on the man right next to me was thanking God for the
second amendment. I didn’t have to see the guns to know that damn near every
person in that room was strapped.
“I know that I’m not the man y’all came here to see
today.” Pastor Rutherford said, regaining my attentiveness by winding down his
speech. “I’d like to invite y’all, neighbors and visitors alike, to join us for
services tomorrow morning at nine in the AM. Without further ado, I’d like to
introduce a truly patriotic American, Mr. John Hunter!”
The door of the annex building flew open and a man of
surprising proportions entered in a pseudo-march, stone faced seriousness all
but dripping from his bald head with the sweat from the stinking Southern heat.
He could not have been more than five foot six, but he was the type who made up
for his lack of height by torturing his musculature to distasteful bulginess.
His black polo shirt, labeled with the fake Sheriff’s badge that indicated
Hunter’s own security company, was too small and stretched grotesquely
everywhere it made contact with his body. Plainly displayed in a black leather
shoulder holster he was carrying what my recent education in guns told me was a
Sig Sauer P220, with OD green grip.
This has all been
so easy, I thought to myself. My mind wandered back to the first time I
heard the name James Hunter. It was several weeks after a tragic shooting in a
crowded amusement park, in which dozens of men, women, and children were
murdered by one lunatic with a couple of handguns and a shitload of ammo. As
happens every couple of years in America, that incident reignited the centuries
old argument over gun control and restriction. I would be lying if I were to
say that I greeted the entire circus with anything other than complete apathy.
That was until James Hunter achieved worldwide notoriety
with a three minute YouTube video that went viral in less than twenty four
hours. In the video Hunter extolled the virtues of gun ownership, viciously and
venomously bashed the president for proposed gun control measures, and
encouraged his “fellow patriots to load their magazines, clean their rifles, pack
some food, and get ready to fight.” The video was concluded with the words, “If
these gun control rules go one inch further, I’m gonna start killing people.”
Depending on how one took the video, this garnered Hunter
both fame and infamy. For my part, the video changed my life. I had to meet
James Hunter face-to-face.
Searching the internet for five minutes, finding out that
Hunter would be speaking at an anti-gun control rally at a church in
Murfreesboro, Tennessee in just two weeks’ time. This is
easy.
A two day gun
safety course and hours of research before deciding which gun was right for me.
Locking up my closet of a studio apartment with the twin mattress on the floor
and the single place setting in the cupboard. Catching a morning flight to
Nashville. This is really easy.
Walking out of a
Nashville gun store with a brand new Glock G19 in my backpack forty five
minutes after landing. Hopping a Greyhound and getting checked into a cheap
motel room in Murfreesboro before sundown. This
really is too easy.
As James Hunter
took the dais I smiled and fingered the Glock holstered under my windbreaker.
If it weren’t for Hunter I would never have even thought about owning a gun.
But there I was. Again, the thought passed through my mind, This has all just been so easy!
Hunter’s speech
was more or less a live version of his YouTube video. Take to the hills, stand
up to the tyrants, kill, kill, kill, that kind of thing. But he ended the rant a
line I hadn’t heard before. “I don’t expect any of you to have the specialized
military training that I do, but one bullet says more than any amount of
talking, and any of you can squeeze a trigger. It only takes one.”
It only takes one. Those
words were on an endless loop in my brain as James Hunter left the dais and
people began crowding around him. It only
takes one. I may have shoved a couple of people a little hard, but I had to
get close enough to Hunter to shake his hand. I needed to tell him how he’d
changed the direction of my life.
“Mr. Hunter!” I reached between two men who were talking
to Hunter, presenting my hand for him to shake. I shouldered between the men
and stood face-to-face with James Hunter. He shook my hand. “That thing you
said, about it only taking one. You’re so right, Mr. Hunter. You’re so right.”
“Well, thank you, brother.” His face registered no
emotion, and there seemed to be some depth missing from his blue eyes. “Stay a
patriot.”
He dropped my hand and turned to acknowledge an admirer behind
him but my hand didn’t fall to my side. It slipped into my windbreaker. My
well-practiced thumb unbuttoned the strap of my holster. A trained finger
unlocked the safety of my pistol. I hefted the weight of the weapon out of my
coat. The barrel raked the stubble on the back of Hunter’s shaved head. I heard
a short, short scream from somewhere in the room and pulled the trigger.
