The G-Spot

And we barricaded ourselves in hiding from the fog of baby powder death that slammed against our windows and crept under the doors.

Startled out of a mid afternoon study session by what sounded like a gunshot blast, I dropped my pencil and flipped my trigonometry book closed. Had these months of hibernation made one of my housemates crack? Indeed, one of them was from Florida. Months ago I had caught him staring at a John Deere Combine slowly rolling down the street. Absolutely transfixed, he had never seen anything like it.

Or perhaps it was the security guard that lived below us. He had been training to be a cop with aspirations of joining the Iowa State Patrol.  I recall, he had made light of the fact he slept with a gun under his pillow?

I tossed on my shoes, a winter coat and scarf for good measure. It was well below zero outside. And with strong winds dropping the Wind-chill into the -30’s one didn’t have to be exposed longer then a few minutes to feel the effects.

To reach the downstairs apartment you had to step out onto the balcony and traverse an exposed flight of stairs that would take you directly to the front door of the apartment below us, where the sound may have originated. I rushed out and down the steps with the most recent 6 inches of snowfall crunching beneath my feet, and razor blades slashing my exposed cheeks...


Without knocking, I threw my weight into the door and fell inside, slamming it shut behind me to escape the cold. My rag tag collection of apartment mates groaned as the cold reached its icy tentacles in just long enough to slap them in the face.

At first glance all seemed innocent. They sat in a semicircle. Some on the couch, some on a collection of foldout chairs. Girls clad in bikinis baring the logo of large beer corporations covered the walls. The room was adorned with half drank bottles of beer and an assortment of Dixie cups, some containing a swampy graveyard of smoked cigarettes and chewing tobacco. On the couch there was Max, Husk and Chewy. Red and Jeff sat in Chairs. In the middle of them was a half empty case of Miller light and another was hidden in the fridge. No one in the room was of legal drinking age.

Clearly I was the only one present who was alarmed by the same sound I had witnessed. And when I inquired, all I got were a few non descript laughs as Max gestured towards the kitchen, before spitting a spot of chaw into his plastic spit cup. At this time I became vaguely aware of the scent of gunpowder in the room.

The couch faced the kitchen. A giant flattened box of cardboard sat up against the kitchen wall, just above the sink, facing those on the couch. It was laced with tiny holes, each vaguely the size of a headphone jack in a walkman. On the kitchen table, between the couch and the cardboard, sat an empty 2 liter coke bottle.

Duct taped to the top of the bottle, lengthwise, was a cherry red shot gun shell. The brass head and its primer facing those on the couch, with the business end of the shell facing the cardboard. Giving the effect of a small starwars robot sitting on the kitchen table staring at us.

Sadly, that shotgun shell would never receive it’s fairwell love tap from the firing pin of the 870 Wingmaster striking a James Dean pose near the door. No, its fate would not be that of the standard 20 gauge shot gun shell. On this particular winter day, in the middle of a blizzard with the world shut down, locked away in our caves, it would serve as the sacrificial lamb bringing joy from misery. On this day where VHS rentals and liquor stores could not provide, with resources thin, one had to improvise. And improvise they had.

It was only when Husk, brandished a tiny pump action pellet gun from the side of the couch that the game became clear. He sat 15 feet from the shell straddled coke bottle, and pumped the air gun 5 or 6 times, then raised it in the direction of the shell, and bore down on the shells primer.

Husk fired. The bebe missed and became lodged in the cardboard. But from where I was standing it had only missed the shiny g-spot of the shell case by less then an inch.

Husk passed the pellet gun to the next person on the couch, Max took his shot, and he too missed…opening a big hole in the cardboard behind the bottle and most likely in the kitchen wall behind.

Upon examining the crime scene, I noticed a number of spent shotgun shells resting on the floor. Upon closer examination you could see little silver pellets scattered through out the apartment.

I took a seat at an open space on the couch, and I was handed the pellet gun. I took my shot, and missed. I handed the rifle to Jeff, who was cracking a beer and nonchalantly passed it on to Chewy… a moment later the windows of the apartment rattled with the sound of the shell detonating.

Seconds after the explosion, after the ringing in your ears cleared, you could still hear the sound of buckshot dancing around the room. Bouncing off walls as the room became a giant pinball machine. I felt the taps of tiny impact tremors as they collided with my puffy jacket.

After the ricochet of the pellets stopped Max stood up and said ”Well shit!!” We all turned to look, and a trail of blood was flowing briskly down his left leg, from a wound on the side of his knee. Rogue buckshot had pierced him just below the rim of his shorts.

The room became quiet for a second. We asked him if he was OK, how bad the wound was, if the pellet was still inside him. Lurking in the air, mingling with the scent of gun powder, was an unnamed childhood emotion. That of a group of boys fearing for a friend they have caused injury, but unsure if they're willing to quit the game that caused it.

Max turned to Chewy, who was still holding the pellet gun at the far end of the couch. The smile left Chewies face. I thought for sure Max was moments away from asking for a lift to the hospital, or scolding Chewy for wounding him.

His face was serious. He grabbed his spit cup and hocked a large wad of tobacco, never breaking eye contact with Chewy. He gently sat the cup down. Then he reached out his hand and gestured for the gun from Chewy.

Chewy reluctantly handed over the gun.

"Get over there and set us up a new one ‘Chew. You’re up on me 2-1."