The Gimlet Eye

I run a fast autopsy. Silhouette, male. Cause of death: multiple bullet wounds. In liver, spleen, stomach; in the thick intestinal maze: croaked but good. The .38 rounds ticket-punch a clean and quite irrefutable hole: on paper at least. I hold the spooky flat corpse up—does this image stand for that dark wallscaler, alley-waiter we all fear? The man who gunned him down has Sunoco—I can be very friendly written across his T-shirt back. Sunoco is one of ten snipers who fire at will: each in a glassdoored gun port. NO SMOKING. NO ONE UNDER 18 ALLOWED W/O PARENT. NO food or drink. The whole shooting match is strict and prig-neat. Everyone has to wear eye shield plus soundproof earphone set: they remind me of test-listeners at a music store: but that big crack in the record can get to you: blam, blurt-blurt. Silhouette targets return gun-port-ward, like wash on a line, drawn along by motor pulley and DOA. I’m in the Garfield Target Range. Garfield, N.J. Some unnoted irony to that. No one here, I guess, remembers the first Garfield target and Charles J. Guiteau.

Blat, pause, blat, pause-pause, blat, pause-longer pause, blam, blat, bab’blat. The pauses in particular deafen and annoy: like waiting for a sick child to cough again at night. My cord is taut. Yet Garfield has the ambiance of some long-stalemated skirmish line: companionable, not over-serious: where enemy and enemy have been introduced by that best ice-breaker, death. There are antique rifles for sale: German and Japanese WWII gear, even an Iranian long tool from 1949. They look gnarled, murderous: sweat of old hate on wood. But probably, as a veteran will, they lie about their kills. Garfield, though, is handgun passionate. You can rent here (with just a local driver’s license); but the average .38 or .45 will go suburbanly home: to live beside tricycle and lawnmower and second car. Mr. Sunoco has come out now: seven holes grouped, gutshot in the black. I smile at him. I can be very friendly, too.

DK

About the Author

D. Keith Mano

D. Keith Mano was a TV screenwriter and author of ten books, including Take 5, recipient of the 1987 Literary Lion award, and columnist at National Review magazine for 17 years.

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I run a fast autopsy. Silhouette, male. Cause of death: multiple bullet wounds. In liver, spleen, stomach; in the thick intestinal maze: croaked but good. The .38 rounds ticket-punch a clean and quite irrefutable hole: on paper at least. I hold the spooky flat corpse up—does this image stand for that dark wallscaler, alley-waiter we all fear? The man who gunned him down has Sunoco—I can be very friendly written across his T-shirt back. Sunoco is one of ten snipers who fire at will: each in a glassdoored gun port. NO SMOKING. NO ONE UNDER 18 ALLOWED W/O PARENT. NO food or drink. The whole shooting match is strict and prig-neat. Everyone has to wear eye shield plus soundproof earphone set: they remind me of test-listeners at a music store: but that big crack in the record can get to you: blam, blurt-blurt. Silhouette targets return gun-port-ward, like wash on a line, drawn along by motor pulley and DOA. I’m in the Garfield Target Range. Garfield, N.J. Some unnoted irony to that. No one here, I guess, remembers the first Garfield target and Charles J. Guiteau.

Blat, pause, blat, pause-pause, blat, pause-longer pause, blam, blat, bab’blat. The pauses in particular deafen and annoy: like waiting for a sick child to cough again at night. My cord is taut. Yet Garfield has the ambiance of some long-stalemated skirmish line: companionable, not over-serious: where enemy and enemy have been introduced by that best ice-breaker, death. There are antique rifles for sale: German and Japanese WWII gear, even an Iranian long tool from 1949. They look gnarled, murderous: sweat of old hate on wood. But probably, as a veteran will, they lie about their kills. Garfield, though, is handgun passionate. You can rent here (with just a local driver’s license); but the average .38 or .45 will go suburbanly home: to live beside tricycle and lawnmower and second car. Mr. Sunoco has come out now: seven holes grouped, gutshot in the black. I smile at him. I can be very friendly, too.

DK

About the Author

D. Keith Mano

D. Keith Mano was a TV screenwriter and author of ten books, including Take 5, recipient of the 1987 Literary Lion award, and columnist at National Review magazine for 17 years.