Page 43 of Death of the Author

43 Nicole Simmons

Zelu couldn’t stop thinking about how people had treated her in Nigeria when she’d arrived at that hospital. They were so

careful and caring... and condescending. There was a nurse who’d acted like Zelu was the most fragile, sad thing on earth.

She’d just run over thirty miles, after fleeing armed and shooting kidnappers, and all this woman seemed to see was that Zelu

was a “paraplegic female,” which meant she was helpless. Everyone in that hospital had looked at her with pity. It didn’t

matter how rich and famous she was.

Now, in Chicago, she was in the autonomous vehicle one day when she looked left and saw a large converted warehouse building.

No , she thought, staring at it. That would be crazy . And there are probably crazy people in there... behaving crazily . Nonetheless, as she drove home, the place continued to nag at her. Me, at a shooting range? she wondered and wondered. Msizi? Definitely not. Her siblings? Maybe her brother. She chuckled. But, even if Tolu went with

her, she couldn’t imagine herself picking up and firing a weapon. “Nah,” she said to herself.

That night, she lay in bed looking at the ceiling. Msizi was in the other room working, the faint sound of his fingers flying across the keyboard soothing her. It was late, but she couldn’t sleep. Every time she shut her eyes, even before she fell into sleep, she saw the Nigerian road, where she was running and running. And she remembered the smell of gunpowder from when the men had started shooting. And that man’s face, the one who’d been sweating so much that he glistened in the dim lights of the cars as he pointed his gun.

She rolled onto her side and pressed her face into the pillow, squeezing her eyes shut. This didn’t help at all. She considered

bothering Msizi. She thought of the gun range again. And just like that, her fevered flashbacks subsided. She grabbed her

phone from the nightstand beside her and asked Yebo to find the place. She smiled. It was black-owned, and that owner was

a woman named Mona. And Mona gave private lessons to women who wanted to learn (men had their pick of three other teachers,

as did women). Zelu signed up for a lesson as “Nicole Simmons.” Then she put her phone on the nightstand and finally fell

into a deep, quiet sleep.

It was snowing, a good sign that not many people would be out today. The drive was slow and jerky, her vehicle moving with

caution as it tried not to slip on the road. It would normally have been about a ten-minute drive, but today it was a half

hour long. And on the way, they passed five fender benders. It wasn’t a day to be outside, but nothing was going to keep Zelu

from doing what she was about to do.

Mona was waiting for her at the front door when she arrived.

“Wow, seven thirty a.m., sharp,” the woman said, whistling. “Even in this weather.”

“Yep,” Zelu said, her exos stamping off the snow before entering. Mona stood back and watched her do this, and Zelu knew what

she was about to ask.

“No,” Zelu said as she shrugged off her coat.

“No, what?” Mona asked.

“It’s not exactly easy; I’m just used to them.”

Mona’s eyebrows lifted. “I wasn’t going to ask that.”

Zelu frowned.

“I’m kidding,” Mona said. “Yes, I was.” Then she burst out laughing. “I just can’t understand how all that works.” She reached

forward and took Zelu’s heavy coat. The snow was already melting off it.

“ You don’t have to understand. I do,” Zelu said. “That’s what matters.”

“Fair enough,” Mona said. “This way, then.”

She led Zelu through the empty gun shop.

“Are you here alone?” Zelu asked.

“Sure,” she said. “My clerk doesn’t get here until nine a.m., and there’s only one person who comes in on a weekday at this

time. He’ll be here soon.”

“And you don’t... worry?”

Mona paused and looked at Zelu. “Why would I? Anyone stupid enough to fuck with a gun shop and range is only goin’ get shot.”

Zelu laughed. “True.”

They went into Mona’s office, beside the front desk. It was warm and spacious, her large desk on the far side of the carpeted

room and ten chairs in front of a dry-erase board on the other side. There was a framed poster laying out the “Primary Rules

of Gun Safety” on the wall and a glass case displaying several firearms of various sizes.

On the table was a black gun with the slide back, an unloaded magazine, and orange fake bullets. “This is the one you’ll be

shooting,” Mona said.

Zelu looked down at it and shivered. Mona smirked knowingly. And so the lesson began. For an hour and a half, she showed Zelu

the parts of the pistol, taught her lessons in safety, and then taught them to her again. She taught Zelu how to hold the

gun, how to load the pistol using the fake bullets, and the proper stance. “But all this is academic,” she said. “Let’s go

put it into action.”

They left the room and went to the front of the store, where Mona handed Zelu a pair of shooting earmuffs. When Zelu put them on, the veil of silence was familiar. She felt a little less connected to where she was, which she welcomed because damn, she was scared.

As she followed Mona through the security doors, onto the chilly gun range, Zelu started having second thoughts. Her mother

would be appalled by what she was doing. Her whole family would be. Msizi would be disgusted. What if her gun exploded when

she fired it? What if her eardrums exploded despite the earmuffs? What if the entire range exploded? There were bulletproof partitions separating the shooting booths. All of them were empty except the one at the

end. A black man of average height and above-average girth with a shiny bald head, wearing a pricey-looking suit, stood fiddling

with a large black assault rifle. He didn’t look their way.

“Hey, Odell,” Mona said.

Odell grunted a hello, not fully looking at them.

Zelu and Mona stepped into the booth right beside the door, and Zelu was relieved. They were as far from Odell as possible.

Mona had to speak loudly for Zelu to hear her through the earmuffs. “That’s Odell. He comes here before work, bright and early

at eight a.m. every weekday. Even with this snow. Fires off twenty rounds with his tactical rifle and then leaves. Guess it

relaxes him. He’s one of Chicago’s top lawyers.”

Zelu snorted a laugh. She understood now. But she still didn’t like the guy. She focused on the gun Mona set on the counter

as she went through the routine of loading the weapon one more time. Zelu nodded. “Okay, I think I’ve got it.”

Mona nodded, too, and stepped back. “All right, have at it.”

Zelu aimed and slowly began to bring her finger to the trigger. She took a breath.

BLAM! Not from her gun. From lanes away. Even with her earmuffs on, the sound was massive. Still holding the gun up and facing

forward, she leaned against the booth partition just in time, or she’d have fallen. She held herself, trying to catch her

breath as the flashback washed over her.

She looked around .

At the bushes .

It was dark and warm.

Shouts.

She started running.

She fought the urge to run. She let the images flood over her. Her therapist had instructed her to ride out the flashbacks,

notice them, but then let them go along their way. That’s what PTSD flashbacks wanted to do. Go along their way. Let them leave me behind to go on my way , she thought, her eyes closed.

BLAM! The lawyer’s rifle went off again.

“You all right?” Mona’s hand was on her shoulder. She gently took the gun from Zelu’s hands.

BLAM!!!

The green of the bush on that night in Imo State.

What town, she didn’t know.

Zelu groaned, using her hands to press her earmuffs as tightly to her head as she could. “I’m...”

BLAM!!!

“Relax. The bullets are going that way,” Mona said, pointing toward the targets. “I’m sorry. That’s not the greatest first

time hearing a gun fired.”

“It’s not my first.”

BLAM!!!

“My God,” Zelu whispered.

“Oh, that’s right,” Mona said. “I’m sorry.”

Zelu looked at Mona with a frown. Mona took her hand and led Zelu off the gun range. In the quiet of the shop, Zelu threw

off her earmuffs and leaned against the counter. “My God.”

“So sorry about that,” Mona said. “I should have had us wait.” She paused, looking at Zelu. “I... I know you put the name

Nicole Simmons, but come on. I know who you are.”

Zelu opened her mouth to speak, but it was as if someone had stolen her voice. Nothing came out. She grinned sheepishly and sighed. What’d she expect? What other black woman with blue braids and cyan exos was there in Chicago?

“That’s why I scheduled so early,” Zelu murmured. “Figured no one else would be here on a Wednesday morning.”

“Don’t worry,” Mona quickly said. “I won’t tell a soul. We are black-owned, my patrons are black, this place is for us . Plus, people kind of treat the range like church. It’s sacred. It’s not anonymous, but there’s no judgment if you’re within

the law. You’re safe here.”

The last three words hit her hard, and suddenly she felt like a burst dam. Her shoulders curled and the tears rushed forth.

She wept, leaning against the counter, her exos supporting her, the memories of that horrible night flying about her head

like wasps. Mona stood back, watching her. When Zelu began to quiet, Mona handed her a tissue.

Zelu took it and wiped her face. Odell came out of the gun range. He lifted his chin in acknowledgment at them both, patted

Zelu on the shoulder once, and then he was off into the blizzard.

Mona gave her a sly grin. “So, you ready to do some shooting?”

Zelu wiped her face again. “Yes.”

At first, it was terrifying. She remembered all the instructions and safety. That was the easy part. Loading the pistol, a

Glock 42, was a little scary, but she managed. Holding it up and pointing it at the target was easy, too. Slowly bringing

her index finger to the trigger was not so hard. Closing her left eye and aiming with her dominant right eye was easy. It

was pulling the trigger that was difficult.

She’d stood there for a good two minutes, her finger on the trigger, her right eye on the target. All she had to do was squeeze.

She was the one who would make the noise now, not armed kidnappers or some stressed-out, high-powered Chicago lawyer. She was

in control. But still, she hesitated. She thought about Rusted Robots and the main character, who understood deep in her circuits that true power was in the harnessing of it, not the possessing of it. And when you were aware of the moment you harnessed power, that was when it was most difficult to navigate. Zelu stepped forward. Strong stance. Gun held firm, controlled, steady. Aim with right eye.

Blam!

This weapon’s noise wasn’t even a third as loud as that made by Odell the lawyer’s firearm. Still, the gun felt like something

alive and treacherous in her hands. Dragon-like, for there was a millisecond of orange explosion from the tip as it fired.

“Whoooa!” she said.

“You did it!” Mona said. “Look!”

She’d hit the center of the target. On her first try. Oh yes, she was ready to try it again.

And so it went. If some love affairs started with a bang, this was one of them. By the time the lesson was over, she’d fired

forty rounds, never going outside the first circle of the six-circle target.

“Goddamn! You’re a natural,” Mona cheered. Zelu wondered if she said this to all the beginners to keep them coming back.

Well, it definitely worked on her. Because once the snow was cleared a week later, Zelu went again to rent a pistol and fire

more rounds. Then again. And soon she was a member, and she knew Odell’s last name was Martin because she saw him at 8 a.m.

twice a week.

Mona had her graduate from the pistol to a shotgun. Zelu didn’t say it aloud, but she wanted to get to Odell’s level. The

night after her first time at the gun range, she’d had all manner of PTSD-flavored nightmares, but after the first five visits,

her flashbacks had begun to decrease. Now she only had them once in a while.

“Can you teach me how to fire whatever it is Odell fires?” she asked Mona one day.

“You mean the tactical rifle?” Mona said, smirking.

“Yeah.”

The first time she shot one, she felt like she’d made a chip in space and time. “Holy shit !” she screamed, and then she just started laughing.

“Never imagined this would be you,” Mona said, looking at her. “Gonna write about you on my blog, if you don’t mind...

Nicole.”

“Go right ahead,” Zelu said.

Zelu shot ten rounds that day. By the next month, it became twenty. After her shooting sessions, she felt more even-keeled,

powerful, invincible, dangerous, able to defend herself. Though she wasn’t, she pretended she was ready for war and the gun

was an extension of her arm. She had that level of control and knowledge. It felt good. She was not the same woman she had

been back in Nigeria, when kidnappers tried to take her. She’d never carry weapons outside the range, but moving about the

world knowing that she could not only accurately shoot a rifle but also break it apart, clean it, and put it back together

fairly quickly gave her a nice ego boost. It made her feel dangerous even while people looked at her and saw weakness.

Then she’d go home, wash the lead from her hands, and sit down at her computer. Mind fresh, body cleaned, the scent of gunpowder

still in her memory. She wasn’t writing book two, but she’d begun messing around on there. Writing pieces that only she’d

read. Little vignettes about anything. The ant she saw in her kitchen. A conversation she had with her mother about the crumbling

family house in Nigeria. Her brother’s cat Man Man’s obsession with corn bread. The tangible noise of the gun range. Talking

to Marcy about her new girlfriend. The prick of regret she felt when she saw the civilian space mission she’d turned down

launch successfully. The runaround the builders renovating her parents’ home in Nigeria were giving her. It felt good to write

again with no expectations, no goals. Shooting guns got her to this point of clarity. Who’d have thought?

She never told Msizi, though. He detested guns; he believed they were literally evil objects. This was something she would

keep to herself. He didn’t need to know a thing about Nicole Simmons.