23. Janet
JANET
The place is on West Twentieth, down a flight of stairs, below the city. You can still hear Manhattan above you in pieces — boots on the sidewalk, a truck groaning past, the faint metallic scream of brakes somewhere up the block — but down here everything feels sealed off.
I stand inside under the fluorescent lights, trying not to look like a woman who's never done this before.
The man behind the counter disappeared fifteen minutes ago into the back with my license and paperwork.
Glass cases run the length of the room. Pistols sit under them in neat black rows, each one tagged, numbered, waiting.
The air smells like machine oil, old paper, gunpowder, and something metallic I can't name.
From behind a closed door comes the dull crack of shots on the range.
Not loud enough to make me jump. Loud enough to remind me why I'm here.
The man comes back.
He's maybe sixty, heavyset, gray mustache, with the particular patience of someone who has answered the same questions ten thousand times and still has ten thousand left in him.
He sets my paperwork on the counter.
"Yeah," he says. "Everything looks good."
I let out a breath.
"First firearm?"
"Yes."
I put both hands on the glass case. Inside, rows of guns I can't tell apart yet.
"All right," he says. "What kind of gun would you like?"
I look down into the glass case.
There are too many of them. Black ones. Silver ones. Small ones that look almost harmless until you remember what they are. Larger ones with squared-off slides and hard edges. Nothing about them feels dramatic. That's the part that gets me. No music. No thunder. No cinematic moment.
"I need something that will stop a man from moving forward."
He doesn't blink. Doesn't ask me what I mean by that. Nods once, slowly, like it's a perfectly reasonable answer, which maybe in here it is.
"Then you don't want the smallest thing in here because it's easy to hide. Little guns are harder to shoot well. More snap. Less to hold on to. You want something you can actually control."
He pulls out three options. Walks me through each one. The weight, the recoil, how many rounds, how easy to load under pressure. His voice is flat and informational, no judgment in it, and I'm grateful for that more than I can say.
He reaches into the case and unlocks it.
He takes one out, checks it with quiet, practiced movements, and sets it on the mat between us.
"Compact. Nine millimeter. Common choice. Small enough to carry. Big enough to learn on."
I stare at it.
It is smaller than I expected.
Somehow that makes it worse.
"You want to hold it?"
I don't answer right away.
I pick it up.
From the range behind the wall, three shots crack in a slow, steady rhythm.
The man waits. He doesn't rush me. He doesn't soften his voice either, which I appreciate.
"Is this what you recommend?"
"For you? Yes."
"I need a lesson," I say.
"Smart," he says.
"I'll take it."
"We'll get you squared away. You buy it first. I'll have one of the instructors give you a step by step. Rule number one. The most important rule. Whether you think it's loaded or not, you don't ever point it at anyone or anything you don't plan on killing."
I wait thirty minutes for the next available instructor.
The range smells like gunpowder before I even get through the door. The man at the desk checks my paperwork and hands me off to an instructor named Dale. Broad, quiet, the kind of calm that comes from standing next to loud things for a living.
He walks me through everything. The stance, the grip, how to line up the sights. His voice is patient and practiced.
He hands me the ear protection. Foam plugs and over-ear muffs both.
"Double up," he says. "Trust me."
I put them both on. The world goes muffled. I can hear my own breathing, the distant pressure of shots firing from the lanes around us.
I raise the gun.
Dale steps in close to adjust my grip. His hand closes over mine.
I pull back before I can stop myself. A full step, my elbow jerking away from him.
He lifts both hands immediately. Steps back.
"Sorry," he says. "I should have asked first."
My skin still thinks a man's hands mean something they don't anymore, and there's nothing I can do about it standing in a gun range in Chelsea with a gun in my hand.
The room gets blurry. I focus.
"No." My voice comes out strange. "It's fine. I'm fine."
"Talk me through it," I say. "Without touching."
He does. I adjust my grip myself, the way he describes it.
I raise the gun again. Line up the sights.
I take the shot.
The sound detonates through both layers of protection and goes straight into my chest. Not through my ears — through my sternum. A concussive crack that travels up my arms and shakes something loose I wasn't expecting to find in there.
My whole body jolts back one step.
The target downrange is untouched.
"Breathe," Dale says.
I breathe.
I raise the gun.
The second shot is worse. I don't know why. I thought I knew what was coming, and my body still won't accept it — the crack tears through the foam and the muffs and lands somewhere old and airless, somewhere I haven't been in six years.
That's what it sounded like.
I never let myself know that before. I remembered the sound, but I kept it shapeless, kept it from becoming real. Standing in this booth, it becomes real. The bang off the buildings on our street. Joe turning. Joe falling.
That's the sound it made.
My knees go soft. I catch the partition wall with one hand, set the gun down on the ledge with the other. The paper target sways in the ventilation current, untouched, patient.
Something comes up out of my chest that I haven't let out in eleven days.
I press my hand over my mouth. Dale looks at the floor. Gives me the dignity of somewhere else to be while I come apart in this cinder block booth that smells like gunpowder and nothing I recognize.
It takes a while.
When it passes, I straighten up. I wipe my face with the back of my wrist. I pull one muff off my ear.
"I want to finish the session," I say.
Dale looks at me for a moment.
"Okay," he says.
I pick up the gun.
"Can I continue practicing by myself?"
"I'm going to stay with you a little longer."
"You're not comfortable leaving me in here with a firearm?"
"I didn't say that."
I turn back to the lane. The paper target hangs downrange, waiting. A man in silhouette, black on white, arms raised, gun pointed straight back at me.
He's already aiming.
I raise my gun. Line up the sights.
I close my eyes. Open them.
Ryan Keller is standing there.
I fire.
The crack jolts through me. This time I don't move.
I close my eyes. Open them.
Mike is standing there now.
I fire.