“I’d rather hide in the corner while you do everything again like the last three times.”
He gives my shoulders a shake. “I might not be there next time, now relax.”
I take a deep breath, roll my shoulders, and lift the gun.
“Better. Now you’re not shooting blindly. You have to use your sights,” he says as he points to them on the gun. “Once you know what you’re doing and you know your gun, it’s almost instinct, but for you, you need to look, line them up, and shoot.”
“Alright…” I say. He really knows what he’s doing and how to be serious during times like this.
“Now, even if your hands are steady, look how much it moves every time you breathe. Every move you make moves that gun just a little. So you need to steady your breath, you can even hold it if you want. It’s like taking a photograph. If you’re not steady or holding your breath when you snap that picture, it’s going to be blurry, but in this case, if your shot is blurry it means you shoot the person you’re trying not to kill.”
“Can I have a bigger target?”
“Nope. Now line them up and tell me when you’re ready.”
I do then nod. “Is this good?”
“Now take a deep breath, steady your body and pull the trigger.”
I do as he asks, and when I have the can lined up as good as I think I can get it, I pull the trigger. The bullet hits the tree behind it, sending bark spewing off. “See? I’m much more destined to sit in the corner and watch you save me.”
He steps up behind me, pressing his body against mine as he takes my hand and readjusts my arm. “Focus.”
Focus, he says, when his body is pressed against mine. “I am.”
“See the lineup. Now pull the trigger,” he says as he draws his hand off and I do. I hear the tink of the can as it tumbles down.
“See? You can’t give up after one fail. When I was pulled off the street, I knew how to fight with my fists. I had to learn or men would take advantage of me. They’d want to hurt me or refuse to give me all of my money, so I learned how to fight. It was how Tony set his eyes on me.”
Shepherd sighs and continues. “He asked if I knew how to shoot a gun. I’d never had a gun at that point, but here was this man willing to give me a place, give me a spot if I could shoot a gun. So I told him I didn’t, but I’d learn to be the best fucking marksman he ever saw. He laughed in my face, handed me an old shitty gun and a box of bullets and told me he might have a use for me if I could shoot a quarter that he taped to the tree.”
He rubs at his face as I watch him closely.
“I know it was a joke. I know he really didn’t give much of a shit what I did and thought that if I failed, he’d use me as a drug runner or some other bullshit thing. But I stood out there and I practiced and I practiced. I felt like I was going deaf from the noise, but I refused to stop. Because this was the difference between dying on the fucking streets and a roof over my head. So when I pulled Tony back out, I shot that fucking quarter from twice the distance he’d asked of me. The difference between you and me is that I’m here to help you and that might be the difference between you staying alive and you dying.”
Shepherd’s eyes catch mine and he looks so determined that I find it giving me some relief.
“Yes, I will protect you. I know how to shoot a gun and I’m good at it, but I’m not bulletproof. One of these days the person who gets hit is going to be me instead of the other guy. That might be today or tomorrow or next week. And I don’t want you to just lie down and die when it happens. Alright?”
I nod as I realize that I’d become so fixated on becoming the victim that I really don’t know how to be anything else. “I’ll try harder. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“I think… I think I just became so used to doing what I’m told, just