All characters, for what it's worth, are property of Brenda and the WB; this story itself was copyrighted by Ishafel on July 19, 2002.  It is set in more or less the same Camverse as "Silent Night" and is Eric's story.  I apologize to anyone who might be offended by the language, but certain words have more power than others, and—to me, anyway—seemed essential to the story.

Letters from the Wasteland The Way of the Gun

1974, Spring

            "Squeeze the trigger, dammit!"  His father was angry now, and he was beginning to be afraid that everything was not going to be all right after all.  He sighted carefully down the barrel of the gun once more, but he couldn't do it.  He must have made some sound, though, must have breathed too loudly.  Perhaps they only sensed his fear.  But they were bounding away instantly, and he put the safety on, lowered the gun.  The Colonel spat over the side of the deer stand.  "Faggot," he mouthed.  "Why the hell didn't you shoot?  I hope some day you have a faggot son, so you know how it feels."  The blow took him by surprise, and his eyes filled with tears.

            "Never," he mumbled.  He could feel his cheek swelling, despite the cold.  "I'll never hit a son of mine."  But the Colonel had turned away in disgust, and Eric's words passed unnoticed.  Only God was there to hear his promise, and God never told tales. 

            "Never," he said, again, but he was thinking of Lucy's stricken face, the handprint on her cheekbone.  He could not have stopped Annie if he'd tried, but still it broke his heart.  "Never again."  But his voice lacked conviction.  All his years of fighting for independence, years in college, the seminary, the Peace Corps, the ministry—come to nothing, because nothing had changed.  He could fix everyone's family but his own.  He finished his drink, whiskey he'd been given at Christmas by one of his parishioners.  Annie despised drunks, but what was one more weakness from the husband who'd failed her again. 

            His mother would never have spoken to his father so, and Eric knew that Annie's show of strength was merely her attempt to compensate for him.  She sensed his fear as that long ago buck had, and she tried to fill his place.  The Colonel would have said she was twice the man he ever could have been.  The Colonel would have been right—Eric was incapable of summoning the decision his father and wife managed—his greatest difficulty was that he could see every side to every story, and so could not commit to one view.  But in the past, God had always guided him to the right path in the end, and he had never had reason to question Annie before.  Perhaps his father had been right all along, and violence was as good an answer as any.  He could almost feel the smooth polished wood of the rifle in his hand, the cool metal against his jaw.  He set his glass down with a hand that suddenly shook.

            "Faggot," he told it, a little sadly, and looked up to find Robbie staring at him.  "Robbie.   I'm sorry, I was thinking of something else."

            "Of course," Robbie answered, polite as always, but there was a trace of fear in his expression.  It was always there, now, whenever he was alone with Eric.  Sometimes Eric wondered if he had done something to make Robbie afraid, but there was so much he could not remember, lately.  After a moment, he dismissed the thought all together. 

"What is it, Robbie?" he asked tiredly. 

Robbie sighed.  "The truth is, Reverend, we need money to buy the kids' clothes and pay the bills.  Matt's and my salaries together barely cover groceries, gas, and Annie's prescriptions.  We just can't manage it."

"Of course you can't, Robbie.  And there's no reason why you should have to—that's my job," Eric told him.  "Don't worry.  In future it will all be taken care of."  But he had already forgotten Robbie's words, Robbie's very presence.  Money, he was thinking.  Money would buy a gun.  Not a hunting rifle like the one he'd had as a boy, but a smaller, heavier weapon, one meant for bigger game.  A single bullet in his father's head would not change the past, but it might change the future for all of them.  When he looked up to tell Robbie about this neat, elegant solution, Robbie was gone, the glass empty.  With a start he realized that hours had gone by.  The bottle in his bottom drawer was empty as well.  He would have to buy another one.  More money.

Standing up again gave him a sudden rush of energy.  He remembered little of the drive to the liquor store on the edge of town.  Suddenly he found himself in the parking lot, sitting in the car, a new bottle, wrapped in a brown bag, between his thighs.  A big van pulled up behind him, and the man in the driver's seat screamed, "Faggot!"

Shocked, Eric glanced around.  In truth, he wondered what the other man knew.  The sign in front of him caught his eye, and he realized he had parked straddling the two handicapped spaces.  He waved apologetically to the van driver and backed carefully out.  His hands were trembling so much he had difficulty breaking the seal on the whiskey.  On the road again, he glanced at the clock on the dashboard, and realized, shocked, that it was nearly time for dinner.  He'd have to hide the bottle in the garage apartment until tomorrow.  In his head, he was already planning out his sermon for Sunday, the day after Christmas—the perfect time for a talk about the power of words, of names, to hurt.  The power of a name his father had called him once to shake him still.  And some words, of course, were worse than others.  Because they were true, a small part of his mind asserted, or why else would Robbie fear him so.  Firmly he squashed it. 

He tripped on the steps to the garage apartment, but he made it up.  Carefully he tapped his way along the wall until he found the hollow portion.  He had expected Annie's boards to be easy to pry away; he had not expected that many of the nails would be missing.  Pulling back the sheet of plywood, he found, nested in the pink insulation, a gun.  He raised it, sighted down the barrel.  The weight in his hand was immense, as if he held a cannon.  It was a thousand times what he could have imagined.  I could kill them all, he thought.  God has brought me to this for a reason.  Slowly he lowered the gun, knowing he was wrong.  But he did not put it back.

At dinner, he looked at his family, really looked at them, for the first time in a long time.  Annie, too thin, clad still in her bathrobe; Mary, remarkable as always for her absence; Matt, silent and thoughtful, and Robbie, who would not meet his eyes; Lucy, face pale, mouth swollen, and nails bitten; sullen Simon, become a man in his father's absence; Ruthie, cold and hard as ice.  Sam and David, silent and well behaved as ever in his presence.  He had destroyed them as surely as the Colonel had done him; there was an air of desperation about them now he remembered from refugees in Africa.  He had only himself to blame, and so he said only, "Let us pray," and bowed his head.

God was his strength, his shepherd, and his guide in times of need.  Now when he needed God most of all, there was no answer.  He was free to make his own choices, and that frightened him more than bondage ever had.  All his life the Colonel or God or Annie had directed him, but now God and the Colonel were far away and Annie was dying.  The gun in the glove compartment must be his only counsel now, and he had only one road left to travel.  He raised his head and the others said, "Amen," with all the passion of a chorus of robots, while he looked at each of them for the last time.