VARMINTS AND OTHER VICTIMS

A .30-06 hunting rifle to shoot rabbits in the kitchen garden – Dad might as well have used a bazooka or a box of hand grenades. But that’s how Dad was. When he decided to plant a garden, he decided at the same time no damn varmints were going to get away with raiding the fruits – or the vegetables – of his labors. As a boy of eight, I loved the oily smoothness of the bolt action. Dad let me work it a couple of times, standing behind me and holding the weapon in front of me so I could unlock it, slide it back, slide it forward and lock it again. “A boy should learn about firearms,” he told Mom when she objected. I can still imagine the smell of his Vaseline hair tonic as he put his head next to mine and showed me how to work the thing. He showed me the clip where the ammunition would go; he showed me how the sharp-pointed, brass-jacketed cartridge – “round,” he called it – would slip into the chamber and be ready to fire as soon as he released the safety. As far as I know, Dad never got any rabbits, or any other damn varmints. Only one shot was ever fired from that rifle during its brief sojourn under our roof. Dad didn’t fire it. I did. That shot seriously wounded all but one of us. It killed my baby sister.