Tommy Gun

“Bang!”

Tommy held his thumb out, the tip of his finger toward my chest. I only blinked as I stared at his finger, imagining it recoiling and smoke pouring from the end.

“You’re supposed to be dead now, Logan,” Tommy withdrew his hand, tucking it in his pocket like it was a holster, “Why are you just standing there?”

“I don’t think I like playing cowboys,” I knew I didn’t like it when Tommy mentioned the game. I didn’t want to ruin the fun, though, and Tommy always pitched a fit when he didn’t get what he wanted.

Tommy’s face contorted as if he’d licked a lemon. “Don’t be a girl,” he spat and hit me on the arm. I learned not to move away from it.

“Why do I even play with you?”

“Cuz you don’t have anyone else to play with.”

We stayed outside the rest of the day. I wanted to make mud pies to smash on the concrete. Tommy laughed at that idea and refused to do anything that didn’t involve cowboys or soldiers. We argued until my mama picked me up. When she asked if I had fun, I only nodded.

Tommy was the most annoying person in the world. He had to be on top, had to win all our games. He would shoot me, and I’d be dead. That’s how most of them ended up, anyway. I knew I was a boy, and I knew that meant fighting was in my blood. That’s what Tommy’s daddy told me. I knew I had to listen to him, cuz I didn’t have a daddy.

“Your mama messed you up something fierce,” Tommy’s daddy sat me and Tommy down at the coffee table in the living room while his mama made dinner. I was more focused on the smell of potatoes and asparagus rather than his daddy. “Leaving you without a daddy like she did? What was she thinkin’.”

“My daddy died a’ cancer,” I voiced without thinking. He died before I was born, and I wasn’t as attached to his memory like people thought I shoulda been.

“Don’t matter,” Tommy’s daddy waved his hand, “she shoulda got with someone else.”

“She got with Doug. She said he put his hands on her, though.”

“Picky, ain’t she?”

I didn’t like Tommy’s daddy. He spoke bad about my mama and said I didn’t have the ‘gusto’ of a real man, whatever that meant. But I guessed he was right about the second part, at least. The other boys laughed when I tried to play their games and said girls couldn’t kick a football like them. Tommy was the only friend I had. He said it was cuz his daddy forced him to be around me, show me the right way.

In seventh grade, Tommy followed me to the boy’s bathroom. I wasn’t sure why, I just had to pee real bad but he insisted on coming. When I was done, I tried to go wash my hands, but Tommy stopped me.

“I can tell you only have a mama,” Tommy pushed me away from the sinks.

“My mama says it’s important, so I don’t get sick.”

“Your mama’s stupid.”

I didn’t like Tommy. He reminded me of his daddy. Tommy kept following me to the bathroom after that. He said it was to make sure I did everything right, but I didn’t like him watching. I made sure to wash my hands extra hard when I got home.

Tommy didn’t just follow me to bathrooms. He was my shadow, no matter how many times he said he hated me or what kinda names he called me. It wasn’t the worst, though. During those times he wasn’t with me, other kids would come around, mocking, grabbing, or whispering things that sounded like Tommy but felt worse. He was like a shield that blocked arrows, but shot its own at the person holding it. At least those hurt less.

In eighth grade, Tommy’s daddy invited me out to their annual hunting trip. I told Tommy’s daddy over and over that I didn’t wanna go. I said it was cuz I didn’t wanna distract them, but it was actually cuz I just didn’t wanna.

“Since you’ve got no daddy, you need someone to teach you how to shoot.”

And I couldn’t say anything back.

Tommy’s daddy drove us out to the middle of the woods. He said it wasn’t technically deer hunting season just yet, but he knew a guy that would let him come out onto the land and keep quiet about it.

“This here, Logan, is a rifle.”

I didn’t think my legs ever shook so hard. I got nervous when Tommy pointed his finger at me too long, but with a gun in my hands I felt my eyes water. I forgot that I’d need to handle one.

“Stop being a girl, Logan,” Tommy yelled at me when he saw my state. His daddy wiped off the end of another rifle before Tommy grabbed at it, like a baby to a bottle. I tried to walk straight, but my eyes stayed glued to the gun in Tommy’s hand. The long barrel with camo down the side looked big for him. I knew mine looked the same, and I felt myself waddling behind him.

We were out for two hours before we saw anything. I stayed quiet the whole time, but Tommy and his daddy didn’t complain. Tommy’s daddy set us up in a crater in the ground, and they both kept their head peeked up out of the hole. I stayed back, the rifle in my lap and my hands clutched around it. I was afraid I’d lose it if I let go.

I didn’t see the deer before I heard the shot. Even though Tommy’s gun was a foot away, my ears rang and the heat that was in my eyes all day came pouring out.

“Got it! I got it!” Tommy yelled as he fired another round. Then another.

“Don’t ruin the meat, son,” Tommy’s daddy chastised, taking Tommy’s gun and making him shout. His daddy ignored him, though, and got outta the hole.

Tommy looked back at me, but I didn’t look at him. All I heard was his scoff before a hand met the back of my skull. “Stop crying. What are you, stupid?”

Tommy grabbed my arm and dragged me from our spot. Everything was blurry at that point, and the trees were meshing with the ground. There was a copper smell. It was messing with my head. I remembered looking at Tommy’s daddy though, and seeing a knife cutting through the soft belly of a deer, staining its pretty fur red. I threw up against a tree.

The only thing that my head kept sharp was Tommy’s daddy’s words: “If you were my kid, I would’ve beat you already.”

When I got home, my mama asked if I had a good time. I nodded and stayed in my room the rest of the night. I didn’t go on another hunting trip.

In ninth grade, I tried to stay away from Tommy. I didn’t answer his calls, but was too scared to block his number. I didn’t know what he’d do if I cut him off like that. Sometimes he’d text me hurtful things, but I was used to them by now. I couldn’t escape him at school, though. Maybe in classes, but not lunch. He’d always find me at lunch.

“You runnin’ from me now?” He caught me outside in the courtyard one day. I told myself I wanted to get away from the noise. What I really wanted was to escape him.

“No,” I lied.

“Well, you ain’t gettin’ away that easy,” Tommy brought his lunch and sat across from me. “Daddy says you need someone to watch you now more than ever with high school an’ all. Dunno what he cares about a girl like you for.”

Tommy wasn’t the scariest thing in ninth grade. We weren’t the biggest anymore, and the juniors were what frightened me the most. A group of them followed me around. They’d make explosion noises with their lips and get me to drop my things.

The worst was in gym. I shared it with the lot of them, and every time we got into teams, they’d join mine. It didn’t matter if I was about to hit a volleyball or was gonna jump up to a basketball hoop—all it took was one of them shouting BOOM, and I was on the ground, cowering. I knew it was them every time, but they’d still get me, and all I could hear was them laughing away.

The first time they tried to follow me to the bathroom, I managed to get into the band room instead. They were like Tommy, but five of him. I didn’t go to the bathroom at school no more.

By tenth grade, I was back at Tommy’s side. I thought maybe he’d deter the people worse than him. The juniors only turned into meaner seniors, and I still shared a gym class with them. I thought my saving grace was that Tommy had that period, too.

It was the first week back at school that they came over. A boy with pockmarks on his face shouted over at us during dodgeball, “I didn’t know Logan had a boyfriend!”

The pockmarked kid went home that day with bruises on his face, and Tommy got suspended for a month. I thought that was enough time for the seniors to kill me. In their minds, Tommy socking the guy in the mouth was enough proof that we were together. I didn’t hear the end of how my ‘boyfriend protected me’ and how ‘territorial he was’. Thinking of Tommy like that made me feel like I was seeing the deer skinned again.

I knew Tommy didn’t punch pock-face for me, either. He punched him cuz he insulted everything Tommy’s daddy told him not to be. If the guy called anyone else my boyfriend, Tommy woulda laughed too.

“What’d your daddy say when you got home?” I no longer ignored Tommy’s calls. I needed anyone else to talk to than the seniors in gym.

“He said I did good,” Tommy replied over the phone, “that I stood my ground. They still sayin’ stuff to you?”

“Every day.”

“You should punch one a’ them. It’ll get ‘em to shut up.”

“My mama would be upset if I got hurt. Or in trouble, or anything like that.”

“That’s why you need a daddy.”

When Tommy got back, almost all the attention moved to him. The boyfriend comment was still made daily, but Tommy got ‘smart’ and started fights with them after school, if that’s considered smart. There were always bruises on him, and usually they’d gang up on him til he didn’t move.

I was at home when it happened. I was eating stir-fry straight from my plate, keeping my head down.

“How’s school been?”

My mama asked me that every day. Usually, I’d tell her that it was good, and that was that. Instead, I started crying into my plate of stir-fry. My mama held me and I tried my best not to mention Tommy. I talked about the seniors instead, telling her what was happening. I’d never seen my mama look so scared. Or angry.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I didn’t wanna be a girl.”

“Why would that make you a girl?”

I couldn’t answer her. She just hugged me. I stayed home the next day, and my mama raised hell at the school. She yelled at anyone that would listen to her and came back that night with ice cream. I wondered why I hadn’t done that sooner.

The seniors went back to just name-calling, and I’d never been happier. They weren’t allowed on my team in gym, and Tommy didn’t go home with bruises no more.

“Why’d you go and cry to your mama?” Tommy sounded upset at me at the end of gym one day.

“I dunno,” my answer was genuine, “I think it was an accident.”

“You think? You shoulda just taken care of it yourself, like an actual man.”

I shrugged. That just seemed to make Tommy madder, and he asked me if I was trying to be a girl. He was quiet when I said being a girl was what stopped him from being beat after school every day.

There was only a month left of tenth grade, and I coulda cried with joy at the thought of never seeing the seniors again. I tried to keep as quiet as I could the rest of the year, and that left me drifting from Tommy again. He called me more names than the seniors at that point, and I did my best to avoid it all. I went back to ignoring his calls and only interacting with him at school.

It was in that last month that one of the seniors yelled from across the gym, hollering and stomping his feet, trying to make it sound like an automatic was going off. I screamed and went under the bleachers. No one tried to get me out, and Tommy ignored me. They didn’t make anymore noises like that, but it wasn’t long before I heard one of them yell at Tommy, saying, “Now the girlfriend’s all alone.”

I couldn’t see what happened in the gym, but I heard it. It was fists against faces, bodies against plywood floors, and the rushing of feet. I saw three coaches run that way, and three more teachers come in through the door before the noises stopped.

The school called our parents, and we all got picked up early. I didn’t see Tommy, but I heard the other kids whispering outside. Something about blood and a tooth. I was happy to let my mama pick me up. She told me that there wasn’t gonna be gym for a week and asked me what happened. I just told her I didn’t see it.

At midnight, a rock hit my window. I was half awake, but I dove to the floor like it was an airstrike. When I heard Tommy’s voice calling my name outside, I risked a peek. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and his face was busted real bad. His hoodie looked bulky.

I opened the window, “What happened?”

“Gave that kid what he deserved,” I wanted to close the window, “no thanks to you. You never help me.”

“I don’t wanna help you. Not with that.”

“Why the hell not?” He raised his voice. I looked back at my door as if my mama was gonna bust through.

“Cuz you started it.”

“I know you didn’t just say that to me,” He took a step closer, and I was suddenly glad I was on the second story, “They called me your girlfriend, and no one calls me a girl.”

“Well maybe you are a girl, Tommy.”

Tommy’d been calling me a girl since we were real little. I’d never said that back at him, but I felt white-cold fear shoot down my spine in lightning bolts when his eyes widened. I wanted to retreat back into my room, but I was frozen in place. My body wanted to crumble inwards when Tommy went from wide-eyed and tense to slowly relaxed. Tommy never relaxed.

“I wasn’t suspended again, can you believe it?” Tommy spoke again, “Neither were the other guys. The advisors didn’t wanna deal with them having trouble graduating, so they said if we didn’t talk to each other for what time we got left, then all of us will be fine. You should come to school tomorrow, it’ll help everything.”

I didn’t answer Tommy, my mouth was glued shut. He waved at me, and it was twenty minutes after he was gone that I could move again.

I didn’t sleep that night. In the morning, I wanted to beg my mama to let me stay home, but my mouth wouldn’t open. I couldn’t speak, and I just shook with dread and nausea in the car. My mind was fuzzy, and I didn’t know what to do.

I knew I wouldn’t see Tommy until lunchtime. I thought about leaving school, skipping like Tommy always told me to. My feet moved without my control, though, taking me absently through my day, like always. The closer it got to noon, the harder I found it to function. I didn’t do anything in class, only sit and stare at whatever clock was available.

It was lunchtime before I knew it, and Tommy wasn’t there. I didn’t know if he lied to me about not being expelled, but I sat at the end of one of the long tables in silence. I was starved, but couldn’t move.

It was ten minutes til lunch was over when I heard the thump of someone sitting next to me. My back when rigid, and I only stared at the table.

“You waitin’ for me?” Tommy asked.

I nodded.

“Good,” he nudged me with his elbow, “I’m glad you came today.”

There were five minutes left in lunch, and neither of us spoke. We sat in silence, no food for of either of us. Tommy had on his bulky hoodie, his hands tucked into the sleeves.

The bell went off. The cafeteria got even louder as the students’ volume matched the noise, and the sound of squealing chairs and sneakers on tiles echoed off the walls.

“I wanted to tell you,” Tommy spoke over the voices filling the room, “that I never liked you.”

Tommy pulled off his hoodie. I saw the flash of a barrel, long and camo-covered. I couldn’t hear the noise of the room anymore, only a single

Bang!