Safety Lock

By Judy Ma

The car squeaked as it made a sharp turn. Red and orange sparks flying in the air, rims scratching against the cement ramp. Another turn. As I sat in the passenger seat, my eyes darted this way and that, my hands gripping onto what looked like a rifle. Oh my God, what am I doing? Gray dusty skeletons appeared in the dark parking garage, hauntingly illuminated by the high beams of the car.

Quickly, I looked to my left, finding myself inhaling and exhaling at an uncomfortable rate that I was definitely not used to. I held on tight to the rifle against my chest. Mom! Watch out! They’re everywhere! Where’s the exit? I screamed with fear. The blaring sound of a horn diverted my gaze to the front windshield; she hit one, shattering the body like sharp, uneven shards of glass. I want to go home. I just want to go home. My body jumped up then back down as my mom went down another ramp. Suddenly, a skeleton appeared out of nowhere at my side-door window. I forcefully closed my eyes as my finger found the trigger. Bang.

I opened my eyes. It felt as if my heart was going to jump out of me any second, my face felt hot and flushed red. Forget about it. The window was wide open, yet I could not feel the breeze at all. I looked over at the clock. 3:00AM. I closed my eyes again.

The van slowly rocked its way down the wide street. An oily layer of heat waves coated the cement road. People were standing under the shadow of trees, waiting for the buses. Others sat at the actual bench, shading themselves with their purses and fanning themselves with their free hand. A nearby car sped by us, with all four windows down, blasting hard core rap. We came to a stop at the red light.

“Will, why is it so hot?” I complained, as I sat on the very edge of the passenger seat. I was extra careful so that my bare legs wouldn’t touch the leather cushion. God knows how long the sun has been frying this thing. Why did I call shot-gun in the first place? The heat hit me hard. I felt my responses slow down, my thought process decelerate; I felt so out of it, as if my body was physically present but my mind was completely elsewhere. It’s so hot…

“Yeah Will, what’s up with the AC? We can’t feel it at all back here,” the others chimed in. “Will, we’re dying here! Can you at least roll down the windows for us or something?”

Will, a police officer and one of the two advisors for my volunteer group, was driving me and a few other volunteers to go shopping for picnic supplies. He was wearing his patrol uniform, everything from his designer sunglasses that he claimed his girlfriend bought for him to his weapon belt, accessorized with his precious baton, tasor, hand cuffs, and hand-gun.

“Judy, it’s hot because of global warming. You guys in the back, the AC is already on max and there is nothing I can do to make it cooler,” Will answered us with a sigh. “We’re almost there anyway, so just deal with the heat for a little longer.”

Our annual picnic was just around the corner and the advisors had decided ahead of time that today was going to be our “pre-picnic shopping/marinating day.” The picnic was in honor of one of the founding advisors wife who had past away a few years ago. Thousands of dollars were placed aside every year just for this picnic in order to host about three hundred people.

That weekend, Will was able to borrow a van from the Oakland Police Department for us. The good thing about the van was that it was spacious, which meant that there wouldn’t be a problem trying to fit in the hundreds of items that were on our shopping list. The bad thing was that on both sides of the van, the words “Emergency Dial 9-1-1” were tattooed in bright red letters. On our way to the store, strangers looked into the van and I assumed they were wondering what society had done to confine such young teenagers. One driver even shook his head. I smiled back.

“Food, check; drinks, check; balloons, check,” I went down the shopping list as Whitney stacked the supplies into the trunk and the others unloaded the carts. I looked up from the blinding white list.

“Putting hours of mindless Tetris skills to use, huh?” I laughed.

“Hey, it works okay? You’re just jealous my score’s higher than yours,” Whitney joked back, placing the last bag of paper plates on top of the soda pyramid. “And I’m done! Let’s go!”

As we walked around the side of the Advisor’s house, the sun was still beaming hot even though it had already passed two. We squeezed ourselves past the leafy bush that separated the neighbor’s yard from us and finally reached the patio where a table was wrapped carefully with old newspapers and clear plastic tarp. On the table were four plastic containers that were surrounded by a group of assembly workers.

“About time! Where have you guys been?” Annie asked. “We’re exhausted, it’s time for you guys to take over. A layer of ribs, two ladles of marinating sauce. Keep doing this until the containers filled about two thirds high. That’s all there to it.”

The table looked stained with pools of red marinade, accumulated from the spills and splashes of the ladle into the buckets of raw meat. Gross, it looks like blood everywhere.

The guys, roughhousing with each other, took over the meat so I went into the kitchen to help with the fruit and vegetables. People were washing strawberries, slicing tomatoes, chopping onions. I looked outside the window above the sink and saw Will firing up the grill. I carefully grabbed the white handle of a sharp chef's knife from the slide-out drawer where all the other knives were stored and decided to tackle the task of cutting half a dozen cantaloupes.

“Who’s hungry?” Will asked.

“I am!” Everyone replied, exhausted. So we ate.

I took the left-overs back into the kitchen and decided to explore the house a little bit with one of the younger volunteers. We walked through the kitchen, past the marble counter-tops and opened the wooden door at the opposite end of the room.

Where am I? This place looks so familiar. I’m not in the parking garage anymore. I looked around my surroundings, I was alone in a plaza. The place looked cold and dark, with only dim beams of sunlight shining through a crack here or there, while everything seemed to be hidden behind a cool shadow. A meter away from me was a circular fountain, the same fountain that I had thrown pennies into to wish for more wishes as a kid. I began to walk towards the fountain.

When I was merely a foot away, I heard whispers and panting coming from the entrance of the plaza. It was a group of guys from a nearby city that I had recently met. What are they doing here? Why are they running so fast? I found myself running with them.

As Tiffany and I stepped into the carpeted hallway, we were instantly drawn to the pictures on the wall. There were dozens of framed photographs all aligned on the wall, mostly of the advisor’s late wife with his children and grandchildren, but not many of himself. We explored a little more as we walked a full circle around his house, peeking through in each crack that was available to us. Curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back!

“Tiff, I think I’ve had enough exploring. I’m going to head back out and see what’s up with the rest of the people,” I said.

I went back into the kitchen, out the screen door, and back on the patio. I took a seat on a plastic white chair near the marinating table where two of the younger and more immature volunteers were sitting at. One volunteer was holding what seemed to be a black hand held gun. I gave them a fake smile and pulled out my cell phone to check the time. 4:00PM. I wonder when they bought that toy gun.

We ran to a little stationary store where one of the guys kept offering me a free jigsaw puzzle, at the same time urging me to leave the group. This is defiantly a dream. He kept telling me that it wasn’t safe. What wasn’t safe?

“Judy. Hurry, what do you want? My aunt owns this store. It's okay, really, you can get any jigsaw puzzle you want. I have a ninety percent discount,” he urged me. The rest of the guys were outside the shop in the poorly lit plaza. They looked anxious and worried, as if they were secretly screaming, “let’s get the hell out of here!’ but they were too afraid to voice their opinion. They wanted to show how cool they were, how nothing in the world scared them, how manly they could be. Their faces said otherwise.

“Hey, can I see that?” I asked one of the two volunteers across from me as they marveled at the plastic black gun. They handed the gun to me, holding the handle away from themselves and the pistol towards the ground. Aw, how cute, they're acting as if it’s a real gun. I held the gun in my hands.

“Oh, this feels pretty heavy, the company designed it pretty well,” I played along. I sat there wondering what the gun really did. I thought that maybe it was one of those toy lighters where when you pull the trigger a flame comes out instead of a bullet. I brought the sleek object closer to my face so I could study the detailed exterior better.

“Really, I don’t want any puzzles,” I told him as I pushed a box back into his arms and quickly walked outside of the plaza. As I turned the corner, I found myself with my boyfriend next to me, holding my hand. I felt safe. I looked down at our locked fingers, then at his face. He was mindlessly staring forward and I was only able to see his profile. I wonder what’s wrong? Silence.

We walked together for no more than ten steps when my subconscious suddenly told me to stop. I let go of his hand and placed the back of my hand in front of his shoulder like a bouncer at a night club.

“Wait, stop,” I told him, worried.

Just as I said this, a car sped by with a gun-man at the window. This time it was a silent shot unlike the shot in the parking garage. The bullet flew an inch away from my face, a foot away from his face, and bit the wall, leaving a deformed golden-colored shell on the floor. We almost got shot. All I was I able to hear was his heart beat and with that I woke up, alone in my twin sized bunk-bed, staring up at my glow-in-the-dark stars. I sighed with relief that it was only a dream. Forget about it, just forget about it.

I moved the gun slowly into the air, aiming at it whatever caught my attention; the wooden fence to my right, the bucket on the floor to my left, the volunteer who sat in front of me named Jack. No one in my volunteer group liked Jack. Girls didn’t like him for his violent flirtatious habits (if you like a girl, you shouldn't show it by slapping them on the shoulder or trying to trip her when she's walking in front of you). Guys didn’t like him because of the rude manner in which he spoke. I wonder what it feels like to pull a trigger. It’s just a toy, after all. He'll probably play along anyways. I wrapped my hands around the handle with my fingers outside of the curved plastic that prevents the trigger from being squeezed accidentally. My index finger started to loosen its grip. Should I pull the trigger? Will interrupted my thought by taking the gun away from me.

“Okay guys, I’ll teach you how to take apart and clean a gun without shooting yourself in the foot or losing a finger,” he said with a genuine smile. With a toy gun? His face was glistening with sweat from standing over the grill for so long. The guys huddled around him like excited little children during story time.

Will began to take apart the gun, explaining each tiny step, each safety precaution. I sat there, watching the demonstration dutifully, hoping that he wouldn’t get lighter fluid everywhere. I was tired, exhausted and ready to go home.

I jumped the fence, running faster than I have ever ran in my entire life. This was my third running dream of the week. Why do I keep on having these dreams? I was running in a backyard that was littered with trash, resembling a mini junk yard. There were piles of tires on one side, piles of wooden crates on the other. I ducked underneath a pole that could have easily given me a concussion. I squeezed myself through the space of where a plank of wood used to be in a fence. I felt encaged, yet I still ran. I ran and ran, not daring to look back at whatever was possibly behind me.

“Will! Did you ever have to shoot someone?” “Will! Did you ever kill someone?” the guys kept asking over and over.

I slowly zoned out, my mind drifting towards the blinding blue sky, far away from the demonstration and immature questions. The heat was still present even though the sun was slowly going down and the sun beams were less bold.

I heard a sound like clinks of ice in an empty glass cup. I looked towards the stained plastic wrapped table where the noise came from and saw something that I did not expect to see at all. I saw something more dangerous than lighter fluid. I saw something chopping onions an inch away from a persons face could never produce. Bullets. It was a real gun – a real functioning, loaded gun. Oh. My. God. I almost shot someone.

I could feel my face turning hot red, my heart beat increasing. I felt the adrenaline rush of a rollercoaster ride, at the point where the nose dives straight down the peak of the ride. The gun was loaded. I thought it was a toy. I could have killed someone. A few more seconds would have been all I needed, a hundredth of a second is all Death needed to take away an innocent bystander. I didn't know whether the safety lock was on or not, it didn't matter. I wanted to flee the scene. I wanted to disappear. I felt guilty for mentally killing someone.

I thought about all the domestic murders reported on the news where a child accidentally shoots and kills a parent or sibling. Stupid, stupid me.

Bang.

A hole in his chest, splatters of blood on the gray cement floor, gone.

“Dial 9-1-1! Somebody, help!” people would be screaming.

“Judy! What have you done? What's wrong with you!” others would criticize.

“HELP!” my own thoughts and their voices synced together.

All I could see myself doing is holding the gun, still aimed in my hand. My face white with fear, my eyes locked on history. I, I, I didn't know. I see myself dressed in an orange one piece, hair tied up, make up removed, locked behind plastic windows and bared cells. I imagine my cell-mate named, Sparkles, who was doing time for trying to survive on the streets by selling her body. The butterfly tattoo on her lower back said it all. I deserve this. This is where I belong.

“And that's how you take apart a gun. Nothing to it,” Will concluded. Everyone was in awe of how quickly he had done it for the third or fourth time.

I snapped myself back to reality. The sky was turning from a light blue to an orange-yellow as a sign that sunset was near. The night time wind was rounding itself up. There was a light breeze. My heart beat slowly went back to its normal pace as I told myself to calm down. Boom, boom. Boom, boom. I closed my eyes as I reclined against the plastic white picnic chair. Summer had just begun, and it meant there were hours to waste outside of home, hours to spend sleeping in, hours to be haunted of what I could have done.

No one knew that I had thought that the gun was a toy gun until now. No one needed to know. I felt embarrassed and foolish. I mean, I was sixteen years old. I was old enough to know what was right and wrong. I should have known better.

I came home that afternoon, stripping off all my clothes in the bathroom, jumping into the shower, and turning on the cold water on high. What's wrong with me? Am I really that stupid? I scrubbed and scrubbed, trying to clean myself of this guilty conscious. I positioned my face under the ice cold water, chin held high. I changed into my sleepwear and threw myself on my bed. Forget about it, forget about it. Just forget about it.