Guns and Snakes

 Last summer I was at a party and asked a friend, who was carrying a two-shot derringer in a belt holster (and showing it to everyone he talked to), why he thought he needed a gun when the only people in the room were friends and family and guests he had personally invited.

His answer? “You never know.”

Why is that always the answer? You never know. Really? Never? Can't you learn?

I've been reading a lot of online chat, arguments and anger about the murders in Connecticut. Twenty children and six adults massacred by a madman with his mother's guns. All of that is so Freudian and so sick that I can't get my head around it. The killer had been identified as “odd” by teachers and family members; a loner who showed no emotion. His mom was a “prepper”, a segment of the citizenry who, in their future-based, deluded fantasies, are preparing for Armageddon, which they are convinced is right around the corner. None of this stuff was a secret. There are no answers, yet, but there are plenty of opinions and haranguing and speculation including the old go-to crap about children of divorce and violent video games and porn and bullies, and god or no god.

Rick Perry, the insane governor of Texas, thinks school teachers should be armed. Remember your teachers? Which ones would you like to see waving a firearm while raging at a disruptive student? Are there too many guns in the US? I think so. Also too many knee-jerk strident third rate scholars defending their alleged second amendment rights and am I the only one who is tired of old horseshitters who keep banging away that “cars kill people too, so do you want us to ban cars?” If you don't see the difference, then you definitely shouldn't own a gun. Or drive a car.

Crazy people are everywhere and they are not going away. There are not many services left to deal with them. I'm currently living in Paris and I can attest to the presence of angry, drunken, wild individuals who are unable to integrate into society; I am really glad they aren't armed. Yeah, I know that Anders Breivik killed 85 people at a youth camp in Norway last year and there are instances of gun violence in other countries, but nothing like the overall body count we rack up in the USA.

Aurora, Colorado; Virginia Tech. There is no shortage of information about these killings. Nutty, angry men with access to plenty of guns.

One thread of comments theorizes that America's “war” mentality and international military presence supports a feeling of conflict and the need to be armed and vigilant. That sounds too easy and political. Overall, we are a very young country and still somewhat adolescent, undereducated, insular, overbearing, quick to anger and seek revenge, confused about the value of life. In ways it feels as though we are a developing nation with too many guns, too many loopholes, not enough oversight.

I can't realistically expect the elimination of firearms. That would be impossible because there are too goddamned many of them owned by dangerous assholes who are not about to give them up. What are we going to do, go house to house and confiscate them? That's a surefire path to a bloodbath.

I have many friends who own and shoot firearms. I have a family member who always (always) carries a concealed weapon. So does his wife. And his son. One of my best friends is a firearms instructor and has at least 50 personal handguns. I worked in the criminal justice system for years with decent people who owned and used firearms. I also knew, and worked with, mass murderers who ranged from from calm, funny, and educated, to pissed off, frightened and stupid.

I was one of the last people to shoot a classic .45 caliber Thompson Submachine Gun before it was retired to a museum. Packs a punch I can tell you. I've used shotguns, rifles and handguns on ranges and in the wilderness. I've had guns pointed at me by angry guys, and I was almost shot once, accidentally, by a brain-dead neighbor while I was hiking on the mesa behind my house in New Mexico. The neighbor and I had a serious discussion about gun safety that afternoon. I live in a town where a lot of the residents, men and women, own and carry handguns. Some are quiet about it, others are constantly bragging and blathering about their “piece”. Silly. Scary.

In the bad 1980s, in California, I sometimes carried a gun at the request of a friend who was a coin dealer. He paid cash for coins and silver, legally, and he'd go to private homes for “jewelry parties”. He'd bring expensive diamonds and rings and bracelets to a big house in Sausalito or Tiburon in Marin County and give deep discounts to friends of the wealthy homeowner. All transactions were in cash and I accompanied him, Glock in pocket, to make sure that no one robbed us. I was often drinking and using drugs and it is lucky that the wife of some venture capitalist didn't get plugged in her liposuction. That was thirty-five years ago and I am grateful and relieved that we all survived. Bad times in the 80's.

When I was a kid I took an NRA firearms safety course and learned how to use a weapon and to stay alive while doing so. It was a good thing to know. In my own limited way, I understand many of the uses and possible abuses of firearms.

I work hard to be a realist and I can't think of a way to gather in all the guns on earth and melt them down into plowshares or iPads and then we can all hold hands and live in Rainbow Land. That horse is out of the barn. The bell has been rung. The pistol has been fired. I can't see a way to undo the juggernaut of gun ownership and entitlement.

A guyI know bought a gun last year. He was constantly talking about international conspiracy theories and was manifesting more and more worry about the “roving bands of dangerous criminals” who would break into his house and kill him for his food. I don't know when this was supposed to happen. He bought a handgun and talked about it. A lot. I think he felt better and bigger. He spent hours on the internet checking world financial markets and currencies. He was diagnosed with cancer in March and died in August, still afraid.

Bad guys have guns; good guys have guns. Bad guys use stolen and unregistered firearms. The Pittsburgh father who accidentally shot his seven year old son to death in front of a gun store didn't know his legally purchased and registered gun had a round in the chamber. A breach of basic handgun safety. It happens much too often. We can't legislate against stupidity, or poor memory, can we?

The good news, if that can even be considered a concept at this point, is that dialogue has started and congress and our representatives are going to have to pay attention. Lobbyists may find it a little harder, I hope, to give away gun money to anyone but the most conspicuous congressional whores. The NRA has deactivated their Facebook page, for now, but you can bet that they are gathering their membership, working on clever press releases and digging into their wallets. Harsher penalties for irresponsibility and gun crime are being discussed by elected representatives with an eye towards their next campaign. Mental health evaluations and deeper background checks for purchase of firearms are a possibility. We're all talking about it in coffee shops, bars, schools and even the revered Facebook. With a nation where there are 89 guns for every 100 citizens and there were over 30,000 deaths by firearms in 2007 and over half of those were suicides, that has to be good, right? Talk? Conversation?

A few years ago there were a lot of snakes on my property. Big fucking snakes. I don't like snakes. A primitive, mythological, faux-Christian response, I guess. They would show up on the back patio, quietly eying me when I went outside to read. I stayed in. We had a hot tub and there were plenty of tasty prairie dogs around. The tub was hot and moist all year long and was an ideal herpetarium. The snakes lived underneath it and even when I was lying back looking at the stars, I couldn't stop thinking about what was slithering only a few inches under my naked body. I had the tub removed, and that afternoon I watched as several snakes wriggled away.

At first, I just stayed inside a lot. I'd look out the front and back door to make sure there was nothing coiled, waiting. If I went for a walk and saw a five foot long bullsnake, I'd turn around and jog home. I don't own a firearm, don't want one, but due to my fear of snakes I bought a Benjamin pump action pellet gun. I had one as a kid and it was fun to shoot, easy to use. I kept this one by the door and about once a year, when I saw a snake on the acreage behind the house, I'd shoot it. I was fighting back. So I went from total fear, to killing my perceived enemy, innocent though the poor animal was. I also read a lot about snakes.

I shot a few snakes, watched them die, picked them up with the fireplace tongs and dumped them over the fence at the back of our property. I felt, momentarily, safe. Fool. I knew I couldn't shoot all the snakes in New Mexico.

I was fearful and then I was deadly and then I was interested in my fear and decided to take charge of it. Last year I was hiking in a flat, hot area near where I live and there was a snake lying across my path. Big-assed reptile. Easily over five feet long. I examined it, watched it warming itself in the sun, and then I stepped over it and continued my walk. I came across that same snake several times during the summer and I didn't mind seeing it at all. I have learned about myself and my environment and the creatures that populate it and, for me, that has been the answer to snake-fear.

Somebody else might still need a firearm to address their fears and I can only hope they don't point it at me, drink, have anger issues, are clumsy, prone to sadness, holding a grudge from high school, have recently lost a job, are celebrating a winning season for their favorite sports team or think that they've emptied the weapon before tossing it in the backseat while I'm in the car.

Answering My Own Questions

Are the French people friendly? How's the Weather? Why do you keep coming back to Paris?

I've noticed, for the most part, Parisians are detached, unsmiling and relatively efficient. I was at the Post Office this morning, wondering how the hell to mail a big item in a small envelope, the most for the least, which is my personal motto, and the two young men who helped me were amiable and never even weighed the package, which was way overstuffed with expensive and luxurious Christmas gifts for my family.

I now dig the way the French respond negatively to everything. The first answer, to every question, is “No.” That's cool. I was once a civil servant and I understand that the culture of “Yes” usually leads to more work. But once you break through the “No” barrier clerks and shop keepers are helpful. I do this by either acting completely stupid (not impossible), aggressive (easier), or friendly (a new and effective solution).

I have coffee several times a week at a boulangerie on rue St. Antoine. Nice place, crowded and overheated, like much of the city, and the biggest goddamn croissants on earth. As big as my foot, but tastier. I enter, find a table, and the same young waiter asks for my order. After six weeks he began to interact, ask a few impersonal questions, toss off a joke. I figure, six weeks, that's a good time-frame. Now, most of his co-workers are pleasant, treat us like regulars and look us in the eye during short conversations. However, the cashier is a young woman, average to pretty in appearance, fashionable with black hair and fake-tanned red/orange skin, and she is completely self involved and dismissive and has never even been slightly affable. Huge croissants, though.

Young people are loud, silly, attention-seeking and don't consider anyone over 40 of any importance whatsoever; old people talk to themselves, a lot, and clog up the line at the grocery store while middle-aged men and women watch each other with urban suspicion and distrust.

At lunch yesterday on Rue de Turenne, our waitress asked us where we were from. We answered and she engaged and by the time we were finished with our meal, two hours later, we were exchanging Facebook info. I've done this before and I usually expect to have my bank account drained by Corsican cyber-pirates, but, so far, no one has asked me to sponsor their families for immigration or buy Amway products or save the Nigerian royal prince. I think they look at my Facebook page and decide not to pursue the relationship.

I'm pretty comfortable with that.

The weather. Today it's chilly and cloudy with a light rain. There was a little snow last week but I've only opened my umbrella about a dozen times in the past two months. I enjoy the cold and the dark, so the weather isn't much of a problem and I've learned to appreciate rain. There are less people out when it rains, so walking around the city is easier, not as much contact on the street and when the lights reflect off of the pavement at night it looks mysterious and appealing; it could be anytime in the city's distant past.

Additionally, if it wasn’t for the rain, there would be no puddles for people to dip their shoes into and wash off the dog doo. It's a real urban challenge and test of agility, striding down the pavement, making sure to look up at the oncoming crowd, ahead to my destination, and down, to avoid the large amounts of excrement. A couple times a day I watch as a fashion plate shouts, “Oh, la la,” (which they do), and then sidles over to the nearest gutter and dips her overpriced shoes into the rainwater, soaking off the inescapable dogcrap. The great equalizer. The circle of life. Hakuna Scatata

Dog owners are encouraged to clean up after their pets, but they don't. The droppings remain where they are deposited until an unaware pedestrian strides through. When I walk along the Rue de Rivoli, I see the stamp of a Gucci in the excrement and then, treading carefully, I notice the smudge becomes smaller and smaller as it disappears up the street. Sad that he never knew. Embarrassing and I hope I don't sit next to him at lunch.

More people equal more dogs equal more merde. It's one of the universal truths of existence, like the overcrowded metro, and it's a good argument for birth control, both canine and human.

So, why do I keep coming back to Paris? I was in a pharmacy last week, buying some much needed aspirin with codeine, (honestly, believe me, undetectable, no buzz, simple pain relief for a forty-year-old back injury, maybe a slight nodding, early to bed, but no bad behavior, or spilled drinks), and the helpful pharmacist asked why I was in Paris and not another big city.

I told her that, for me, Paris was a large package; history, culture, literature, art. The fact is I can't exactly pinpoint why I love it here. I could be in Rome or London, but Paris has an important history: monarchy, revolution, empire, republic, world wars, student rebellion. The desire to understand the world in relation to history and politics continues, too.

There is a show at Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris at the Palais de Tokyo called “L'Art en Guerre”. It covers the art and artists of Paris before, during and after WWII and shows, through the art that was produced at the time, how the world changed. There are drawings and paintings from the concentration camps which are sad, alarming and, sometimes, beautiful. I wasn't that interested at first. As an American, born after the war, I am distant from it. America won, right? Too simple. Most of the whole goddamned World was involved and a lot of people, while they appreciated the peace accord, can never say they “won”. I was amazed by the painting, the cruelty and horror. The show impressed me deeply and I've begun reading about the war from the European point of view, which tells different stories than the ones we learned in school.

Where else is there this much art? Impressionists, Renaissance geniuses,abstract art, mindblowing landscapes, still lifes and graffiti are everywhere. Wandering around the Louvre yesterday I eventually came across the paintings of Camille Corot, a painter about whom I know little. He is a link between neoclassicism and the impressionists and as I looked at his landscapes I felt like I was going to cry. Man, that is a very strange feeling for me, to want to weep when in the presence of beauty; to feel like weeping for any reason. It's one of the definitions of an aesthetic experience; people have been known to pass out or have seizures when overtaken by extreme sensual stimulation. Part of my reaction was that of an appreciative observer, of course, but I was also drawn into the pictorial representation of what I would like in my own life; serenity, purity, calm, nature, quiet, solitude. And I also realized that I already have that, if I want it, if I recognize it. So, my repressed tears were for beauty, desire and gratitude, which is a complicated cycle of feeling and something that I appreciate and haven't really experienced until I started traveling to Paris.

The French writers of the Nineteenth century own the epic historical novel. If I had not read Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Emile Zola I would have missed some of the greatest reading experiences of my life. The 20^th century giants, Jean-Paul Sartre,Claude Simon, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Alain Robbe-Grillet, are stylists and scholars who have changed the way I write, read and think. My life is better and I am happier since I've been introduced to these authors and I don't believe I would have taken the chance to read them if I hadn't spent lots of time in the environment that has inspired discontent with the status quo, extraordinary stylistic experimentation, and the establishment of absurdity as an acceptable adaptation to the modern world.

Oh yeah, and cheese. There is nothing like ripe Camembert. I don't think I'd ever experienced it until I came to Paris for the first time. I can tell when I'm within 30 feet of a decent round of real Camembert. It has the aromatic decay chain of Uranium-235 and even though it is sealed in waxed paper, tightly seated in a form-fitting wooden box, wrapped in plastic, stored at the bottom of the refrigerator, in a separate drawer, the fridge snugly closed and the kitchen shut and locked, I can still tell if I have any fresh Camembert on the menu when I walk in the front door. I love that. I will miss that.