De-escalation.

White boys with guns.

A gun is both shadow and sun. It’s an icy draft scorching the ground into flames, boiling mass death into icicles that melt into nothing. A gun might be Chekhov’s narrative device, a literary prophecy, foreshadowing tucked inside a silhouette. But it’s also a dusty tire in the trunk, a forgotten box on the ground, ready to detonate your forgetfulness. It’s a familiar box of Dasani on the purple shag carpet, a sales item with a cheshire smile next to the Bluetooth headphones.

It’s the shattered glass window kissing a cracked Nokia, blood dots like a video game, except this was real life.

It was the cabin where people kissed, or rolled out well-worn VHS tapes, or prayed for a fallen soldier spreading the Good News. The cabin was empty, temporarily between couches, except for James rocking his bloody head, screaming expletives. I’d been listening outside the door with our friend EJ. We, unblinking, heard James smash his head through the window rhythmically. Each smash was foreplay for a gun.

You see, Colby made a pass at James’s sister during their dishwashing shift. It’s unclear what the proposition entailed, but she refused. That’s all that mattered: she refused Colby.

James was protective and always on the edge of anger, straddling the gulf between silence and a full scream. The full scream, inconveniently, never graced the microphone when our band practiced, five of us piled in a basement, with a Myspace page and two dusty shows. I was the Token Girl drummer, and he was the lead singer with a thinly concealed anger problem penned in by a heavily surveilled love of God.

An hour earlier, EJ and I attempted de-escalation as Colby and James shouted over patchy grass.

Colby: “YOU’RE NOT YOUR SISTER’S DAD, I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG.”

James’: “LEAVE MY FUCKING SISTER ALONE YOU CREEP.”

Colby: “YOU’VE ALWAYS BEEN A HOTHEAD, I CAN’T STAND YOU.”

James: “AND YOU’VE ALWAYS BEEN A PERVERT.”

Colby: “I’M NOT A PERVERT, YOU’RE JUST A VIRGIN!”

James: “YOU’LL NEVER BE AN ACTUAL MAN, YOU’RE SHIT.”

EJ, the sensitive guy of the bunch, was often bullied over his open smile and penchant for sentimentality. I sensed the other guys loved him more than they expressed, but they wouldn’t respect him publicly. In step with this dynamic, he was hushed for suggesting they quiet down. Eyes rolled when he reminded them of neighbors with emergency speed dial. I attempted to leverage my status as the token girl, a slippery and disloyal power, much like a loaded gun, more dangerous to me than protective.

I validated their feelings:

“You’re both upset, but let’s try and slow down!”

I could reach out to James’ sister, since this was technically about her. She could tell us what she wanted. EJ shook his head, we knew she was a side character in her own experience.

Plus, James and Colby were already grappling like badly trained wrestlers on the balding grass. All de-escalation was kindling, a spark lighting up fury. We were just audience for their rage theater.

Colby’s dad was a cop, a cliche absent dad who drained the local pool hall and catcalled teenagers. He was ambivalent about his son, but loved his own reputation, and this served as legal armor for Colby.

James was fired from two jobs for anger issues, he was always mid friend breakup, and once scandalized a Dairy Queen over a discontinued cherry dip cone. They were a choose-your-own-fighter of teen movie stereotypes, working class white boys with grievance to boil, but no situational awareness, no existential consequence beyond angst.

So it was only a matter of time before Colby stumbled on his feet in a cartoon plume of smoke, red hot cheeks lighting up his phone as he waved around pictures of his guns. We’d seen these guns on Facebook, in grey-lit albums with rogue comments from a drunk Patriot aunt who was obsessed with memes about gay sex “not being right.”

As Colby sped off to get his guns from the garage, we knew he was serious.

When I forced my way into the cabin, James’ grunge-inspired hair was doused in blood.

Colby’s threats threw him into pre-emptive rage, prepping his body for what he saw as an inevitable showdown, revving his engine to fight back.

EJ leaned against the doorway behind me, but James demanded he leave, only allowing me to sit inside.

A smarter teen girl would’ve peaced out long before this moment, but I was curious about the limits of escalation, about the ceiling of this irrational situation. I was delusional about my impact as a self-appointed peacemaker. I was empathetic and a rubbernecker, and that meant I sat there, waiting for a teen boy with a gun to return.

When the door shut behind EJ, James cried, that’s the real reason he wanted him gone. He cried about how much he hated Colby, but also himself. It was all spilling in a tidal wave, and I clumsily told him it was normal. This was normal. We all smash our heads into windows to prepare for our friend(?) to threaten us with a weapon! That’s just being a teen in America. We all have borderline homicidal possessiveness over our sister being asked on a date! It’s fine. We’re fine. You’re normal, don’t hate yourself, please don’t hate yourself. The windows aren’t bullet proof and neither are we, and oh god, why am I in this room? Why the fuck am I in this room? Why am I always in this room, and it’s always my choice to step in here? Am I a witness or an instigator? Do we leave? But you won’t leave, you’re too dizzy. Is EJ getting a camp nurse like we whispered about?

Years later, there was a night in Chicago when I heard a man a block ahead of me scream in staccato. He was slumped on the corner, blood spilling out of his chest. He was screaming in Spanish and I didn’t understand the full translation beyond the visceral pain. When I started to crouch, to see, to ask, he yelled “KEEP WALKING, DON’T CALL THE COPS.”

In that moment, I hadn’t thought of cops, or anything beyond his rapid blood loss. It was already late, and the street was empty beside the two of us. So I popped into the corner store, and told the guy behind the counter what I saw. He shrugged, knowledgeably.

“I can call an ambulance, but he doesn’t want one.”

The next day, as I stepped over his dried blood on the sidewalk, I attempted a morbid math problem. I tried to measure how much he’d lost, how the spillage translates to concrete. I was tracing the shape, through hungover eyes, to pinpoint whether he’d been medically treated. Was this corner that man’s graveyard or simply a horrific night for him? No matter how long you squint, it’s impossible to check the pulse of a blood stain.

EJ returned to the cabin with a camp nurse who looked like Deb from Napoleon Dynamite. She was confused and horrified. She immediately called the police. But Colby hadn’t returned with his gun, so all they arrived to was a beat-up James, a broken window, a 21-year-old nurse who normally bandaged kids after they fell off horses, and EJ and I slumped in our hoodies.

The two bored cops took statements from us, clearly unenthused by the lack of action. They were dead-eyed finishing their scribbles when Colby casually drove up with the newfound calm of a man who just refilled his gas tank.

He was not simply calm, but emboldened by their presence. He explained it was a misunderstanding. That yes, he had a gun in his trunk but he had a license to carry. Of course he’d never use it on a friend! He showed the gun to the police and they nodded, friendly, one of them knew his dad from years back. How was the old man? Still causing trouble?

Nothing to see here, you all have a nice day, kids.

Weeks later, the cabin was scrubbed clean, James’ blood speckles were completely undetectable, a new window was installed, the only hint of the scene was a large splinter on the wall.