Jeff Newberry's most recent book is the novel A Stairway to the Sea (Pulpwood Press, 2016). His writing has appeared in a variety of online and print publications, most recently in Peacock Journal, Atticus Review, and Snake Nation Review. Find him online at www.jeffnewberry.com. Letter to Justin after Orlando, after Sandy Hook I’ve never owned a real gun—never wanted one. As a child, I idolized soldiers & killing, thrived on Vietnam War movies & thought John Rambo a national treasure. My friends bought Dollar Store AK-47s & stalked the jungles of our backyard imaginations. We dodged invisible grenades & killed “gooks” and “wops,” the yellow men of our imaginations because we wanted to show each other our manliness. I was a fat kid, Justin—my boy boobs jiggled behind an ill-fit K-Mart camouflage t-shirt. My breath wheezed through lungs made shallow by nights of Little Debbie cakes & RC Cola. I had to prove to them I could run, had to show them nothing scared me. My narratives were the bloodiest, the violent tales of bouncing betties taking a man’s legs out in a red haze. I slaughtered scores of imagined enemies to prove I loved America, to make them love me even more. I never served, Justin, to answer a friend’s question, who interrogated me in the days after Iraq, when I wondered why we’d waded into yet another quagmire. My father did his four years & ditched the Air Force after the Cuban Missile Crisis. He told me he lay in his bunk & waited for the world to end. Tonight, I’m listening to my son run through the house, telling his cousin, “I’m gonna kill you” because the boy had taken my son’s toy. I laugh & know that it’s not serious. He’s only got a water pistol. His rights are safe. He can fight for his freedom. He can walk into a night club or high school tomorrow, free as an ejected shell.
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