Image: James Robert Terrell
So the man in the black suit strides confidently through the great divide in the House Chamber as it's in full session, everyone standing in respect. He pretty much ignores them as he steps up by an empty chair at the podium. From here he gazes out to those gathered before him as they noisily take their seats. And he continues to stand silent and unmoving until there's just a murmur in the air among the 435 seated before him, as if waiting for his characteristic persona to emerge.
Still standing at the podium with no one behind him and ignoring the screen with words, he reaches into his jacket's right pocket, and a tiny click echoes through the chamber. He smiles wryly, and then taps with a finger the mike clipped onto his shirt's white collar. A loud thud explodes from speakers everywhere, and into many of the assembly members' ear plugs. Gazing steely eyed at the seated crowd, he briefly coughs, and almost reaches for something in his left jacket pocket, but pulls back, and smiles, a face full of wrinkles revealing a long life of dealing with the tough stuff of people.
"Excuse me," he says hoarsely, eyes glinting. "Must be something in the air." He smiles, choosing his words carefully. "Do we need any introductions?"
He catches a few shaking their heads no.
"That was rhetorical;" smiling again.
With a trained, relaxed motion, he reaches with his right hand inside his suit, under his left arm... and pulls out a large gleaming black gun, hearing many gasps. With practiced agility, he methodically points it directly at his captive audience, right down the middle, slowly and steadily fanning it back and forth, right to left and then back again to the middle. "Gentleman," he states, still holding steady... in a perfect stance to catch a powerful kickback... something that might weigh over four pounds fully loaded. He then lightly nicks his head with a thin respectful smile, "... and ladies."
The smile dissolves as he continues to hold steady the gun. "This here is a six-shot Smith & Wesson model 29." His strong hoarse voice goes slower, even more steady... momentarily stalling, like choosing just the right word. He looks down at it. "A .44 Magnum, and never mind for a moment... that science later proved this thing ain't exactly the most powerful handgun in the world. It'll kick ass just as bad, and you won't even hear it coming when the lights go out." He holds his stance and waits a couple of seconds. "Are we gonna have any problems tonight?"
You could hear a pin drop.
"Didn't think so," he says, walking to the empty chair, and sitting down in it, the long black barrel of his revolver still held steady at those who'd invited him. Briefly glancing at his weapon, he continues in that slow steady voice of his. "This weapon spits out of its .44 Magnum cartridge a hot chunk of lead... with a muzzle velocity of... hell, it's over the speed of sound... and with a kickass punch of some... well, I've heard it explained to me as some... yeah, that's it.... some 1700 joules. Sort of like getting hit in the chest by a double whammy from some heavy weight word champion... and at over the speed of sound. You'll never hear it coming." He coughs briefly, the hand holding the gun not the least bit affected. "Excuse me. Like I said; something in the air."
He relaxes his stance a bit, and confidently leans forward, to have a more personal chat. Then he lets his right arm drop until the elbow comfortably rests on his right knee, the big black barrel barely moving.
"That's like getting your head knocked off... with the force of two of Rocky Marciano's overhand rights, at over the speed of sound, at least when that fist first launches at you." He smiles briefly, still holding the Smith & Wesson steady. "But not with any regulation gloves ... Nope... But with a chunk of hard lead a half inch wide boring into your chest at... like I said... at least with a muzzle velocity of well over the speed of sound. Don't quite know what that translates into... well, once it reaches that bit of fat skin over your hearts and starts to mash your insides... like the way my wife, bless her heart..." and he smiles "...turns whole tomatoes and whatever into taco dip with her big steel blender. But I'm good friends with some real scientists... who've tried to explain this thing called... the laws of thermo...dynamics."
He briefly shakes his head with a smile, as though remembering.
Without missing a step, he continues, "Anybody here want a proof of that? I can let you feel what that's like with one round. Yeah, you'll see the muzzle flash just before it hits you... into some Kevlar."
He lightly coughs again.
"Now, I've never been one to get into any kind of... long drawn out conversation... or speech like this here. I don't like to mince words. I'll settle for a few good ones. Let that sink in. And then no more chit-chat. Just the raw truth. But tonight, gentlemen... and ma'am's... I'll make a bit of an exception." He coughs. "Damn, what is it you guys breathe in here? Anyways, don't ever expect this courtesy again.
"You thought I was going to this empty chair thing, right? Nah, I'm gonna call this an empty gun thing.
"So, anyone here got the balls to come up here? Take one for the team? I'll get you a Kevlar vest."
He gesticulates his gun to a pair of US Capitol police officers by a door, who express no concerns about the man on the podium, sitting on what had been an empty chair, and pointing a .44 Magnum revolver at the entire assembly of the US House of Representatives. "You, there? You're wearing those, right? Go ahead and make my day... by givin' whoever here is brave enough to wear your vest."
The two cops there nod their heads.
He nods back, relaxing into the chair again, and leaning into the mike. "So? Who? It probably won't kill you... but you'll feel like shit for a long time once you wake up. Won't be a cute sight for your wife or whoever you screw at night to see on your chest. You'll be wearing a purple badge over your heart for a good long time.
"Yeah, I've taken my share of rounds into my chest while wearing one of those. That was part of my job, you see. But it ain't fun." He pauses, his right hand still holding the House hostage with a steady grip on the six-shooter.
"Thing is, this ain't gonna be no stupid ass... what the hell did she call it. Yeah... Gestalt moment here." He leans back into the chair and brings the revolver almost to eye level, pointing the barrel to the dome above. Expertly, he thumbs open the cylinder."
Briefly smiling, he spits out, "See, empty. But I knew that coming in."
With his left hand he deftly reaches into his left jacket pocket, and pulls out a single gleaming cartridge, He holds up briefly, and says, "A bit different from a .22, ain't it?" Then he sticks it into the open cylinder, flipping the gun to lock the cylinder in place. And with an expert motion, spins the cylinder with his left hand, not looking at where the cartridge lands. Having held the gun close to his head while doing so, the sound of its oily-smooth clicking dying down slowly echoes sharply into everyone's ears
With his left hand again, he fishes something else out of that pocket and holds up a white cloth handkerchief. He smiles, waving it open.
"Had to cough into it just about when coming into this building. That's why it ain't sitting all pretty and white... in my lapel pocket." Shifting gears again, he repeated, "So, who's going to take one for the team?"
Methodically, he wraps the handkerchief around the gun, obscuring whatever could be seen down the cylinder's holes. "No one? Com'on!"
"Cowards... all of you. I knew it. Well, let me tell you something. All this shit you're pulling. Everything. All of it. It ain't no different than playing Russian roulette ... with a .44 Magnum... and on every single living person in this big beautiful country of ours. And the planet too. But no Kevlar for them."
Shaking his head, he stands up and walks across the empty podium, and strides down the divide towards where he had come in from, his gun held at belt level. As he walks, he looks directly into the eyes of many, and shakes his head before anyone has a chance to look away.
When he reaches the two cops at the door, he nods respectfully to them. They return the gesture in kind.
At the threshold, he stops, and turns around, briefly tapping the mike on his collar, a satisfied grimace creasing his face upon hearing the thumps that echo back at him.
"Get your shit together. That's what these two cops here... me... and the whole damn rest of this country pays you to do."
He raises his hoarse voice. "And way too many get shit pay... well because of the color of their skin, or their sex. And them, Latinos, some of you... call illegals. Well, I never met an illegal in my life... except inside a jailhouse, once he's been found guilty by a ... by a jury of his peers. Or when I see a perp about to do serious bodily harm. You guys ever seriously look in the mirror?"
He coughs loudly. "Damn." And he smiles, like catching a joke.
"Black kids out there...in ghettos just a short walk north of this Capitol Building? They're the great-great grandchildren of our great-great grandparents' slaves. That's a fact, gentlemen... and ladies. We fought a goddamn war to make that right. And now you're telling them to go fuck themselves and their histories? While you're making laws that enslave them again? And don't get me started with the Latinos... the sick and hungry. The guy you sent to Afghanistan? Got his foot blown off? Begging for s few bucks down the street from this Hill? Yeah, I saw him. And we talked. And I gave whatever I had in my pockets that could be helpful. But see. That ain't gonna last him more than a ´day or two.
Pointing the weapon back at the group, staring frozen in a backwards stare down the barrel ...
"Get your goddamn shit together. Yeah, I might sometimes think I believe in something I can't prove. But I don't go throwing my crap at anybody. You know why? Because I know from those friends of mine... who went to school while I was doing foot patrol... that that kind of shit seriously screws with people's brains. And while on my beat, way back then, seeing firsthand the crap good folk have to deal with to live another day. And it's only gotten worse, while you guys... you rake in millions... for your own fat asses." He shook his head slowly, the long black muzzle sticking out of the handkerchief barely moving.
"That's like playing Russian roulette with this powerful machine here. What's the statistics on that? Some of you have an education to figure it out. So you do the math."
"Are all of you insane? Or didn't you get enough titty as a baby? What a lot of you are doing... with your religion bullshit... is passing on that shit... forcing everybody to play that roulette game on each other..." He paused to take a breath. "And the rest of the world!? Christ almighty! Full of folk like you and me... well, not like you, that's for damn sure. Billions of people on this planet. Just trying live another day without a bullet, without a bomb, without a storm, to bring home the bacon..."
He shook his head.
"Just like this 44 Magnum here came from real science... and delivers a punch of, yeah, numbers might not be my thing... but that's a lot of Joules ." He raises his right arm a bit. "This thing in my right hand? You think it came about through some mystery shit ... some 6000 years ago!? That math don't add up even to me. The shit you're shotgun pumping into kids nowadays... and the hurt you're spraying everywhere else? Math and science knows what that's about... just like this here Smith & Wesson.
"Dinosaurs and people living at the same time. That just don't add up. Kind of like watching the Flintstones on TV. And that Lincoln and Jefferson Davisfought each other over state's rights, with over six-hundred thousand dying in ways you don't want to know about? That don't add up either." He took a deep breath. Beginning as an angry hoarse shout, which quickly tapers, he continues the thought with: "And you're still holding them like slaves, with your laws... with your damn for profit criminal justice bullshit. Putting folk of color behind bars, so they generate an income for fat asses like you. I've dealt with punks like you at city hall. I saw it as a beat cop. Saw it on last night's news in my hotel room. ...And see it now today, in these chambers.
"Keep your greedy ass magical thinking to yourselves. I've got my own baggage of that. But I don't go playing Russian roulette with my neighbor over it. We've got a whole lot of blood... sweat...and god-damned tears out there... while you guys go home to your gated mansions. You've got storms, and you've got NASA doing the math You give those kids some blocks north of here, and the whole rest of the country, an education... and I don't give a rat's ass how dirt poor. Or you're dooming us into becoming the dumbest, sorry ass nation ever. Fuck!
"And get them guns off the streets and out of hands of assholes. Most I've come to unfortunately get personal with... with a gun in his hands... might have been better if he'd never been born. The 2nd Amendment BS? If we take that argument to its... illogical conclusion... every damn household in these United States would have an ICBM in their backyards, pointed at his neighbor.
"And if cops on the street play executioner... like at some good old boys' Ku Klux Klan hanging party... they go direct to jail like any other creep. Back when I was on the force? I gave a rat's ass about blue laws and a city hall with its collective hands in deep pockets jerking each other off. You make damn good sure anybody who goes to a hospital ... don't come home to a sheriff from the bank... waiting to kick some struggling sick woman ... and her kids... out on the street, and then take the shirts off their backs. You make damn good sure every kid's got food in her belly... before she steps out into the concrete jangle."
He took another deep breath, gun still aimed at the House assembly, which had its collective neck twisted and strained to look down the barrel.
"And for shit's sake, what the hell is it with you guys telling women what they do with their bodies? I don't give a shit what your religion thinks. Thought the Constitution kept that out of these chambers. If the same science that made this Smith and Wesson says life ain't yet a thinking, feeling human, well, it ain't. If a woman decides that she don't want to bring a kid into the world. That's her own goddamn body. And that fetus growing inside her. Her decision. Don't you keep playing Russian roulette with her life. Keep your dirty thoughts zipped up, for cryin' out loud. Go jerk off in the toilet, if you have to.
"You're acting no different than some punks I arrested and threw the book at. For whoring teenage girls after gang raping them. My other nature? Well, I'd'a maybe wanted to put a bullet into their maggoty heads. But I'm no judge, jury and executioner... like some of you assholes here... forcing everyone to play Russian roulette. The worlds on fire and you're all playing piss-ass with your imaginary worlds... where pouring gasoline from a fire truck into all that is a creator's wet dream.
"Go talk with those NASA folk. There're some real smart gals there. They'll show you the math. Hell, they already have. You know what one pretty gal over there told me. It's like hurling a Manhattan sized rock down on the planet, and I ain't got a clue about the ...Joules... yeah, that's it... of that punch. But your gated mansions ain't gonna protect you in the end. You better pay attention to the math. Or you ain't nothing but a bunch of homicidal dinosaurs hell bent on suicide. You're threatening my life. My wife's and my kids' lives. Everybody... and even your own damn sorry asses.
"Keep your damn dogmas to yourself, and tell the asshole....you know who I'm talking about... the guy who walks into your office... to take a hike when he offers you a few million for your next election. He ain't paying you to sit here. We the people, who elected you, are.
"Anybody got any questions?"
He waits patiently.
Grimacing a bit, he makes an upwards motion with his cloth-covered gun, as to tip up the brim on an imaginary hat, and slowly turns his back on the hundreds, not one of them having said a word, and begins to walk through the door still held open by the two US Capitol Police officers, his mike still carrying his voice to the speakers and earplugs everywhere. And ignores the reporters, and cameras with their bright lights, and big mikes out to this face, some aiming their cameras at his Smith & Wesson, like in the old days.
Coughing again, he said once more "Get your damn shit together. Or I'll be back. That you can count on. Have a good day. Adios."
Editing assistance: Deborah Baron
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