Love Letter, Part 2

I loved you. And my love, I think, was stronger than to be quite extinct within me yet. But let it not distress you any longer—I would not have you feel the least regret.


I loved you bare of hope and of expression, by turns with jealousy and shyness sore. I loved you with such purity, such passion; as may God grant you to be loved once more.
-Pushkin

Time here is like an old lady in the ground.

Expert Quote Alert: Weighing in on the World Cup

Love Letter

The little old men at the Redwood Tavern agree: the Winchester Model 12 is the greatest shotgun ever made.

When the cows come home, pigs fly, Hell freezes over, and the music dies, you can bet there will be a handful of old coots parked in rocking chairs on front porches holding their Winchester Model 12s across their laps. These guns are going to be Redwood’s ticket out of the apocalypse, I’m told: Oil spills in the Gulf, terrorist attacks, alien invasions, plagues—you bring it, the Winchester Model 12 will smite it.

The Model 12 is a direct descendant of Winchester’s Gun that Won the West, they tell me. That intimidating history, drawn from a beautiful and god-forsaken time of manifest destiny that carved trails of tears through what would later become a flurry of golden highways, strip malls, and Taco Bells, gave the Model 12 its grit.

Winchester Model 12’s tenacious 1912 design was something firearm enthusiasts had never seen before. And you better believe that while only available in a 20 gauge (perfection has no need for flexibility), the Model 12 would fast become the first internal hammer pump-action shotgun success story.

The United States Army scooped up 20,000 Model 12 trench guns for World War I; and 80,000 were bought by the Marine Corps, Air Forces, and Navy for World War II. In fact, almost 2 million Winchester Model 12s made their way into the hands of soldiers, housewives, hunters, and Jonny Q. Publics before the model was discontinued in 1963.

This is the kind of gun you take into battle. It’s the kind of gun you reach for after waking up in the middle of the night when something goes bump. This baby is the Cadillac of cannons; the Winfrey of weaponry; the Rolls Royce of revolvers. That Winchester Model 12 is one hell of a shotgun.

Tell the preacher to suspend all service—that gun and I are going places. Wedding veils and open roads and deep soul-searching on the backbone of the US of A with my Winchester Model 12. How-eee, the tingle of tactical perfection and love-falling. Winchester Model 12, you must be the one.

Four Days of Valentine

Late afternoon. Garth Brooks comes on the jukebox.
"Please sing!" The woman coos to her husband. "Please?"
Charlie puts his Coors Light down on the bar and takes a deep breath.

Evening. Duncan stops his truck in front of a locked gate, puts it in park, and opens his driver's-side door. The light inside the truck comes on and he looks at me. "I can tell you're intelligent because you have dark, twinkly eyes," he says. "Intelligent people always have dark, twinkly eyes. My aunt told me that, because I have 'em too." He closes the door and walks smiling over to the gate with his keys.

My eyes are in fact pale: green and blue with gold flecks. The color of water polluted with gasoline.

The weekend. Sitting at a table in a VFW hall watching senior citizens dance to a blues band. The old cling to each other for dear life, holding each other up. I am in awe. Nothing compares to the intimacy of an ancient couple dancing in a deep embrace, keeping time with the music, ensuring the other doesn't disappear. Fred pulls me from the trance. "This is like 'Night of the Living Dead' meets 'Blues Brothers!'" he whispers loudly. I nod and write this down so I can remember it later.

Morning. I move closer to the man sleeping next to me and put my head on his chest. "I love you," I say. He doesn't answer. The back of my throat burns.

Charlie is still singing. "I could have missed the pain," he belts out in a magnificent baritone, "but I would have missed the chance." The other patrons have fallen silent, staring into their beers.