A masculine scent, he thought. Blend in a little leather and tobacco, maybe a little horseshit, and you’ve got something to slap on after a shave. Win the respect of your fellows and drive the women wild.
He never put the gun under his pillow again. But the linen held the scent of the gun, and even after he’d changed the sheets and pillowcases, he could detect the smell on the pillow.
It was not until the incident with the panhandler that he ever carried the gun outside the apartment.
There were panhandlers all over the place, had been for several years now. It seemed to Elliott that there were more of them every year, but he wasn’t sure if that was really the case. They were of either sex and of every age and color, some of them proclaiming well-rehearsed speeches on subway cars, some standing mute in doorways and extending paper cups, some asking generally for spare change or specifically for money for food or for shelter or for wine.
Some of them, he knew, were homeless people, ground down by the system. Some belonged in mental institutions. Some were addicted to crack. Some were layabouts, earning more this way than they could at a menial job. Elliott couldn’t tell which was which and wasn’t sure how he felt about them, his emotions ranging from sympathy to irritation, depending on circumstances. Sometimes he gave money, sometimes he didn’t. He had given up trying to devise a consistent policy and simply followed his impulse of the moment.
One evening, walking home from the bus stop, he encountered a panhandler who demanded money. “Come on,” the man said. “Gimme a dollar.”
Elliott started to walk past him, but the man moved to block his path. He was taller and heavier than Elliott, wearing a dirty army jacket, his face partly hidden behind a dense black beard. His eyes, slightly exophthalmic, were fierce.
“Didn’t you hear me? Gimme a fuckin’ dollar!”
Elliott reached into his pocket, came out with a handful of change. The man made a face at the coins Elliott placed in his hand, then evidently decided the donation was acceptable.
“Thank you kindly,” he said. “Have a nice day.”
Have a nice day, indeed. Elliott walked on home, nodded to the doorman, let himself into his apartment. It wasn’t until he had engaged the locks that he realized his heart was pounding and his hands trembling.
He poured himself a drink. It helped, but it didn’t change anything.
Had he been mugged? There was a thin line, he realized, and he wasn’t sure if the man had crossed it. He had not been asking for money, he had been demanding it, and the absence of a specific threat did not mean there was no menace in the demand. Elliott, certainly, had given him money out of fear. He’d been intimidated. Unwilling to display his wallet, he’d fished out a batch of coins, including a couple of quarters and a subway token, currently valued at $1.15.
A small enough price, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that he’d been made to pay it. Stand and deliver, the man might as well have said. Elliott had stood and delivered.
A block from his own door, for God’s sake. A good street in a good neighborhood. Broad daylight.
And you couldn’t even report it. Not that anyone reported anything anymore. A friend at work had reported a burglary only because you had to in order to collect on your insurance. The police, he’d said, had taken the report over the phone. “I’ll send somebody if you want,” the cop had said, “but I’ve got to tell you, it’s a waste of your time and ours.” Someone else had been robbed of his watch and wallet at gunpoint and had not bothered reporting the incident. “What’s the point?” he’d said.
But even if there were a point, Elliott had nothing to report. A man had asked for money and he’d given it to him. They had a right to ask for money, some judge had ruled. They were exercising their First Amendment right of free speech. Never mind that there had been an unvoiced threat, that Elliott had paid the money out of intimidation. Never mind that it damn well felt like a mugging.
First Amendment rights. Maybe he ought to exercise his own rights under the Second Amendment — the right to bear arms.
That same evening, he took the gun from the drawer and tried it in various pockets — unloaded now. He tried tucking it into his belt, first in front, then behind, in the small of his back. He practiced reaching for it, drawing it. He felt foolish, and it was uncomfortable walking around with the gun in his belt like that.
It was comfortable in his right-hand jacket pocket, but the weight of it spoiled the line of the jacket. The pants pocket on the same side was better. He had reached into that pocket to produce the handful of change that had mollified the panhandler. Suppose he had come out with a gun instead?
“Thank you kindly. Have a nice day.”
Later, after he’d eaten, he went to the video store on the next block to rent a movie for the evening. He was out the door before he realized he still had the gun in his pocket. It was still unloaded, the six shells lying where he had spilled them on his bed. He had reached for the keys to lock up and there was the gun.
He got the keys, locked up, and went out with the gun in his pocket.
The sensation of being on the street with a gun in his pocket was an interesting one. He felt as though he were keeping a secret from everyone he met, and that the secret empowered him. He spent longer than usual in the video store. Two fantasies came and went. In one, he held up the clerk, brandishing his empty gun and walking out with all the money in the register. In the other, someone else attempted to rob the place and Elliott drew his weapon and foiled the holdup.
Back home, he watched the movie, but his mind insisted on replaying the second fantasy. In one version, the holdup man spun toward him, gun in hand, and Elliott had to face him with an unloaded revolver.
When the movie ended, he reloaded the gun and put it back in the drawer.
The following evening, he carried the gun, loaded this time. The night after that was a Friday, and when he got home from the office, he put the gun in his pocket almost without thinking about it. He went out for a bite of dinner, then played cards at a friend’s apartment a dozen blocks away. They played, as always, for low stakes, but Elliott was the big winner. Another player joked that he had better take a cab home.
“No need,” he said. “I’m armed and dangerous.”
He walked home, and on the way, he stopped at a bar and had a couple of beers. Some people at a table near where he stood were talking about a recent outrage, a young advertising executive in Greenwich Village shot dead while using a pay phone around the corner from his apartment. “I’ll tell you something,” one of the party said. “I’m about ready to start carrying a gun.”
“You can’t, legally,” someone said.
“Screw legally.”
“So a guy tries something and you shoot him and you’re the one winds up in trouble.”
“I’ll tell you something,” the man said. “I’d rather be judged by twelve than carried by six.”
He carried the gun the whole weekend. It never left his pocket. He was at home much of the time, watching a ball game on television, catching up with his bookkeeping, but he left the house several times each day and always had the gun on his person.
He never drew it, but sometimes he would put his hand in his pocket and let his fingers curl around the butt of it. He found its presence increasingly reassuring. If anything happened, he was ready.
And he didn’t have to worry about an accidental discharge. The chamber under the hammer was unloaded. He had worked all that out. If he dropped the gun, it wouldn’t go off. But if he cocked it and worked the trigger, it would fire.