A fictional travelogue; four minutes to read.
Standing curbside outside The Comedy Store on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, my breath is coming in fast, short, pulsing gasps. My bowels are quivery.
I am exposed. From any direction—a distant rooftop, a passing car, a half-opened hotel window—I could be shot.
I want to run, hide, shelter in place, but there is no place. Since 1968, more Americans have been killed with guns than in all U.S. wars combined. Guns have turned everywhere in America into a potential shooting gallery.
The killing fields are everywhere. Shopping malls, supermarkets, concerts, convenience stores, movie theaters, schools and colleges, July Fourth parades, churches, post offices.
At almost six feet tall, I’m an easy target for every chambered bullet in America. The fear of a slug burning through my vital organs scares me. My skin feels hot, tingly. My soft parts quivery.
I track my Lyft car as it wends its way towards me, too slowly. I text my driver with shaky fingers. Hurry, I say.
My two-drink-minimum is still buzzing. There’s a dull clunking inside my head. My jaw is clenching, teeth grinding.
A tumult of customers—laughing, teasing, looking forward to life—are leaving the Comedy Club. They appear unaware of the danger. As if a cosmic black hole has made them invincible.
For A-listers Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg, Jay Leno, David Letterman and Robin Williams, the Comedy Store is a safe space for testing new comedy material. Not ‘snowflake’ safe from innocuous microaggressions or the politically incorrect, but safe from the Second Amendment. No weapons allowed in the Club.
A man wearing shoulder-length dreadlocks is stationed at the door. He checks for weapons with a hand-held magnetometer. He projects the imposing authority of a prison guard. Black jeans, black tee shirt. Judging from his agile stance, a black belt in martial arts.
Before leaving my hotel room, a politician on TV told the best joke of the night. A South Dakota Republican Senator claimed that ranchers need semi-automatic battlefield rifles to kill prairie dogs. Prairie dogs are twelve inches long, weigh under three pounds and don’t wear Kevlar vests.
So that farmers can kill furry little rodents, my high school students are yanked out of history and science classes for active shooter drills. To help them make it through college, let’s give each graduating senior a free gun so they can shoot back—like the NRA says. Maybe teach first aid too.
During school, I’m twitchy, moody, miserable. Burning out. Burned out.
If die defending other people’s children, there’s no one left to raise my kids. I’m a single dad.
I don’t sleep well. Night sweats. Nothing awful is going on in my personal life, although the possibility of getting shot is personal enough.
When it comes to a woman’s body, I am pro-choice. When it comes to my body, I am pro-life.
If some gun owner wants to kill himself, that okay with me. If he wants to weaponize criminals, the politically unhinged or crazy people, that’s not a joke I’m going to laugh at.