The earliest clear memory I have is from when I was about eleven years old. I’m not going to tell you about it – I think it’s better if you read this without knowing anything.

My family gets together for a week four times a year like clockwork. We see each other way more than that, but these weeks were especially exciting. The adults partied hard and drank harder - and thus didn’t monitor us children as much. Fabulous meals were served four times daily. My sister, my cousin, and I would go out and wander on our own for hours. Our parents would hand us each a bundle of twenties and said to be home before midnight. It was a riot. We got arrested once in New York for trespassing a few years after this memory happened. A night in an interrogation room killed the rest of the week for all of us, but that’s a different story for a different chapter.

The memory happens just before lunch, so the three of us were at the house. Lunches happened late in the afternoon. The adults never got up early. I was sitting under a balcony, looking at the adults socialize and drink beers. I’d never tasted beer before. My dad told me he “fucking hates it.”

“Pssst!” my Jessica, my sister, whispered to me. I ignored her. I was very hungry, and hungry me was irritable.

“Pssst!” she hissed.

“What?..” I moaned.

“I wanna show you something…"

“What do you want to show me?”

“I have to show you. You’ll like it. I promise.”

“Fine…” I groaned.

I stood up. She instantly started running into the house and up the stairs. I reluctantly jogged after her. She led me into my dad’s office.

It was an old looking room. The house was built in 1987, but this room in particular seemed to be from the 1920s. The wooden floors creaked no matter how carefully you walked on it. The walls had wallpaper with a thin vertical stripe pattern. Wooden trim went three feet up the wall. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined most of the walls. A massive rug covered the floor, leaving only a couple feet of exposed hardwood floor next to the walls. The room always reeked of old books and smelled of tobacco. There was a minibar next to some chairs in one of the corners.

Jessica stood next to the bookshelf on the far side of the room, “Do you know what’s behind this wall?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“Watch.” She said. She dragged the chair that was at the desk over to the bookshelf. She then stood on it to reach behind a book on the uppermost-shelf.

I heard a flip switch of some kind. A little door in the wall trim swung open. A safe was on the other side.

“I’ve been guessing combinations for the last month. I finally got into it last night.”

“What’s in it?”

“Gimmie a second,” she had already started entering the code on the dial. A few seconds later, I heard a little clink. She rotated the handles, creating a loud clink. I was eager to see what was inside this massive safe. I pictured cash.

Jessica opened the door. The first thing I saw was the guns and ammo. Large guns too. I then noticed gold and silver bars, as well as some plastic things I correctly deduced were data-tapes.

“Have you ever held a gun before?” Jessica asked. I shook my head, investigating the safe contents further. Jessica grabbed a handgun out of the safe, keeping her finger from the trigger.

“I hadn’t either before I found this,” she answered. She gawked at the gun, rotating it around in her hand. It was really large for a handgun. It was completely matte black. There was no sheen at all, just a bit of highlighting and shadows.

“Is it loaded?”

“Yeah,” she said, pressing the magazine release. She showed me the 6mm bullet on the top. She slid the magazine back into the grip.

“Here, hold it!” she handed it to me.

I still generally knew how to handle guns. I knew to always check the safety. It was on. I knew never to put my finger on the trigger unless I intend to use it.

It was way heavier than I thought. The outside of handguns are entirely plastic. It’s really deceiving. I thought it would weigh as much as a toy. I gripped it tighter so that I didn’t drop it.

“What do you think?” She was really excited to show this to me.

I told her it was heavy.

“I know right? Give it back to me,” she held out her hand. I put the gun in her hand.

“Have you ever fired it?” I asked. Jessica was correct – I really liked seeing this.

“I haven’t even turned the safety off.”

“Wanna try?” I suggested.

Jessica shrugged, “why not?”

She removed her finger from the trigger. She turned off the safety switch. She stared at the gun after.

I don’t remember any of the next few seconds. The next thing I remember was a gunshot.

Jessica looked startled. She juggled with the gun before dropping it. I was startled as well. Gunshots are really loud. There is no way my parents did not hear that. We were gonna be in so much trouble.

Then I noticed the pain in my leg. Then I looked down and saw the blood. I fell down and squeezed my thigh. I still hadn’t fully register that I had been shot – I was in so much pain.

Jessica didn’t help. I think she just stood in shock. The next thing I remember was my dad literally kicking the door in. We didn’t lock it, but I guess that was a half second faster.

“What did you do?!” he yelled at Jessica. She didn’t respond.

“Were you standing up when you were shot?” someone asked. That someone was my dad. I didn’t respond. I barely realized that he was there. I started to cry. I tried to curl up and hold my leg, but my dad forced my to lie down.

“Were you standing up?” he asked louder.

I nodded.

My dad then grabbed both my arms and dragged me over to a chair on the other side of the room with my arms. I tried to escape his grasp to grab my leg. I caught a glimpse of my sister still staring at me from a distance. I also noticed family members streaming into the room. They all seemed very worried.

Somehow, through my blurry tear-filled vision, I had noticed that I was bleeding, and eventually deduced that I had been shot. I don’t even remember Jessica pointing the gun at me.

“Grab it!” my dad pointed at the gun. Either my mom or my aunt went to grab it.

I was shot in my lower leg. My dad dragged another chair over and forced my leg on top of its back. I don’t know how he was able to keep me from reaching towards it.

“I’m gonna fucking puke. I’m gonna fucking puke” my mom said.

“Bathroom is right there, Lisa.” my dad nodded towards a closed door as he unbuckled his belt. He put it around my leg as tight as he could, and buckled it.

My mom puked on the floor.

My dad huffed at my mom, “Grab me the phone.”

My mom was in shock or something and didn’t move. My uncle stepped into action to grab the phone. My dad dialed a number with one hand and kept me from moving with the other.

“Hey, Donald,” my dad said into the phone with very little sense of emergency, “My son got shot, how fast can you be at the house?”

I don’t remember how, but I had squirmed out of my dad’s reach and I pushed my leg down to the ground.

The burst of pain that resulted from my leg hitting the floor made me scream so loud my voice was horse for the next few days.

Apparently, Donald is “the guy” my parents know for treating gunshot wounds on short notice. I remember he was actually quite nice to me and understanding about the pain I was in. He checked in with me several times in the weeks afterward. I haven’t seen him since.

I was very lucky. The wound missed any major blood vessels. I couldn’t walk for a week, and had to go to physical therapy for a month. My dad didn’t let me forget how lucky I was. He told story after story about people who got shot and were permanently disabled, from not being able to flex a muscle as well, to permanently loosing use of a limb. I didn’t pick up a gun for at least five years after that.