Written on 3/17/2011
“Dad, can I have a gun?” asked Thad.
“Why do you need a gun?” Thad’s dad didn’t look away from his computer screen.
“I need to kill somebody at school.”
This got his dad’s attention. He turned around in his chair to face his eight-year-old son. “Why would you want to kill somebody?”
“Because he keeps picking on me. He takes my lunch, he trips me, he punches me when nobody can see,” Thad stated.
“Well,” his dad replied, “have you tried punching him back?” Thad’s dad was a balding hipster with muttonchops and ridiculous glasses. He worked at a call center during the day, and spent most of the evening on comic book websites. He was pasty and had thin fingers.
“I can’t punch him. That’ll just make him madder. He’s bigger than me and he knows how to fight, and punch. I need a gun.”
Thad’s dad smiled a little, amused by his son’s certainty and desire for a weapon.
“You seem pretty sure about the gun. What about a knife, or karate?” Thad’s dad was amused with himself.
Thad sighed, “I don’t have time to learn karate. He’s not going to stop. I tried talking to the teacher but he wouldn’t believe me. I need a gun.”
“Maybe I could talk to your teacher.” Thad rolled his eyes at this, already knowing that he couldn’t count on his dad.
“Can I just have the gun? Please?”
“I have an idea,” said his dad. Swiveling in his chair he opened a desk drawer. After rummaging a while, he pulled out a plastic squirt gun. “Ta da!”
“That’s not going to work,” Thad said. “I need a gun that shoots bullets.”
“No, this will work,” his dad said. “It’s a retro squirt gun; very collectable. All we have to do is paint it black and it will look real. Then you can take it to school and act like it’s a real gun, scare the bully and he’ll leave you alone.” Thad’s dad smiled, pleased with his parenting skills.
Thad stared at his dad for a long while, like he was mulling the plan over in his mind. He finally said, “Okay. I think I can make it work.”
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The next day, Thad took the gun to school. Before he made it to the schoolyard, the bully caught up with him and knocked him down. Thad pulled out the gun, and the bully laughed. Then Thad started squirting him in the face. The bully knocked the gun out of his hand, pushed him down and started punching him. But as he did so, he suddenly had a panicked look on his face. He stopped punching and tried to stand up but fell to the ground. He grabbed at his throat but no sounds came out. Somebody ran for a teacher, but by the time they came back the bully was unconscious. They started mouth-to-mouth, but no air would go in. The bully died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
Thad had remembered hearing the teacher talking to some moms during a bake sale about the bully not being able to eat anything with peanuts. That morning before school, Thad had filled the squirt gun with peanut oil from the pantry. It had worked better than any bullet.