gun registries

park avenue
Originally uploaded by kristalynn.

i finally watched "chappelle's show" this weekend. charlie murphy's "true hollywood stories" - especially his chronicles of him and his brother beating rick james's legs because he kicked mud all over his couch - cracked me the f- up.

i searched the annals of my tiny mind for my own "true not-so-hollywood" stories.


someone shot at me once.

some friends and i had finished dinner at a thai restaurant and afterwards were perusing a magazine shop. a car drove by and shot at the window. the bullet penetrated the window, about a foot away from where i stood reading a magazine.

"what was that?" my agile and squirrel-like friend asked.

"a gunshot. check out the hole." my boyfriend-at-the-time responded.

"fuck," said my squirrel-like friend. he then ran out the front door and down the street.

my sister raced up to the front of the store. "what was that noise? where'd steve go?"

"someone shot at the store. steve ran away."

"what the fuck?" my sister said, pointing at the hole. "do we call the cops?"

"let's? get? out of here?" i proposed.

"you think they'll come back? like, circle around?" asked my sister's boyfriend.

"i think it was random. i don't think anyone wants me dead. no?" i looked around for reassurance.

we walked out of the magazine shop and headed up a smaller street. my sister's boyfriend returned to the shop a few days later. the magazine shop people had found the bullet when vacuuming. it tumbled along the carpet and had lodged itself near the cash register.