Are We In Control: A True Story

      All around us strange and wonderful things are happening. Most of the time, these things go unnoticed and have no effect on us, because we do not see the meaning behind them. However, on some rare occasions, they are so powerful that they leave us changed forever. This life-changing event is something that we can never truly or completely understand, leaving us bewildered, confused, and amazed. I have witnessed a few such incidents in my life, but one in particular stands out in my mind whenever I wonder, “Who is in control of my life?” Becoming aware of ourselves is to become aware of the impossibilities that occur in our lives, and how it affects us.

            During the summers of my high school years my best friend Jerry and I would often go camping at his grandfather’s pond. The pond was not very large, about one fifth of an acre, and located on a section of ground near ten acres. The far side of the pond was covered with trees as was the pasture behind it. We camped on the open side of the pond, having a clear safe space for a camp fire; but mostly we needed the open area for setting off fireworks and target shooting.

            During those summers we would either ride our motorcycles through the pastures, or play video games at Jerry’s parents’ house. This was one of those weekends that we had grown tired of being in the house all day long. Since neither of us were partiers, we had the most fun in small groups, so we decided to have a camp-out. We had been staying indoors, so I had nothing with me for camping outside. We got into Jerry’s small ugly 1976 Ford Mustang. We had fun with that car; it was our camping and off-road vehicle. The silver paint was fading and flaking, so we did not have to worry much about hurting it. My house was not very far from his, only six miles, so it would not take us very long to get there.

                        Once we pulled up to the house, we both went in to gather my things. My only gun was a single-action, six-shot, .357 magnum revolver. I set it on a chair near the front door, so I could take it with us. Our favorite target-shooting guns were 22 caliber rifles which I did not have, but my dad did.

            My dad was sitting on the couch in front of the television watching us get ready for our outing. I asked him if I could borrow the gun; he teased me a little, trying to have some fun before I left him home alone again. I knew that he would like to have joined us, but he never asked, knowing we were teenagers and becoming more independent.

            I quickly got the gun, handed it to Jerry, and then went to my room for some blankets and a pillow. I did not own a sleeping bag; looking back on it now, I wish that I had had one. I tossed the blankets on the chair by the door and went to the kitchen to see if we had any food I could take along. We were very poor and had nothing worth taking. Jerry’s family always supplied our food, but I felt I should look, if for nothing more than appearances. We still had to set up camp and find firewood. Also, we wanted to get in a few target shots before dark. It was already late in the afternoon, so we needed to go quickly. I told my dad goodbye as I grabbed my stack of blankets in one swooping grasp, and I was out the door.

            When I got in the car I just laid my pile of blankets on my lap. It was a short drive, and getting things in and out of the back seat of the two-door car was inconvenient. Back then we never wore our seatbelts; we had not had enough life experiences to know that we needed to wear them. It was not very hot that day, and with the sun going down, it was only going to cool down more. Since we were driving on dirt roads, we left the windows up as much as we could to keep out the dust and wind, but mine was slightly open for some air movement.  

            We were halfway down the driveway when there was a loud noise, an explosion. At those times in our lives, when something traumatic happens, people do not feel emotions or sense anything going on around them. Like in a dream, events go into slow motion and everything becomes surreal. When they look back those events really happened only in the blink of an eye.

            I kicked the door open, threw out my lapful of blankets, and was about to jump out, when I realized that Jerry was just getting the car stopped. I looked over at him as he yelled, “What was that?” I could hear him out of my left ear, but my right one was ringing so loudly I could hardly hear anything else.

Just then, I realized what had happened. I looked down at the pile of blankets, now thrown to the ground, and before my eyes could focus on them, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. My pistol had gotten tangled up in the seat belt and was hanging right next to me.

            I had forgotten about the gun! I would never have put it in the car still loaded. I must have grabbed it off of the chair when I picked up my pile of blankets and not realized what I had done.

            When Jerry realized what had happened, he became very concerned. “Are you hit?”

            “No, I don’t feel anything,” I said more calmly than I felt.

            “You could be in shock; check yourself,” he yelled.

            Right then I recalled a movie we had watched only a couple of days before called Memphis Bell. It was a war movie about an airplane bomber crew. A bullet had come up through the floor of the cabin, and a red liquid had blown everywhere. The crew had been concerned that one of them could be shot and in shock, so he would not feel it. Luckily one of them noticed a can of tomato paste ripped-open on the floor. He stuck his finger in the red liquid, tasted it, and burst out laughing.

            After finding out that neither of us was bleeding, I calmed down a little and could just now smell the smoke from the gunpowder. My sense of smell had diminished while I was in that other state of awareness, but now that I was coming out of it, I was thinking more clearly.

            I looked at the gun. It was pointing up and the hammer was caught by the strap. I started getting queasy, realizing that if it had been angled a couple of inches to the left, it would have been pointed at my head, and I kept it loaded with hollow points. Also, if it had been pointing at my abdomen, it not only would have killed me; it would have gone through me and directly into Jerry, who was in the driver’s seat next to me.

            I had no doubt that the gun had fired; my ear was still ringing on that side, and the air was strong with the smell of gunpowder smoke. I opened the gun, and as I suspected one round had fired, and only the empty casing remained.

There was no bullet hole anywhere, and even though my window was open slightly, the gun was at an angle to the window where the opening would have been no bigger than the diameter of the bullet. To this day, I am still dumbfounded that neither of us was shot, and the only avenue of escape for the bullet was through the slightly open car window. It would be nearly impossible to recreate those events, even under the most perfect circumstances.

Someone does not have to believe in miracles to see that the odds of pure chance being the sole, controlling factor in our lives is ridiculous. The result of my stupidity shows that we may not have complete control of what goes on around us, and we need to be sure to learn from those things as well.