E. Zimmerman

LOADED

i never used to keep a loaded gun next to my bed, under my nightstand.

i never had a gun to begin with, until this administration. i bought the gun from my friend jim, who is a christian fundamentalist and also a tRump supporter. I agree, it is strange that we are friends, to begin with.

jim and I are standing in a field on my property, shooting 9mm full metal jacket bullets against an old tree stump. we are two men practicing for polar opposite wars. he has no idea i am trans, that i was born female. he thinks i want the gun in order to keep mexicans and homosexuals away from my doorstep, which is why jim has a whole collection of guns.

while we are loading our clips, he tells me it is the job of the man to protect his family from foreign invaders. it says as much in the bible, he says. but who is going to protect me from your kind, the kind that hates trans people just because they are trans.

i hope to never use the gun on another person. i hope it stays loaded and stays put and that the rednecks who live around me in the wild wild west never come down my long driveway in their black flatbed trucks with their maga hats on and their dual upright exhaust manifolds sticking out of their trucks like dicks.

i live in a tiny western community, in a very red state, in a very religious region of the u s of a. god, guns and country bumper stickers, fuck Biden bumper stickers, bibles on the bench seat of their old ford f150’s jesus hates fags.

all i want to be is left alone to enjoy my life, to love my wife, to ride my horse and pet my dogs and live to see another day. i don’t want to have to reach under the nightstand to defend myself against the rage and the hatred and the bigotry led by the christian right. i never want to shoot anyone, ever.

it’s times like this i wish i were a praying person, like jim, only the kind that believes in a beneficial god who actually cares about people. but i’m not a praying person. i’m a practical person, and so i keep a loaded gun.
next to my bed.