NEWSLETTER

The worst trip I’ve ever been on in my whole life was a couple of months ago when I went back to visit my family in Fruitvale, British Columbia. Fruitvale is a small village in the West Kootenays of interior B.C. where they brew Kokanee beer. When I went to parties in high school anyone who showed up without Kokanee got called "fag" or "pussy" and then got beat up.

Me and my mom and Chuck (my new dad) started drinking early at my brother’s house. Later everyone went outside for some target practice, which is how we celebrate all major holidays. My brother has seven rifles and says he’ll be damned if the government is gonna get their hands on them. I’m not even that paranoid after a gram of coke to myself. Chuck believes it’s the feminists in Quebec making all the fuss about gun control.

Not one to be labeled the p-word, my mom pumped up her air rifle four times and took a shot at the target. CRA-ACK! I was standing ten feet from it so it was easy to see that she missed. I thought to myself "Ha ha" and then had this nanosecond of realization that something large and black was about to hit my eye.

After it hit, I screamed as loud as I could clutching my face. My mom had shot me in the eye. The pain was unreal.

Almost immediately my vision clouded over with a thick white fog. We rushed to the car and I swear I heard Chuck ask about dinner. That made me think of the time my ex-boyfriend said feeling up a girl was like sticking your hand between two pieces of ham.

I knew my mom felt bad so I really played it up, writhing and moaning in the backseat. I figured if I was blind I might be able to get a scooter. I passed out pretty quickly from the pain, but somewhere around Rock Creek there was a giant thud and I jerked awake. We had hit a deer. "Keep going," my mom screamed, "it’s already dead!"

At the hospital the admitting nurse rushed us right in. Another nurse came and put some freezing drops in my eye. Then she wanted me to explain how the pellet ricocheted off the target into my eye.

"I did it," my mom said meekly.

"I thought it was a bunch of teenagers messing around," the nurse said. "Nice going."

We sat and waited for the doctor in the emergency room. The man in the bed beside us was trying to pass a gallstone and the grunts were inhuman. Finally the doctor came and examined me. He said my pupil was an irregular shape and that meant very bad things. He had creamed corn on his tie. After like, an eternity of tests, he said that there is still hope down the road, but basically I’m blind in one eye.

Back in the car I let my mom have it. All the way home I shot her dirty looks from the backseat with my good eye.

These days, things are better between us. Even though I look like a pirate with this leather eye patch I will probably be wearing until I die, I still love her because at least she didn’t kill me.

TERESA "T. DAWG" MCWHIRTER

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