Bullets and Hallucinations

“What kind of person are you?” he says. The first Uber driver cancels on me when I say where I’m going. The next looks at me like I might be about to put him in the trunk of his own car.

Inglewood is miles away from the centre of Los Angeles, a place that locals describe as ‘ghetto’. To my eyes, it’s suburbs, right back at LAX.
The crystal sky is littered with billboards for movies, strip joints and God.

Outside the LAX Firing Range, it’s ninety-nine degrees, which is so hot you have to cover up, unless you want to frazzle, even with sunblock. My bottle of water is warm. I’ve arrived half an hour early and I’m looking forward to getting into the shade.

There is no shade. They don’t open the doors till midday. I have no vehicle and I wonder if I’m going to croak right here in the car park. The cops circle three times and suddenly I wonder if I am actually very anti-gun. I’m almost hallucinating from heat exhaustion and expecting buzzards to start circling, when I am waved inside, leaving behind the lizard with the ice-cold Gatorade.

The tight security is now making sense. The room is filled with guns, knives and targets featuring all sorts of pictures including zombies for you to take aim at. They sell Tasers disguised as phones and warning signs telling trespassers exactly how you will be maiming them should they enter your property.

I am asked to hand over government approved I.D. and sign a long contract with lots of small print about grisly things.

My instructor is a friendly former Marine. I think he is probably assessing me for any loose screws before placing a loaded gun in my hand. After an hour of safety and handling instruction he passes me a Berretta 92FS semi-automatic pistol and kitted out with earmuffs and goggles, I finally step on to the range. I am warned about hot bullet shells. I take aim and fire. The instructor is shaking his head. Wait, what did I do wrong?

“You sure you haven’t done this before?”

The target has a hole, smack in the middle of the zombie’s forehead! The next shot is equally good but the shell disappears down my top. I yelp, but remember to put the gun down before retrieving it. He says I have the worst stance he’s ever seen, but my aim is turning out to be pretty good and I’m enjoying being his prize pupil.

He asks to keep my target to show newbies what they can achieve in one lesson. He says this to everyone but I buy it and give him my Zombie kill. The least I can do. That’s what kind of person I am.