Best day ever

When I was about 16 my best friend Paul called me up and said " you'll never guess what happened..my mom dumped the cop and started dating an engineer who designs nuclear subs"

I said, "whoopee now we get to listen to her screw some other guy when I come over"

Paul said "no it's perfect he's really really fat like 450 pounds and his son owns a gun shop."

"Whoa!" was my only reply. Paul and I were gun nuts, we had a couple of .22 pistols, a couple of borrowed shotguns and we read anything we could find on guns. We went to the range almost every week and our life revolved around guns.

Then Roy comes along. Roy was a cool guy, hugely obese but a nice friendly man who realized that to get to dip his wick into some of Paul's mom's honeydew he had to make the chillrun happy. Roy's son was about 4 years older than us and just happened to be a talented gunsmith and gun dealer.

I got a call one Friday afternoon, Roy senior was going to pick me up and we were going shooting. I had never met the man but suffice it to say when someone who shows up in front of my house in an A team van filled with assault weapons and crates of ammo I will get in and go anywhere they want.

We picked everyone up. Paul and I rode in the back and admired the weapons cache, Sten, SKS, Ak 47s, FN FAL, M1A, 45-70 lever action, Browning hi power, Auto 5, sten, sterling, Smith and Wesson .44 magnums just to name a few... probably 25 or 30 guns in all.

We drove about 45 minutes to Kerrville Texas where they had a cabin over looking a forest and a dry creek. We got out, unloaded the van and set up some targets. We were being respectful and shy at first because we didn't want to look like greedy assholes, but once the bullets started flying we made sure to get our turn whenever it was offered.

Let me put it this way, putting all those guns in front of us was like locking Rosie O' Donell in a cookie shop.

We were shooting at bowling pins and I was knocking the hell out of them. Then Big Bob Showed up. He was about 6ft 9 and easily 350Lbs. He wore big boots, a belt buckle the size of a turkey platter and a ten gallon hat. He was a friend of Roy and asked us boys to help him clean up around the cabin.

Damn. We reluctantly followed Big Bob up to the cabin and he showed us a trash can that needed dumping. We tried to move it but it was filled with rotten venison and rain water. Apparently the deep freeze had broken down and the meat from last years hunt had spoiled. Someone who had used the cabin dumped it all into a big plastic trashcan and left it to rot in the sun.

Bob handed me a Ruger .44 mag with an 8 inch barrel and told me to take care of the trash.

I pulled the trigger and the trashcan exploded spraying rotten meat water out of a large hole in the side. Everyone else walked up and drew out their sidearms and let loose a volley until the thing had split open and dumped it's rancid contents in the dirt.

After that day I never looked at taking out the garbage the same way.

We had a large crate of ammo and were left on our own for a while to destroy some more stuff. You couldn't have wiped the perma grin off of our faces with a belt sander.

We finally had to go home, but luckily that night was spent cleaning all the guns and listening to Roy and Roy jr talk about their crazy exploits and fighting gun battles against hired killers and armed robbers. I was skeptical at first until they showed me their bullet wounds. They may as well have been rock stars after that night.

Unfortunately, Paul's mom liked dick more than money and guns so she dumped Roy after a few months. We were devastated, but made it a point to visit him and his son at his gun shop and give them our business. He earned our loyalty and respect even though it was in a futile bid to get into Paul's mom's raggedy old gopher hole.

I still see Roy Jr at the gun shows from time to time and I've purchased several guns from him. He's still a helluva nice guy and still remembered me after almost 20 years.

It's funny how things seem so much bigger and better as a wide eyed kid.