Transcript

I’m Major Jackson and this is The Slowdown.

A boy my age, Troy punched me so hard in the stomach, I could not breathe for five seconds. He called out, “Punch block!” This was a popular game in my neighborhood. If you stepped into a pavement square that had a crack, a group of boys punched until you fought your way out. Supposedly, these boys were your friends. Troy hit me again, this time on my side. He called out again, “Punch block!”

He was a twin. I liked his sister. We did our homework together after school. Instead of going to the arcade with Troy, she and I increasingly sat on their steps and read Shakespeare.

This day, Troy said, “My father said if you are going to be around his daughter, we need to toughen you up” and threw another punch. I finally fought back and wrestled my way off the pavement. Troy wiped blood from his nose, put his arm around my shoulder, and said, “Way to go, Sugar Ray.”

When people talk about masculinity, I think of this moment. Indoctrination into gendered behavior of violent preparedness and aggression were peppered throughout my adolescence. Where my friends tied masculinity to physical toughness, my aunts tied it to financial independence. They frequently expressed admiration for cousins who did not spend money on frivolous items, who saved up to buy a home or a car.

Recently, I discussed gender with my friend Josh. On his eleventh birthday, his father purchased his first gun. They bonded at the shooting range. Josh is a great guy; he does not express his masculinity through his guns. But I have been in the presence of men in open-carry states who brandish arms as if it were their only source of power.

Today’s poem presents a psychological portrait of a gun owner and the looming senses of danger and potential to harm that accompanies him.

When you have to kill everybody in the room
by Niki Herd

WHEN YOU HAVE TO KILL EVERYBODY IN THE ROOM accept no substitute
is what he says as he shows off his 26 guns, which don’t include the one
near the rack of ribs on the kitchen table, or the one making company with
dust left in the gap between refrigerator & wall, or the one in back of the night-
stand drawer, or underneath the seat of his custom-made F-350 parked outside
on the asphalt street of a gun state. He wants her to hold each one, to know
this assortment of candy, some made in the US, others formidable Russian 
semisweets. Were this a cowboy picture he’d be the man to save the day, guns
in hands, a backdrop of women, some he’s loved, others waiting, fighting for
attention. Married 11 years, together 20, he & wife. She looks at his bare ring 
finger, wonders how many times the wife has needed to retreat like now to the 
opposite wing of the house, eyes glued to a TV or scripture, praying or watching,
whatever women do when their men like the taste of sugar. More a friend than 
family, she half jokes, asks if he’s trying to do better. Onscreen a coyote chases
a roadrunner & a window facing west frames an ever-red sky—

“When you have to kill everybody in the room” by Niki Herd from THE STUFF OF HOLLYWOOD © 2024 Niki Herd. Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Copper Canyon Press.