The pistol that nearly killed me.

When I was sixteen, I knew about gun safety rules the way I knew to stop drop and roll if I caught on fire. The thing was, I never planned to catch on fire. I could count way past six. That was how many bullets my father’s 38 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver held, so I figured treating weapons like they were always loaded was for mentally challenged guys with semiautomatics.

Dad’s gun was an old time cowboy pistol. Mirror finish, bone grip, with a firing pin on the hammer that looked like a rattlesnake’s fang. It was about the coolest thing I’d ever seen. Naturally I took it out at every opportunity. The six-shooter had a swing cylinder with an extractor rod that pushed out all the bullets in a single movement.

Nothing could go wrong. I ejected the bullets gave the cylinder a spin and flicked it into place—totally empty, totally safe.

As a show of confidence I pointed the pistol at my head and pulled the trigger. I took a shot at the neighbor’s dog, and at an airplane that was violating my domestic air space. I spun the cylinder again—Deer Hunter style—and because I was sixteen years old, I might have pointed the pistol at some other body parts that were on my mind a lot in those days—and pulled the trigger.

I might have done that a couple of times before I turned on the TV in the living room just in time for a black and white rerun of Gunsmoke. Marshall Mat Dillon stepped into street and faced off with a bad guy in a stereotypical Wild West gunfight. I had his back. When the time came, I drew and pulled the trigger, aiming over the Mat’s shoulder at the bad guy and . . .

You can’t imagine how loud a thirty-eight caliber pistol sounds when it could have killed you a few seconds ago. My ears rang. I felt little hot chunks of gunpowder residue bounce off my face. The room smelled like burned matches, and my heart pumped so much blood I could feel my fingers inflating.  I’m sure I could have seen them changing shape if I’d been able to tear my eyes away from the console television set that played on as if nothing happened.

I popped the cylinder open and sure enough there was a spent cartridge—exactly where it wasn’t supposed to be. I walked over to the TV set. Ran my hands over it. Looked for signs of damage and found none. The cloud of gun smoke settled over me as I tried to figure out exactly how I could shoot a console television set from a distance of eight feet and not leave a mark.

I turned around and looked at the place where I’d been standing when I made my move, wondering if I’d see my body slumped on the floor. Wondering if I was a ghost now, and what I was supposed to do next if that was true.

Instead of seeing my body on the floor, I saw a plowed furrow of linoleum where my bullet had skimmed across the floor. It ricocheted under the four legs of the TV set and made a neat round hole in the wood paneling.

Years later I was a potential juror in a criminal case that involved a gun. The defense attorney asked if any of us had ever come face to face with a pistol. I didn’t raise my hand but a woman beside me did.

“How did that make you feel?” the lawyer asked.

“Religious.” She described the experience perfectly with a single word.

In my more existential moments I believe the bullet that didn’t kill me has some mystical connection with my life. Magical thinking is usually something I try to keep within the realm of fiction, but the idea has never completely gone away.

I thought I might eventually dig that slug out of my parents’ living room wall and hide it in a safe place. I came very close to doing it after they died, but then I thought of a creative alternative.

Instead of locking that bullet in a safe deposit box, I buried it deep inside a novel. Hashilli, the villain in Owl Dreams had a magic bullet almost exactly like mine. It was so connected to his life that he couldn’t let it fall into someone else’s hands. You’ll have to read the book if you want to find out how things worked out for him.

I suppose my bullet is still in the wall in my parents’ old living room, but its magic is stored safely in the realm of fiction where it can do no harm.