Free At Risk of Being a Fool by Jeanette Cottrell Page B

collects them.” She snorted. “Once I seen him holding one with a long barrel, rubbing his hand over it, like it was—” She checked herself, glancing at Jeanie. “—a dog or something.”
    “All a gun’s gotta do, is work,” said Dillon. “It’s a backup plan, that’s all.”
    “I don’t trust no one behind me with a gun,” said Tonio, joining the conversation. “If a homey shoots some sucker, that’s all of us in prison for life.”
    “Accidental firing is a great danger,” said Jeanie, striving to move back to safe ground. “If it’s a tool, then it should be used safely, not left around loose. Is that right?”
    “Any moron can shoot a gun,” Tonio said. “If I’m gonna do a job, I’ll do it myself. Like on my motorbike, when the sprocket broke, I didn’t take it to no dude in a shop somewhere. I took it to work with me, and welded it back together. It’s my life on that bike, you know. Same reason I don’t trust no fucker with a gun, either.”
    “They let you use the welder at the Yard?” Dillon said, interested.
    “Yeah, on my own time. The guy there, he’s okay. I done some stuff for him, too.”
    “My Mama’s got a gun,” said Sorrel. “She keeps it at the apartment in case some dipshit breaks in, thinks a bunch of women’s an easy target. It’s handy getting rid of the shits too, like Carlos, damn him.”
    “You waved a gun at him?” asked Quinto, wide-eyed.
    “Grandma did. She let off a couple shots over his head, right into the wall. Said she’d go for his balls next. God, it was funny. He ran like hell, forgot his stereo, too. Of course, we had to move after that. Landlady got shitty about the holes. But screw her. A woman’s gotta take care of herself, don’t she?”
    “Don’t you worry Tiffy’ll get hold of the gun?” asked Rosalie. “My Daddy, he always took the rifle apart and locked it up when he came home. He hid the black powder and bullets, too. We never found ‘em when we looked that time.” Her eyes shifted.
    “We hide it from Tiffy, top shelf of the back closet. When she gets bigger, we’ll teach her to use it right, let her blow the hell out of some pop cans. That’s what Mama did with me.”
    “Quinto, what do you think about handgun control?” Jeanie asked.
    “I don’t like guns,” Quinto said. As he spoke, his hand drew faces along the edges of his paper. Jeanie recognized a few of them. Danny Rivera, Tonio, Ricardo, two of the men at Dandridge House. “The only thing a gun’s for is killing people. So I don’t like them,” he said unequivocally. “Not ever. Some guys I know.” His glance flicked up, hit Brynna, Tonio, and Dillon, and skittered away. “They robbed one of them QuickStop places. They wanted me to go too, be lookout. But I didn’t, ‘cause one of ‘em had a gun.” He shot a look at Dillon, dropped his gaze to his drawings. “I wouldn’t nark, though. I wouldn’t do that. No names, no nothing.”
    Sorrel leaned forward and slapped the table. “My Mama works in a convenience store, dipshit. Anybody turns a gun on her, I’ll kill him.”
    “I didn’t go, I said so. They said I was just scared,” he muttered. “They was right, too.”
    “So,” said Jeanie bracingly, “Sorrel’s brought up a fine point. If a handgun can be turned to violence, that’s one thing, but when it’s your own family, it matters a lot more.”
    Brynna, whose family was her own worst enemy, rolled her eyes. Quinto’s hand jerked, marring a sketch. She recognized Bryce Wogan from the newspaper write-up on his therapy.
    “What I mean, Rosalie, is that guns don’t seem like a big deal until your own family is threatened. Right, Dillon? I mean, hearing about a shooting on the news isn’t nearly as important to you as if some guy threatens your grandmother with a gun. Or your mother, right, Rosalie?”
    A stillness smothered the room. Rosalie flinched as Dillon boiled out of his seat.
    “Any fucking son of a bitch touches my