Free A Map of Tulsa by Benjamin Lytal Page B

for romantic partnership went unrecognized. She did not want to do anything at night, she did not touch me, did not invite me up to the penthouse. And I made no reference to what had happened.
    I had literally thought about getting Adrienne flowers. The gun was the superior idea. What thrilled me was the presumption: after all, you can’t make someone own a gun. But I believed I had to presume. God stands up for the presumptuous. For me to have decided to present her with a firearm—I cannot adequately advertise how excessive this felt.
    It was supposed to be obvious. At Wal-Mart, I had pushed up on tiptoe at the display counter, looking around for the clerk, worried maybe that I would flub the names and gauges I had memorized—but at least I had a showgoing, a blond genius with long legs and a paintbrush, and I was going to buy her a little gun for her birthday.
    It was cold to the touch that next morning. This was $300; the scrollwork was cheap; the butt was long and fancy. Looking out at the empty, sunny street, the shuttered bar, the neat public trash can, I felt rebuked. I opened my car door and sat with my feet on the asphalt, trying to get the courage to go up. What had I accomplished so far that summer? I had a loaded gun in my lap, anybody walking by would have seen. But the street was dead. I think it was a Sunday—I remember the stairway up pierced with light.
    Characteristically, Adrienne kept her back to me when I came in. Her smock was tied askew and I could see into her overalls where her ribs were bare. I just stood there. She inhaled and raised the paintbrush. “I have something for you,” I said.
    At the last second I had wrapped the gun up in a pair of jeans I found in my backseat. She pulled up at one of the pant cuffs, and the gun tumbled out.
    “Did you know you can just go to the store and buy one of these things?”
    She had stepped back slightly, as if from a snake.
    “My god.”
    I had thought she would ring with laughter. But no. “It’s for you,” I said, swallowing my words.
    She looked worried. She used her smock to pick up the gun, wielding it away from her as if she wanted to avoid fingerprints. She bent her elbow and aimed the gun at me.
    “It’s loaded,” I told her.
    She squinted, as if lining up the sight. She aimed straight at my belly.
    But her voice was strained. “Why is it loaded?” she asked.
    Her studio, on two sides, had windows made of glass brick. I said I wanted to shoot at the bricks, to see how they’d explode. “I didn’t mean for this to seem as aggressive as it maybe does.”
    Not only did Adrienne inspire me, she inspired me too much: such a crazy, serious gift idea, because it was for Adrienne. Yet she proved that she deserved it. She took off the safety, lifted, turned, and aimed.
    “It’s going to be loud—” she said, spreading her feet apart and raising the gun. The glass bricks were full of sun.
    At the instant of bullet ejection my eyes closed, like during a sneeze, but I thought I saw strands of blond hair fly back and then float down. At the back of the sound (a wide bolus of white noise), I heard a satisfying splat, and the tinkle of glass.
    She fired again, almost flip.
    “You?”
    My ears were ringing but I took the gun. I had fired a.357 in Scouts, and had been mentally rehearsing the grip and the proper firing stance.
    And I fired.
    The crack was upsetting this time; it came and went not with the civilized sound of a “report” but hacked quickly at my wrists. There was a larger puff of gray—less solid than the first. I didn’t know what to do next. Adrienne had taken a turn, I had taken a turn. We had deafened ourselves.
    Maybe I should have shot holes through her canvases if I had brought this gun to her studio. Because she was bored already. She was edging back towards her easel. I softly laid the gun on the table, so as not to distract her.
    The rest of the story is too private to make sense: Nothing happened. Adrienne got back