The Dare

It was me, Hacken, a fifth of Jack in our bellies, and a dare to swipe the rusty old revolver from Mister Ferguson's house when he took his dog Skipper for her evening walk. We didn't even have to climb in a window or anything. The back door was left unlocked. 

"Smell that?" Hacken asked when we stepped inside. 

"How could you not?" 

I couldn't tell exactly what I was smelling, though. There were hints of mentholatum and under currents of chewing tobacco, but the main notes were foreign to my nose. And offensive. 

We made a bee line for the bedroom, walking past piles of yellowed newspapers and stepping over mounds of laundry. Pictures on the wall showed a younger Mister Ferguson, vibrant and ready to take on whatever the world threw at him, but we knew better. Those happy brown eyes would fill with hate and disdain, and the flowing blonde hair would gray and fall out. 

"Found it!" Hacken yelled. I turned and found him holding the gun in his hands. His smile was one of pleasant surprise. 

"I guess Jay was right. Ferguson did have a gun under the mattress."

"Is it loaded?" I asked. 

"Not sure."

Hacken held the gun away from his chest and tried to spin the barrell. It was rusted tight. He looked through the exposed slots and was able to see through them. 

"Looks empty to me."

"You sure?"

"Wanna hold it and see? It doesn't feel heavy."

I grabbed the gun, barrell first, and tried to gauge its weight. It was the first real gun I'd ever held. 

"You're right," I said. "Feels empty."

We smiled at the gun, not stopping to think whether or not it would be missed. It's not like mister Ferguson was taking it to the range everyday. 

"So what now?" He asked me. 

"You think a picture is enough?"

"I don't know." Bryan reached out for the gun and I handed it to him. He pointed it at my face and squinted down the barrell. "Jay dared us to steal it. Not model with it."

I picked up a ratty tshirt from the floor and flicked it at the gun. 

"Don't point that at me."

"Scared?"

"No." I trusted him. I just didn't trust any gun pointed towards me. "But like you don't want your mom to fellate me, I don't want a gun pointed at me."

He stared at me for a couple of seconds before cocking the hammer. "What did you say?"

"I don't want a gun pointed at me."

"About my mom."

"You heard me." I turned my back and heard him laugh and call me a dick. "How much time do you think we have?" I walked out of the bedroom and went into the bathroom. Figured maybe Ferguson had something exciting in the medicine cabinet. 

"Not long," Hacken said as he walked past the bathroom towards the back door. "Come on."

I gave Ferguson's pills a quick glance but didn't grab any. The names were unrecognizable and I didn't want to accidentally take a prescription strength laxative. That would not have made for a fun Saturday night. 

"Crap!" Hacken came jogging back down the hallway. "Ferguson and Skipper are coming around the back."

I looked towards the front door but Hacken shook his head. Skipper was already in the house, barking at the presence he sensed but didn't recognize. 

"Come on," I grabbed Hacken and pulled him towards the bedroom. 


"What are you doing?"

"Just start folding laundry."

"What?"

I didn't have time to explain. Skipper was barking at us from the threshhold and Mister Ferguson was walking towards us. Hacken shoved the gun into his waistband and pulled at the bottom of his shirt, hoping he could stretch it out enough to help hide the bulge. 

Skipper stopped barking. I looked up from the dirty laundry I was folding to see Mister Ferguson standing at the door. He was leaning hard on his cane and, with his other hand, pointed a gnarled finger at us. 

"Why are you boys in my house?" he croaked."Who said you could be in my house?"

I forced a laugh. "Hi, Mister Ferguson! Remember you asked us to help you clean up?"

He squinted and stared hard, his eyes darting suspiciously between Hacken and me. 

"Who let you into my house? Do your parents know you're in here?"

"Sure they do. And the back door was open," Hacken said. He grabbed a pair of crumpled pants off the back of a chair and gave them a good flick. The motion caused his shirt to rise for a half second and I saw the handle of the gun. I looked at Ferguson, sure he saw it, but his eyes were elsewhere. "It was open just like you said it would be, so we let ourselves in. Hope that was ok?"

"What are you doing here?" he snapped his fingers and Skipper dropped her aggressive stance to sit by his side. "Why are you in my house?"

"Fine," I said. I put down the shirt I was holding and looked at Hacken. "Let's just go if he doesn't want us to finish." 

"Sorry, mister Ferguson," Hacken said as we walked past him. "We were just trying to help."

"Fine, fine" he grumbled as we walked past him. "But you were folding dirty laundry." 

I looked at Hacken in the hallway and his eyes said he was just as nervous as me. He wanted to get out the back and start running. Our steps quickened. We needed to leave before Ferguson even thought about looking for his gun. We were fast but we ran into a problem; the door was locked. 

With a padlock. 

Without the key there was no way we'd be able to open it. We stared at each other, hoping there was one answer between the two of us. Then Skipper's bark tore through the silence. She ran into the hall and stopped about five feet from us with tail stiff, hackles raised, and teeth bared. 

Behind her, shuffling on his cane, came a laughing Mister Ferguson. "Well boys, it looks like we've got ourselves stuck in a bit of a pickle. You're not getting out that way. And me and Skipper won't be letting you get out this way. And my daddy's gun's gone."

"You're crazy," I said. He smiled at me and moved a hand behind his back. Let's go out the front, Hack."

"Seriously. We try to do a favor and we get accused of stealing."

We started walking towards him and stopped dead in our tracks. He was holding a gun. Hacken abandoned our lie and yanked the revolver out of his pants, pointing it at Mister Ferguson. I looked at guns and didn't like our chances. Where the revolver was old and covered in rust, the model in Mister Ferguson's hand looked like it would actually fire. The metal, black, was polished to a dull shine, and the laser sight centered on my chest was, well, a laser sight centered on my chest. 

"You can have your stupid gun back," Hacken said and cocked the hammer, "but not until we're out of here."

Mister Ferguson cackled so hard he had to lean against the wall to stop himself from falling. "You threatening me with my daddy's revolver?" With his gun hand, he wiped a tear from his eye. "Boy, that gun hasn't shot a bullet in 2 generations. Probably hasn't been oiled or cleaned in even longer than that."


"All he needs is it to work just this once." I hoped my voice sounded tougher than I felt. "You want to take that risk?"


"You want to take the risk that I'm so old and weak I can't point this red light in a good place?"


The dot moved from my chest to Hacken's crotch. Mister Ferguson giggled.


"Think girls'll still like you without those?"


Hacken pointed the revolver to his side. "Ok, you win. Let's not do anything crazy." 


My heart was beating in my neck as Mister Ferguson cackled and spoke to Skipper, the laser sight still trained on Hacken's nuts. "What do you think, girl? Should we teach these boys a lesson?"