I make all the vocalizations you would expect when one gets shot in the head. I also do the footwork.

“What happened?” Herk says, picking the gun carefully off the floor.

“Fucker!” is all I can manage.

“What was it?”

Vigorously I rub my forehead.

“Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckithurts.”

“What did you do?”

“Fucking thing shot me in the head.”

Herk peels my hands away and inspects.

“No, no. It’s just the brass. It ejected funny.”

“Brass?”

“The shell.”

“Fucker is hot.”

“You’ll live. Relax.”

“Is there a mark?”

“Oh yeah. Looks like you’ve got forehead herpes.”

“Fantastic.”

“Now let’s see you come within ten feet of the target this time.”

“Have you ever seen that happen before?” I say, still rubbing.

“Never in my natural life.”

“Well, I’m glad I got that statistical anomaly out of the way.”

Taking the gun from Herk, I raise the muzzle to the drawing of the Rat Burglar taped over the ballistic gelatin, grit my teeth, and squeeze. The primary charge ignites, the bullet shrieks past the target in a harmless, neighborly way, and the shell shoots out of the breech and, miraculously, right into my forehead.

The pain registers, as does Herk’s poorly stifled laugh, and I double over, rubbing my forehead like mad while telling myself over and over: this is not a metaphor.

A couple of days later Herk finally congratulates me. I have attained the skill to hit the target with some frequency at ranges under thirty feet and, as if the gun has finally vouchsafed some respect, I am no longer getting hit in the head with the shell. In celebration of my remedial semicompetence Herk produces a folded paper bag, out of which he produces a clean black pistol that appears to be identical to the one with which I’ve been practicing.

“There she is,” he sings regally, “Miss America...”

“What’s that?”

“Just a little something I picked up for you. You couldn’t get one through proper channels fast enough, obviously, and naturally you can’t use mine, so I got you your own. Through a friend of a friend. Don’t ask. The numbers have been filed off and it’s a virgin, so you can just say that you bought it off the street and it can’t be traced to anyone. It’s the same make and model as mine, though, so it will be the same as shooting the one you’ve been learning on. Nice, right?”

It’s supposed to be touching, and in a way it is—Herk has gone out of his way for me again—but it also makes the situation very immediate and very real. I know that this has been the case all along, but until this moment it seemed as if someone else—another Otto, a stronger, more confident, less guilt-ridden Otto—was going to be the fingerman. But that’s not the case.

It’s my gun.