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something, just the three of us. I want David to be as excited as I am.
    I follow Dad to the front desk, David trailing behind. “I have a lane reserved for one thirty,” Dad says. “Bill Lyon.” As he fillsout forms, I look around. Out the window, many of the lanes are occupied by people like us—fathers teaching sons how to shoot. Half a dozen old men sit on a bench and folding chairs near the front desk, as if this is a living room, comfortable in a way that implies they’ve been sitting there for a long time. David is still near the entrance, looking at a glass cabinet full of old pictures and trophies.
    â€œI tell you,” says one of the old men, in a raspy smoker’s voice, “this is the only place left in the whole Bay Area where the Second Amendment is still alive and well.”
    â€œYep,” says another.
    â€œThis town sure has gone to shit.”
    â€œUh-huh,” says another.
    â€œWhat with all the bike lanes and gay marriage.”
    They all nod their heads in agreement.
    Dad hands me a pair of plastic safety goggles. I feel a little less tough than I was hoping to.
    â€œI don’t want to wear those,” David says.
    â€œYou have to,” Dad says. “It’s the rules.”
    â€œI don’t see what the point is if I’m not even going to touch a gun.”
    â€œDavid,” Dad says in his taking-no-bullshit tone, “put the goggles on now.” He so rarely talks to David that way, it makes me feel uneasy, like the world is suddenly tilted in the wrong direction.
    David takes the goggles and follows us out the door to our lane under the wooden shelter of the handgun range. He’s got his arms crossed on his chest. “America’s obsession with guns isso screwed up,” he says, but Dad ignores him. “Did you know that every day, eighty-eight Americans are killed by gun violence? Did you know that every month, forty-eight women are shot and killed by domestic abusers? Did you know that American kids are sixteen times more likely to accidentally be shot and killed than kids in other developed countries?”
    â€œHow do you even know that?” I say, but David ignores me.
    â€œI hate guns,” he says as Dad sets a black wooden box down on a small table. “I don’t want to touch a gun. I don’t want to fire a gun. I don’t want anything to do with guns. And I’m ashamed and appalled that you think so highly of them.”
    â€œOh, get off your high horse, David. You’re fourteen years old. You know nothing about the world.” Dad opens the box and inside is a shiny silver old-fashioned revolver. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a gun in real life, besides on a police officer. And I’m going to get to touch it. I’m going to shoot it. Dad is going to show me how. He thinks I’m big enough.
    â€œA fourteen-year-old is smart enough to know that guns kills people,” David says. “In fact, guns kill fourteen-year-olds all the time.”
    â€œDavid, shut up!” I say. I am not going to let him ruin this for me. A girl in the lane next to us giggles. Her boyfriend has his arms around her, showing her how to hold his gun.
    â€œJust touch it,” I say. “It’s not going to hurt you.”
    He pokes at the gun with his finger, then pulls it away as if burned.
    â€œBe a man, David,” Dad says. “Men know how to handle guns.”
    â€œMaybe I don’t want to be your version of a man,” he grumbles under his breath, and Dad pretends not to hear.
    â€œDo you want to be a woman?” I say, trying to make him laugh, but he rolls his eyes at me, slumps into a plastic chair, and takes out his phone and starts poking at it.
    Dad tears the phone out of David’s hand and shoves it in his pocket. “You are going to pay attention,” he growls. “You are going to learn how to do this.”
    Birds chirp. The trees of