Gun Control...

Last week, the gardener came upstairs and woke me from a nap. First of all, yes, I have a gardener, and secondly, no, he doesn’t usually wake me from my naps (unless I’m snoring, in which case he nudges me gently to roll over). I came groggily to the door, and he said, “Oh! Sahib sleeping?” Such an observant gardener we have. “Yes, yes, Sahib sleeping,” I replied somewhat testily. He gave his judgment, “Sahib sleeps too much, I think.” I shook my head and rolled my eyes, “Gardener talks too much,” I said. He laughed. I tend to have strange relationships with servants, as I’ve explained before. Generally though, as my command of the language increases slightly, I’ve become more comfortable with them. They seem to like me, which I think is derived from my unique tendency to treat them like human beings rather than the dirt under my feet that happens to unquestioningly clean up after me. My more skeptical friends tell me that I’m setting myself to be taken advantage of, but oh well, I like trusting people, it makes me feel nice.

Anyway, the gardener was now saying something about how I had to go with him because he was done in the house. I couldn’t really figure out what he was doing in the house anyway, since surprisingly enough, the gardens are all outside. “Done in the house?” I asked to clarify. Big nods, “Yes, yes, done in the house… I go.” I was still a little hazy from the nap, and my mind was shifting lazily trying to communicate in this mixture of the language I command and the one I slaughter. “You are going,” I said slowly, following him down the hall, “because you are done in the house?” He turned back, nodded and said, “No,” which threw me even further behind the ball. I still couldn’t figure out why he was beckoning me to follow him. In my mind, if he was done in the house and wanted to go, then he should feel free. But then I thought, maybe he wanted me to lock the gate behind him. Ah yes, that must be it.

I was basically back in the land of the living now. The last shreds of afternoon fantasies had slid to the wayside and my wide-angle lens had slid back into focus. I followed the gardener to the gate. He ducked in to the vacant gate-keeper’s hut to grab something, and I started to open the gate. I turned back to find him facing me with a grin on his face and an AK-47 in his hands. Apparently, my head wasn’t as clear as I thought. “Jee-Sauce!” I shouted jumping backward quickly and smacking awkwardly into the gate. “House!… in house!” he was saying, gesturing with the barrel of the assault weapon. Quickly, I tried to file through all the reasons my gardener might have for taking me hostage. I’d only been in this house for maybe two weeks, and as I said, I’d only treated him kindly. It wasn’t until he said, “Gun in house,” that I registered the similarity to his earlier remarks. “Ohhh,” I said, “You want me to keep the gun in the house?” He was all smiles now, “Yes, yes, Sahib, in house, more careful being.”

I had to agree that the gun would indeed be safer in the house, than at the unguarded gate. He handed the gun to me and I took it with no little trepidation. I recognized it now. The security guard for my housemate’s company had worked the gate for our Christmas Eve party to help people with parking and keep out any undesirables. Apparently, he had left his semi-automatic weaponry behind when he had left that morning. Vaguely, I wondered how that could happen. I mean, I’m always forgetting my sunglasses wherever I go, but come on… I examined the gun, and saw that it either didn’t have a safety switch or it was disabled. With my hands shaking slightly, and the slight, but real, worry that I might accidentally shoot the dining room windows out, I thumbed the switch to release the fully loaded magazine. Hollywood style, I pulled back the mechanism and sure enough, another round popped out of the chamber. I sighed, placed the whole works on the dining room table to frighten someone else, walked upstairs and once again asked myself what the hell I’m doing here.