The 30/30 Series: Loaded Guns

Bobby was a teenaged kid who lived down the street in my 1970's childhood. He was much older than me, but I adored him and thought of him as a friend because he (and the rest of his family) treated me with such fondness and affection that I felt as at home in their house as I did in my own.

One day, while playing with one of his buddies in the fields behind his house, he was shot and killed. I never knew the hows of his death, and there was certainly never a why, but I knew that his teenaged friend had pulled the trigger.

The whole neighborhood was filled with what I would later know as grief. I heard the story of the boy who shot him, sobbing and wailing on his porch, begging forgiveness from God. I saw his waxen body in the casket, and it was made clear to me that I would not see him again.

There was a photograph of Bobby, taken by his sister shortly before he died, that captured his essence forever: dressed in a football uniform, shoulderpads and all, running toward the camera full speed, arms stretched out with clawed hands toward the lens, wide eyed and grinning in mock attack, a split second away from tackling the photographer. Close examination of the photo revealed his feet barely touching the ground.