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Hidden Inside

Bob Rehm

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The bullets were bright and shiny in my 8-year-old hand. And they were heavy, all boxed up in neat rows. I show them with pride to my new friend from down the block. Bullets meant my Dad has a gun. And guns were cool. My Dad is cool—an Air Force pilot—a guy you didn’t mess with. But we were about to mess with the bullets. I had seen his service revolver before, in the nightstand by his bed. I would just stare at it in its holster of worn and stiff brown leather. Next to his white flight helmet and olive-green pressurized suit, the gun was the most mesmerizing.

I found the bullets behind the water heater in the garage of our tiny three-bedroom rambler in Austin, Texas. It was a good hiding place, but not good enough when you’re a kid in a family full of secrets that you have to uncover.

Taking things apart was pretty much what I did as a kid. Radios, vacuum cleaners, clocks, mixers, lawn mower engines—you have to see what’s inside! The hammer looked big enough to do the job.

We go sit on the curb in the front of the house, after school in the bright Texas sunlight. This is where we live—outside. It is where the action is. It’s a lively street. I take one of the bullets out of the box and lay it on the hot concrete. My friend has a goofy magnifying glass, which is just strong enough to burn a hole through a piece of notebook paper. We analyze the tiny rocket trying to understand how it can do what it does. I know from my TV hero, Paladin in Have Gun Will Travel that a bullet can pretty much do anything. But my cap pistol, in its black imitation leather holster, only makes little snappy sounds when I shoot at the bad guys. This bullet has a ridge and if we can pry it open with pliers we can find out what’s inside and how it works. But it’s on really tight. So the hammer.

My friend gets nervous, “What if it explodes?”

“That’s stupid…it needs a gun to explode!” I can’t believe he is such an idiot.

He’s squirming and covers his ears as I raise the hammer.

I hit it on the side—a glancing blow.

Nothing happens. I flip it over and raise the hammer.

Then I see his feet—Mr. Brasil’s loafers are always shiny. I should know, he pays me a quarter for every pair. He works for the telephone company, lives across the street, and is a friend of my Dad’s. I look up, not so much worried, as curious.

“What you fellas up to, here?” he asks.

“Oh, nothing much.” I say. And then I see my friend inching away from me. “We’re trying to open this up to see what’s inside.” Telling the truth was a big deal in our family. He squats down so we are eye-to-eye.

“You know…it’s not that interesting what’s inside. Just some black powder. Kinda like pepper.”

“Oh…uh huh,” I nod and put the hammer down.

“Yeah…I think you’ve got the right idea, Bobby. Come to think of it, a hammer is probably not the best tool for doing this. Tell you what, let’s take those bullets back to where you found them and put the hammer away. And when the ice cream truck comes around—here’s a quarter for each of you to get whatever you want. How’s that sound?”

My new friend took the coin and headed home. Fast.

Back went the bullets to their hiding place. And the hammer to the tool chest. The two bits in my pocket. And my fingers still intact to pay for that Atomic Popsicle.

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Bob Rehm’s work appears, or is forthcoming, in the Hamilton Stone Review, Litbreak Magazine and Scribeworth. Prior to on-line publishing, his work was featured in The Duwamish Review (1st Place–Short Story) and The Northwest Passage, both based in Seattle. He lives and writes near the Potomac River in Maryland.

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