Shooting Justin Bieber & bin Laden in the Woods

Abstract

Shooting Justin Bieber & bin Laden in the Woods Matt Donovan (bio) Keywords Matt, Donovan, paintball, technology, parenting, militia, bin Laden It begins with rocks, leaves, hubcaps, a plastic bat tucked up where the sky should bebefore the world is set right with an Oops! & in one blurring swerve everything turns right side up as a kid from behind the cameraproclaims what will be unleashed, namely a can of paintball whoop-ass aimed at picturesof Bieber & bin Laden duct-taped to buckets. Someone called Usuck had decided my son neededto see what was about to go down. This was back when we monitored his texts, thinking we could save himfrom who-knows-what while also wondering if we needed to protect the world from whatever he might hurl forthfrom his phone, which most of the time was acronyms traded in rapid-fire bursts mixed with that laughing-but-crying emoji, the one with two enormous teardrops sproutinglike a pair of blue tusks from an eyes-scrunched-shut face. There was no need to watch what Usuck sentall the way through, but I wanted to see [End Page 278] what would happen at the end, which turned out to bewhat was promised: the sound of shots at first beginning like a steady beat before becominga drum roll for paint-splatter, hell-yeahs, the smirk & glower on each face reduced to shreds, two spinning buckets & then a kid running to seeclose-up what he'd done. Usuck & panting, grinning kid, there's a light snow coming down just now& because the wide, blank face of our neighbor's house is filled with the wavering light of whateverthey too have chosen to watch, I wouldn't mind asking you about the pleasures of the trigger, about the sky that once again doesn't cast down upon uswhat we've shot & left behind—plywood, bottles, what look like a rowing machine & anything elseroped to a low-hanging branch that stops rage from becoming grief. Then again, what use is the conceit of a conversation that will never take placewhen there are so many other things now cued & ready to play? Up next: What happens to a Hand Grenade in a Microwave? Up next:Watermelon vs. Artillery Shells. Up next: Company Offers Reenactment of Bin Laden Raid,where each night participants arrive [End Page 279] in Pakistan—played by an office building in Minneapolis—where they storm rooms clutching guns, weaving through metal chairs & self-defense dummiesbefore, without warning, they become as ready as they'll ever be. You'll need to take him out.I don't want to write a letter to your parents. No one wants to write that letter. We'd all rather watch someone barely trained burst through a door to findthe man who had been promised, sitting on a mattress, wearing eye protection & a fake beardresembling a fist of stiff wheat, raising a fake gun slowly enough to be shot by military-grade simulation roundsbefore slumping to the floor & trying his best to still his breath. Mission as always accomplished. Instead of this, I should be watching the snowcontinue its slow work erasing our world, or even a video I wish I could see that would be nothing but a never-veering shot of the same manbored in a costume turban, alone in a room & thinking who-knows-what as he tracesthe long loops of the stitching in a sky-blue quilt & the door for once never opens. Up next: Hendrix Makes His Guitar a Machine Gun just afterthe rocket's red glare, when he gives up on melody [End Page 280] & wrenches his Woodstock solo into gunfire, explosions,a long shriek of feedback followed by the opening notes of "Taps." Up next: Is a Fish Tank Bulletproof?As always, the answer is no, this time in the form of glinting water perched on a milk cratethat becomes the shattered thing we knew it would be before it's all restored—slosh of water rushing backwards, broken glass slipping into place—only to explode againin...