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SOME GUNS WILL FIRE YOU
by Augi Garred

Imagine sitting in a cement bunker for six hours straight, covered in sweat, the constant rage of gunfire pounding the air; your mind begins to cloud as gun smoke penetrates your eyes, and a small machine gently purrs as you sit there alone, waiting for it to kick out yet another bird into the sky. This was my first job.

A job opportunity like no other, the Trapshoot required a few days of your time in the summer where you could make a LOT of money. And I mean a LOT. Forget all this nonsense about dotcom billionaires - I’m talking real money. Back in the days when a hard day’s investment meant something.

"Uh, guys, we are gonna pay you a real fine wage this year. $1.90 per hour."

"I’ll take it!"

OK. So maybe it wasn’t so much. I didn’t care. I was 14 and I had needs, damnit. Like buying the latest Ozzy record or playing video games. And having the luxury of working just a few weekends throughout the summer meant time to still enjoy vacation. Sounded good to me.

After a rigorous, one hour training program with "veteran" trap boy Ben (he was 17), myself, along with 30 or so other teens, prepared to join the world of capitalism and forever change our destinies.

THE JOB

Oh, this was THE vocation to have, let me tell you. You came in at 7:00 A.M. on a Saturday morning with your bag lunch, your clock radio in tow, and your crummiest baseball cap. After you were assigned to a trap (aka "the bunker"), you’d cut open about 20 boxes of clay pigeons, test out the "machine" (the device which launches the pigeons into the sky), and kick back and revel in the crisp morning air. Your "trap girl" would show up a bit later with her score sheets, suntan lotion, and a whole lot of attitude. At 14, this was a major source of fantasy. "What if she’s a babe? What if she wants to sneak into the bunker during break and admit that she’s completely in love with me and must have me NOW?"

Must…get…back…to…reality.

If you’re unfamiliar with shooting skeet (may I note that the word "skeet" in Icelandic means "poop"), the basic premise is simple: there are five people in a group who line up about 100 feet behind a bunker. One by one they yell "Pull!," a clay pigeon launches into the sky, and that shooter takes his best shot at the moving target. After 125 pigeons, they call it good and move on to their next match. The job of the pull girl is to press a button that launches the pigeon and keep score, while the trap boy ("trapped" boy was more like it) hid a few feet beneath the earth in his concrete bunker, loading the pigeons on the machine that flung them out into space. This is teamwork in its finest sense since you cannot see each other and you are completely reliant on one another to perform their job.

Around 9:00 A.M., your first round of shooters would line up and start firing away. One by one, the matches would relentlessly progress until lunch, where you’d get a leisurely two-hour break with your friends. Afterwards, you’d get back in the bunker until around sunset, clean up your space, and ride your bike back home. Sure, it wasn’t much fun, but it felt sweet (hey, I was 14) to make some money after all those years without any.

The Trapshoot had about four shoots each summer that would start on Memorial Day and end on Labor Day. All in all, you’d bring home a few hundred bucks and spend it all on absolutely nothing important. Who cared? Hard work = reward. Right.

ANOTHER YEAR, A BIGGER SALARY

Though I was fortunate enough to make it through that first year without any torment, my second year wasn’t so kind. The first weekend out, I was assigned to work on the mythical "practice traps." I have no idea where the myth came from; that of long, languid breaks; of barely working; of trap girls who were so beautiful that if you looked at them, you’d turn to stone. The truth was a little different: non-stop, five hours-at-a-time stuck in the bunker with no relief in sight; if you were lucky enough to have a break, it was just long enough to take a bite of your bologna sandwich and have ten shooters walk up, fully sated themselves on a BIG lunch, ready to blow up a few innocent orange discs and laugh at the boy in the bunker. The girls? Forget it. They, too, shared in your angst and the only stone turned was the one in your tiny, mutated brain.

Having paid my dues that first day out, I was offered a prestigious bunker on the next with a cute pull girl. Though working in the regular traps was tough, working in the practice traps was tougher, and I was thankful for it. Or so I thought.

About midday, I was doing my routine - loading pigeon after pigeon, watching them soar into the distance, listening to my little radio, and vainly attempting to clean the sweat off my large and very sexy tinted glasses.

About halfway through one group’s shoot, they stopped. I thought this odd, but figured there must have been a technical difficulty topside that was causing this delay. So I sat there for a few minutes looking out at the blue sky, safely hiding away in my little bunker, the gentle hum of the machine as it rocked back and forth like a baby in her mother’s arms.

After five minutes sitting there without a clue, a waving orange flag appeared at the corner of my bunker. Then a head popped down and said, "Hey, how’s it going down there?" It was Dave Normand, and he was on a mission from God.

"What’s going on up there?" I asked him. "Well, they want you to come out and go down to practice traps." I looked at Dave, confused. "Why do they want me to go to practice traps?" He shrugged his shoulders. "I don’t know. They just want you to go." I got more aggressive. "Come on Dave, what’s going on? I’ve been down here all day and I do not want to go to practice traps." Dave got honest. "Well, they think you have been sleeping down here."

I laughed. And then I got pissed. "Sleeping? Sleeping?!? Come on, Dave. Do you really think I’ve been sleeping in here?" He said, "Come on out and talk to Betsy about it." So I grabbed my clock radio and set out to see what all this nonsense was about.

Knowing I had done no wrong, I walked boldly beneath the piercing summer sky, across the battlefield towards Betsy & Yvonne. The group of shooters who had been delayed stared me down ("If you were only a pigeon you little son-of-a…") and the ever-effervescent and bubbly management twins were waiting with arms crossed and big smiles on their faces.

A SHORT PLAY: BETSY’S BRAIN, OR HOW I LEARNED TO STAND UP FOR WHAT’S RIGHT AND GET FIRED ANYWAY

BETSY: Augi, we’re really glad you came out.

Note from Betsy’s brain: Make him feel like everything is A.O.K.

YVONNE: And we’d like you to go down to practice traps.

Note from Yvonne’s brain: Give him an option to distract him from the truth

BETSY: How does that sound, Augi?

Note from both of their brains: Smile on the outside while, inside, your completely f’ing him! This is fun!

AUGI: Why do you want me to go to practice traps?

Augi’s brain: This sucks.

YVONNE: We just think you’d be better off down there.

Yvonne’s brain: God, I’m good.

AUGI: I don’t want to work in practice traps.

Augi’s brain: Eat me.

BETSY: Well, we really think it would be good if you went down there.

Betsy’s brain: Hang in there. The little dork will cave!

AUGI: Can’t you tell me why?

Augi’s brain: Crap. I wonder if it was that black pigeon I sent out yesterday???

YVONNE: We just think it would be best if you went to practice traps. Now.

AUGI: Well, I don’t want to go to practice traps and I don’t see any reason why I should.

BETSY: Ok, mister. [Angrily] I can see this is going nowhere so we’re just going to tell you what we think has been going on.

Betsy’s brain: Calm down! You’re in charge. Find your center!

AUGI: [Shakes his head "yes"]

Augi’s brain: Bring it on!

BETSY: Well, we’ve heard some stories…

Betsy’s brain: Embellish.

AUGI: Stories?

Augi’s brain: Stories?

BETSY: Yes. That you’ve been doing some improper things in the trap.

Betsy’s brain: That had to scare him.

AUGI: Such as…?

Augi’s brain: I don’t remember doing that down there!

BETSY: Well [flustered]…like throwing pigeons out upside down and throwing out broken pigeons!…[Yvonne interrupts]

YVONNE: …and sleeping in your trap while you were supposed to be working!

Yvonne’s brain: Little jerk! I just hope nobody finds out that I was making out with my boyfriend in the golf cart.

AUGI: Oh, yeah, Yvonne, I’ve been sitting down in that 113 degree pit taking a nap to pass the time while the guns of frickin’ Navarone have been pounding outside.

Augi’s brain: Damn. ’Guns of Navarone.’ What a cool reference!

BETSY: [attempting to stay calm] One last time, Mr. Garred. Are you going to go down to the practice traps or not?

Betsy’s brain: There’s no way he’ll take his check. Slave!

AUGI: If I had done something wrong, I would gladly go to practice traps, Betsy. But I have not done any of the things you’re accusing me of. I may have accidentally launched a black one out, but I absolutely DID not send out any upside down or cracked…and I certainly haven’t been sleeping. How could I possibly sleep with all this noise?

YVONNE: You can either go to the practice traps NOW or take your check and go home for the weekend. What do you want to do?

Yvonne’s brain: Please, please tell me he didn’t see me in the golf cart.

AUGI: [Weighs his options for about two seconds] I’ll take my check.

Augi’s brain: Did I just say that?

BETSY: Fine. Then go down to the office and get your check!

Betsy’s brain: Little jerk! I can’t believe this! Who in the hell am I going to get to work in practice traps now? Hmmm…I saw Yvonne making out with her boyfriend last night-I’ll send her down there.

AUGI: [smiling] OK. Bye!

Augi’s brain: Wow. I think I just got fired. Who cares! Summer is mine.

TRAP OR CRAPSHOOT?

There I was. 14 years old and FIRED from my first job. No warning. Clearly canned for no good reason. My theory is that my trap girl, not liking me (I found out later that she was Dave Normand’s cousin), was intentionally not pressing the button to launch the pigeon when the shooters would say "Pull!"

What I learned from that brief moment in time has stuck with me my entire life: do the right thing, work hard, stand up for what you believe in. In hindsight, I’m glad that I stuck to my guns and refused to budge. It felt really good to do the unexpected - to quit (or get fired, depending on your interpretation). I could have stayed and made a little more money; all the while knowing I had compromised too much for so little. Instead, I chose a different road. A road that is often frightening and filled with doubt. A road that I recently crossed again and is opening up a whole new world of possibilities to me.

Am I scared? Sure. But I am also thrilled at what’s out there. I feel like that 14 year old version of myself - passionate, determined, capable of anything…

Do you think the Trapshoot is hiring?