In 1976, my family had moved across the state. I’d left all of my friends behind. In December of that year I had the chance to go back for the Christmas holidays and spend a week at my best buddy’s house. We’ll call him T. We’d planned and plotted what we’d do when we got together. We knew it was going to be a week to remember. I had no idea how right we were . . .

T’s dad had taught us to clean his handguns. We were both well versed in the sequence: clear, disassemble, reassemble, test, load and put away. We needed money for the movies. So we jumped at his father’s offer to pay us to clean his firearms. T was going to clean the Luger. I was working on a Webley revolver.

As you may know, a Webley breaks at the back. The whole front assembly tips forward. So there was no real breakdown involved, just a simple opening and cleaning. It was a pretty quick process. I did my thing and then headed to the bathroom to answer nature’s call.

T came into the room. Seeing a cleaned gun and rounds laying on the bed, he presumed I was done. As I recall, there were only four rounds. T loaded them, closed the gun and put it back down pretty much where I’d left it.

We had a whole lot of serious bike riding and driver’s license fantasizing to do; we were both eager to get on with the day. When I got back from the bathroom, I sat down on the bed and picked up the revolver. I could hear T headed towards the room. I didn’t notice that the small pile of ammo was no longer there.

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