Uncle Fred wanted me to use something he called a thirty ought six to shoot across a pond on his farm at a target he’d constructed out of hay bales and a bed sheet. “Use the sight,” he said. “Steady yourself like you’re taking a picture of your girlfriend.”

It was 1968, the summer my parents were going to let me get contact lenses for my sixteenth birthday. Out of vanity, I’d stopped wearing my glasses during ninth grade, and the world had turned to soup, something I kept secret. In a month, I’d be practicing for my driver’s test, but except for emergencies like a pop quiz on the blackboard or facing a fastball for JayVee baseball, my face stayed free of thick lenses and frames.

Now, while Uncle Fred watched from just at the edge of my peripheral vision, I pointed the rifle, pretending I could see something besides a blur of white and a hazy hint of red from where he’d pinned a crimson circle of cloth in the middle of the sheet. I fired, the stock recoiling into my shoulder. “High,” Uncle Fred said, which meant, I decided, that he hadn’t seen a sign of the bullet striking the sheet or the ground anywhere near it.

I lowered the barrel by what I imagined was the tiny fraction of an inch that would make me lucky. What I didn’t want to do was miss so short that the bullet would strike the pond, which ended twenty feet from the target. If I was short, Uncle Fred would see how far off I was, maybe a ridiculous ten yards, whereas no mark could mean I’d missed by as little as a foot or two. “High again,” Uncle Fred said. “Squeeze the trigger so you don’t jerk the barrel up when you fire.”

I needed to hit something. I squinted like I always did on the vision tests in grades school until that didn’t help me get past the first three lines. Finally, I thought I saw red and squeezed. “Low,” Uncle Fred said, disdain creeping into his tone, and I looked so blankly at him he frowned. “Maybe your Pop should get your eyes checked.”

“I’ll let him know,” I said, wondering what Uncle Fred had seen that let him know my shot was low.

“You’re not letting the gun do the work,” he said. “It’s made so you don’t have to do much thinking.”

I passed the rifle to him. “I’ll try it again next time.” I imagined looking through the sight wearing my contact lenses. If it was easy as Uncle Fred claimed, the red cloth would be so clear I couldn’t miss.

“You think too much is your problem. You wait until the army gets you. They’ll straighten you out. You know what I’m saying? There’s war waiting for your help to finish.”

Uncle Fred had fought in Korea and wished, every time that war was mentioned, we’d gone after China and taken care of two birds with one H-bomb. My father, six years older, had failed his physical for World War II. When I didn’t answer, he said, “Your Pop let it slip you went to that protest downtown.”

“For a social studies project,” I said, spouting the words so quickly, Uncle Fred must have thought I’d made up that story while I was still standing by the capitol building in Harrisburg.

“Those draft dodgers need the business end of this rifle. Get me?” He was breathing hard, as if voicing his contempt and anger was like running uphill.

“I’m not old enough to dodge,” I said, but instead of saying a word, he aimed and fired. The sheet flapped. “Good shot,” I said, and he turned, his face so close to mine I could see his pores and sweat. He twisted away, set himself, and fired again. As if I’d done the shooting, the sheet with the red spot didn’t move, but Uncle Fred grinned and nodded as if satisfied. “There,” he said, and I felt myself go empty as if I’d imploded. A breeze stirred the high grass in front of us, but when I squinted, the sheet with the red spot looked like it was hanging limp and still.