The Nap Gun
All Waffle House booths seem sticky.
Speaking in low tones over scattered, smothered, and covered hash browns, we dine off Highway 1-11, my brother and me. Tonight, he looks gaunt. Gaunter than usual. For a decade, late-night calls from my brother–or his wife–meant he was in the hospital, having suffered an epileptic seizure. That was after the seizures started. Now the meds and surgeries have his condition controlled enough to let him suffer at home.
Tonight, he just wanted to get out of his house. He can't drive. From the underscore of cricket chirping, I knew he was calling from his lawn or driveway. "I need to get out of the house for awhile."
We established through mouthfuls that things are okay between him and Anna, his wife. He needed to meet and share something secret.
I sneak my phone under the table. We’ve sat for an hour and a half.
"I've invented something," he says, and sips orange juice. His plate is smeared in the ruins of hash browns and chocolate chip waffles, all mixed up into a brown and black mess.
"Well," I say, meaning go on.
"It's a gun," he says, leaning across the table and placing his palm in syrup. He lifts it quickly, as if bitten, and wipes with a napkin. Paper bits stick to his hand.
"I don't like you talking about guns." I look at the waitress, who's typing on her phone. I'd place her in her mid-twenties. She looks familiar, possibly one of my former students. But, I’m an advisor in Engineering, not a professor. I see a lot of kids, and most of them for not all that long. Just the ones having trouble.
"It's not a real gun," my brother says. "It doesn't shoot bullets."
"Good."
"I guess it could be a bomb," he mutters.
The restaurant is empty, except for the waitress and us. .
"That's worse," I say. "Don't build a bomb."
"No. It’s not finished. I can show it to you. I brought it."
"You brought a bomb?" Over the lockdown, he decided he wanted to become a writer and now carries a black bike bag for his laptop. Thankfully, he left it in my car.
I raise a finger to the waitress, who puts her phone away and comes to take our plates.
He whispers. "I should show you."
"Just tell me," I say, not bothering to whisper. The waitress still nearby, I add: "Hey, I'm sorry. Could you bring something to wipe the table?"
She nods and wanders off.
"It makes you sleep."
"The bomb?
"I call it the 'nap gun.' Or whatever it's going to be. End up being. It's not finished." He pats a jittery drum beat on the table, and his eyes light up, begging my interest.
"What does it do?"
"It makes you sleep. You set it for how long."
"Why does it have to be a weapon?"
The waitress brings the check, and I put my card on top.
"It doesn't. I just always thought of it that way. Like, something you point at yourself. So, you set it for how long you need to sleep. But it doesn't affect time. Like real time. You set it for three hours, and you shoot yourself, then sleep for… for three hours. But, no time passes in real life."
I glance at the time on my phone. It's going on three-thirty, and I have to teach in the morning. "That's impossible."
"If I can make it work, there's so much a person could get done in a day." He shudders. "If they had more time."
The waitress returns our check and I add the tip and sign.
"Let's go outside," I say. It’s cold in the Waffle House; it's a warm, late summer night.
As we’re walking out, he says, "I thought maybe one of your students could help me finish it?"
It’s mostly trucks that drive down 1-11 at this hour. The empty parking lot is bright, and the gravel crunches under our feet. My brother darts ahead of me and I use the fob on my keychain to unlock the car doors. Before I can climb into the driver's seat, he reaches into his passenger floorboard and takes his bag out, drops it on the gray rocks. "Come over here. Look."
His black bag contains orange and blue pieces of plastic, a barrel and handle–some sort of toy gun he’s dismantled, like a Nerf gun. On the sides are old circuit boards and computer chips. It’s cobbled together with thin shreds of duct tape. He nudges the bag with his foot. "It doesn't work yet."
"If that worked, it would kill you, Lee," I say.
"What," he says.
"How could you keep track of your medication if you were using it? They're meant for a twenty-four-hour cycle. Think about it. By the end of the month, you'd run out of pills and have to worry about insurance." He’s walked away and is rubbing the sinuses under his eyes. I'm not sure if he's listening anymore.
Trucks pass on the highway. A car full of teenagers pulls into the parking lot. They pile out, giggling. We’re still standing by his passenger seat, looking at his bag.
"I'm always tired," he says.
"I know, buddy," I say.
"Because of the medicine."
"Put that up."
"Will you talk to your students?"
"Yes. We need to get you home. Did Anna say you could come out tonight? Are you sleeping at home, or my place?"
"Home." He says. He zips the bag and places it in the car. "I never get anything done. I hate sleeping my life away."
"I know."
I drive him back to his place. He keeps lifting the bag off his floorboard and I hear the thing clatter around softly inside. Anna is waiting for him on the porch, wearing green, plaid pajamas. She's a tall woman with short hair bleached silver.
Before I unlock his passenger door, I say, "Don't talk about guns anymore, Lee."
"I didn't mean it like that."