Bang! The first shot rang out. It sailed high and well to the right of the target.

The target was an empty beer can resting on the palm of my roommate’s girlfriend. “What kind of friends are these?” I thought…

Of course, I was going to aim high and far, far away. I didn’t want to take this poor girl’s thumb off. Or did I?

She had instigated this whole situation, provoking me all night. At first, we were just shooting a BB gun at bottles and cans along the fence line; now, we were playing William Tell with a real gun.

I was firing a .22-caliber revolver with a 6-inch barrel. The crack of that first discharge reminded me of the first time I fired a gun at someone…

It was 2004. I was living in my grandparents’ hunting camp in Ponchatoula. It was basically an old trailer with a porch attached to the front. I thought it was the perfect place: a nice big yard, in the middle of the woods, very few neighbors, and it was free.

I had moved in in January, and just four months later, I was gearing up to shoot the crackheaded f–k that was living down the street.

It was only a few days after I had settled into my new home when my new “neighbor” knocked on my door.

“Hey, man,” he said as I opened the door. “I heard you playing guitar. I play a little bit, too. You wanna jam?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Why not?”

We jammed for a couple of hours before he broke the ice with, “Hey, do you smoke?”

“Sure,” I said. “But I’m dry right now. You got some?”

This might work out, I thought. It’s only been a couple of days, and I’m already establishing a weed connect.

“Just give me a lift down the road, and we’ll scoop up a bag?”

“Okay.” Why not?

We got in my truck and headed across town. We drove for about 15 minutes before pulling into a ghetto-ass trailer park.

Mike (my neighbor) instructed me to slowly back into the driveway of the second-to-last trailer on the left and leave the engine running.

This place was starting to make me feel a little uneasy. I could tell this was not going to be good weed.

He got out of the truck and disappeared into the trailer.

A few minutes later, he was back in the truck: “Go, man. Go.” So I put the truck in drive and started to ease out of the driveway.

“I said, ‘Go, man!’” Mike was yelling now, looking over his shoulder.

“What’s the rush? I’m not going to speed out of here. Chill out,” I commanded.

As the words were leaving my lips, a noise came from behind. A big black guy was chasing us down the gravel road in his boxers, waving a pistol.

“Holy sh–t!” I stomped on the gas, kicking up loose rocks behind us.

Bang! Bang! The pistol rang out.

I slouched down in my seat and accelerated onto the blacktop road. We must’ve gone 80 mph down the service road. I put a good bit of distance between us and the trailer park before I even considered slowing down.

I took a couple of deep breaths. “What the f–k was that all about?”

Mike looked at me with this evil grin on his face. “I got us some smoke, man.” He opened his hand to reveal about eight little pebbles of crack cocaine.

This crackheaded motherf–ker! “F–K YOU!” I started to yell. “You got me shot at for some crack?!” I started to smack him up and literally stomped him out the passenger-side door of my truck.

I drove up to a friend’s place in Hammond to lay low for a couple of hours. He let me borrow his .22 semiautomatic rifle. I had no intention to shoot anyone, but it made me feel safe.

A few weeks later, I started noticing some things were missing from my truck. One day, all the change in my cup holder was gone, then a pack of cigarettes, then a prescription bottle.

I knew exactly who the culprit was … Mike. So I set up the trap.

I wadded up a couple of dollar bills in the cup holder and left the driver’s-side door unlocked. I sat in the darkness of my screened-in front porch and waited, rifle in hand.

Around two in the morning, I saw a figure emerge from the other side of the yard. It was dark, and the figure was wearing a hood, but I could tell it was Mike by his distinctive crab walk. (He always walked kind of sideways down the street, hiding his face from passing cars.)

I waited until he was in the truck, cocked the rifle, and aimed through a crack in the front door. I quickly switched on the outside lights and yelled, “Freeze!”

The gun was right on him, but he didn’t freeze. In fact, he hauled ass.

I quickly fired one shot into the air, but he kept running.

I really didn’t want to shoot the kid, but just scare him, so I blasted three or four shots down at the road behind him. I fired one shot into his mailbox as he ran past his driveway and disappeared into the ditch on the other side of the road.

Three weeks later, I was gone – moved out of the town for good.

Now, I’m standing in my backyard, aiming a .22 pistol at an empty beer can balanced on Andrea’s hand. The first shot went high and to the right.

“You suck, Valentine. You can’t hit sh–t!” She was still taunting me. She must’ve really wanted to get shot. “Is that the best you can…”

Bang! The second shot blasted the can right out of her hand, scaring her half to death.

She shut up immediately then walked into the house, crying, “I can’t believe you really did that, psycho!”

I couldn’t believe it myself. After all, I was aiming for her thumb.