(4 of 10)
Doug isn't really sure how he and his friends graduated from Wiffle ball -- once their favorite game -- to guns. "My older brother was into guns, so I've been around this stuff since I was about 13," he says. Both his parents work, and his father is a recovering alcoholic. Doug says that before his dad stopped drinking three years ago, "it was always really violent around my house."
Sometimes the guns are for protection, a youngster's seemingly prudent response to the small-arms race among his peers. But often, guns and gunfights are just a defense against the inexplicable despair that torments so many American teenagers. While the basic destructive impulses of rebellious young men remain unchanged, the methods of rebellion are now far more dangerous. Today's miscreants know that a pistol says much more than long hair or a pierced nose ever could. Not just louder, but forever. With a $25 investment, all the teasing from classmates stops cold. Suddenly, the shortest, ugliest and weakest kid becomes a player.
Saying no to guns is still easy for any self-respecting teenager with a little sense, but dealing with guys who do have guns is an excruciating business. Steve, 14, stopped walking home alone from school last year when many of his fellow seventh-graders at Hale Junior High started talking up guns. "Some guys just started to change. It became cool to say you could get a gun," he says. "Nobody messes with you if they even think you may have a gun." Polite, clean-cut and still displaying the awkwardness of adolescence, Steve says he lives in almost constant apprehension. "Oh boy, summer is really the worst," he says. "You always have to deal with troublemakers who will push you around for no reason, but now it's really scary. I know I look like a fool if I get in an argument and walk away, but these days it's too dangerous to fight."
Some days, guns are just a defense against boredom that comes from a lack of guidance and direction. Asked to name a single hobby, Doug, who is remarkably guileless for a gunslinger, is stumped. He concedes the craziness of him and his classmates shooting at one another, but wonders how it could be any different. "Parents just don't understand that everything has changed," he says. "You can't just slug it out in the schoolyard anymore and be done with it. Whoever loses can just get a gun."
Doug looks for affirmation of his own violent impulses in such movies as South-Central and Boyz 'N the Hood. He misses their point, embracing the life- style they portray rather than heeding any cautionary tale they offer. His favorite book is Do or Die, an account of the lives of gang members in Los Angeles. "If there were more books like that, I'd read a lot more," he says, without a hint of sarcasm.