Jill, my lab assistant, looked over my shoulder as I logged three headlines into a database for my thesis: “Stray Bullet Kills Churchgoer”; “Stray Bullet Paralyzes Local Teacher”; and “Stray Bullet Kills Toddler.”

She said her cousin, Randy, would be interested in my project: The Impact of Random Acts of Violence on Family Structures.

“He collects stray bullets,” she said.

I met Randy in his South Side apartment.

“Sorry, but what’s all that racket?” I asked, soon after I arrived.

“That’s my strays, in the back room,” said Randy. “They act up sometimes.” 

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Jill told me you wanted to see my stray bullets. I give ‘em a place to stay, keep ‘em off the street. C’mon.”

I looked through a peephole in a steel door.

“Holy shit,” I said, as bullets sliced through the air; others lay dormant on the floor and on a pockmarked wooden table.

​

*****

​

Randy told me about his first experience with a stray, when he was 12, living in the country. His cousin Billy was shooting a BB gun at tin cans and squirrels. Randy, standing behind Billy, felt a sharp sting on his cheek.

He pulled out a BB—gaining a permanent dimple—and put it in a coffee tin. That night he heard the stray BB circling the can.

Randy found his first city stray after living there for a year. He was shooting hoops in the park when the crack-crack-crack of gunfire scattered the players. He saw a splinter fly off a wooden bench. He sidled over to it after someone shouted “All-clear!”

A bullet was lodged in the wood. Randy pried it out with a pocketknife and dropped it into a can. He forgot about it until he heard the familiar sound of metal scraping metal that night.

​

*****

​

“Careful,” Randy warned me. “Sometimes they head for the peephole. It’s high-strength glass, but I’m not sure how it would hold against a .357. Fortunately, none of them have good aim.”

“How many are in there?” I asked.

“Seventy-five, give or take. I think a couple of .22s escaped before I bricked the window and put in the double doors.”

“How do you get them?”

“Patience,” he said.

Randy handed me a spare Kevlar vest and we ventured into the muggy summer night. His police radio app picked up a dispatcher’s refrain: “Shots fired, 2600 block of Main.”

“We need to time it right,” Randy said. “Too soon and the cops think you’re part of the trouble; too late and any strays move on.”

Two police cars raced past, lights flaring, no sirens.

Dispatch crackled again: “Units responding to 2600 block of Main, be advised of a complaint from 319 C Street, corner of 2700 Main. Broken window, possibly related.”

“Let’s move, that’s gonna be a stray!” Randy chirped.

At the corner, two officers spoke to a woman outside an old brownstone. Just above the air conditioner in a second-floor window, Randy pointed out a dime-sized hole, the glass around it spider-webbed.

Dispatch sounded again: “All units in vicinity. Assault in progress, 3100 Main and E Street.”

The cops tipped a cap to the woman, put down their notebooks, and sped off. We approached as she smoked a cigarette on the stoop. She eyed us warily.

“They left pretty quick,” Randy said to her.

“Cuz no one was hurt. This time,” she said, exhaling a stream of smoke.

“I’m Randy; this is Don. Do you mind if we look for that bullet in your place?”

She gave us a hard stare. She’d lived in the city her entire life; nothing and no one surprised her.

“I suppose,” she said, flicking the butt into the gutter. “C’mon.”

​

*****

​

Inside, Randy checked across from where the bullet entered. Nothing.

We saw a table covered with framed photos of a boy; a plaque read, ‘Andre, 1984-1995.’ The bullet, a 9mm, lay on the floor nearby.

“Thanks,” Randy said to the woman, dropping the bullet into a steel canister.

After a block, the familiar rattle started.

“It always feels good to get a stray off the street,” he said.

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