Pull The Trigger

Here, preserved digitally by Joe Kovac Jr., is Tom Junod's 1994 GQ gem, "Pull The Trigger."

Junod: He shouldn't laugh, but that first time with the gun – it was funny, you know? That big old German bitch, that frau – she thought he had come to her nursery to buy a bush! He had sauntered down the hill, with the .357 in his waistband, under his jacket, and when she asked him who he was, what he was there for, well, he doesn't know where these things come from, but there it was, in his head, in an instant, the perfect lie. He, Tony Mobley, was … Joe College. He was a college boy, yes, everything an 18-year-old should be, a college boy with a bright future, and he had just moved into his own…