September 2, 2005

• Shoot-out at Felony Flats:  And I Was There

  
  

  Okay, it wasn’t much of a shoot-out; only one shot was fired.  And I was not close enough to the action for the troopers to have interviewed me.  But here’s the story, to the best of my knowledge and recollection.

  
  

  I was schmoozing with Mike the  landlord yesterday, and Beth  drove up and said her husband Gene had shot someone.   Beth and Gene are transplanted Texans, own the Lone Star Laundromat across the highway.  I am not huge fans of theirs–Beth gave me such a ration of shit one day when I told her that a dryer was malfunctioning that I looked for another laundromat; Gene  tried to dicker me way down on the price of a gun, then wanted to trade some gold nugget jewelry for it–this after I had repeatedly said the price was firm, and for cash.  Gene is not a man who takes no for an answer gracefully, copped an attitude when I told him for the fourth time I needed cash for the gun.  But I digress. . . .

  
  

  He had shot Dave, one of the denizens of the flats.  Now Dave looks like Uncle Fester on a bad day–a huge, scary-looking dude with a shaved head, who subsists on SSI mental disability checks–he is a professional lunatic, in other words. I have never had any problems with him, but one of the other lunatics here did and started packing an old .38.  But Dave  stops by my stand and chats–he is always courteous and lucid–buys the odd item at times, and I get along with him all right–then again, I am a double Libra with buckets of charisma, and I can get along with almost anyone.

  
  

  They had eighty-sixed Dave from the laundromat, for some reason.  I don’t know why, but I have been told that he has been really testy  lately over a drug deal that went bad and he lost $50.  The alleged seller was a member of AA, I might add.  (And I will, so there!)  Anyway, Gene and Beth drove over to Dave’s place for some reason, and fisticuffs ensued.  Beth said Dave threw the first punch; a less biased eye-witness said that Gene threw the first punch, and shot Dave after Dave hit him back.  Anyway. . . .

  
  

  Dave had been helping out Mike, doing odd jobs and driving around an ambulance that was out of service–they used it as a utility truck. The vehicle was parked at the crime scene, Mike’s wife asked me if I would go and get it, as she couldn’t bear to see someone who had been shot.  I agreed, not knowing how bad the shooting had been, but expecting the worse–Gene packs a nine mm, and I assume he’s a good shot.

  
  

  So I go striding up the hundred yards or so to the scene, fully expecting to have to rifle around in a corpse’s pants pockets to get the keys to the ambulance.  Much to my surprise, Dave was ambulatory and really angry, and bleeding from a flesh wound to the forearm.  Evidently, Gene had merely winged him–shit, guys have finished playing a football game with more severe injuries.  But since it was a gunshot wound, there was all this extra paperwork involved.

  
  

  Anyway, Dave hands me the keys, and  I climb into the thing, noting with relief that it has an automatic tranny.  Fired it up, carefully turned the thing around, and manfully resisted the temptation to turn on the siren and the flashing lights!  Following instructions, I pulled it around behind the cabins near mine, locked all the doors, and handed the keys over to Mike.

  
  

  Then the real ambulance arrives, lights and siren blazing, and  rushes Dave off to the hospital for a thousand-dollar Band-Aid.  Then the troopers started arriving.  Jesus, you would have thought a fucking riot had broken out, not a piddly-ass shooting!  Fully an hour after Dave was taken away (and Gene was arrested), there were still five trooper vehicles, including a K-9 unit complete with barking canine, on the scene.  The troopers were standing around with notebooks, conferring with each other and any one who would stand still, and looking officious and intimidating in their blues and vests.  Sigh.

  
  

  Meanwhile, many of the folks in the hundreds of cars who drove by while all this was going on will now be clucking about the terrible people who live at Felony Flats, not knowing that it was one of the upstanding neighbors who was the felonious perpetrator, and  that one of the Flats residents was the victim!

  
  

  Personal PS–I have often remarked that I am one lucky guy, and this was proven again yesterday.  I had taken the day off to go to Willow to pick up a knife shipment.  Shortly before the shooting occurred, I thought about opening my stand, which is located very close to the crime scene.  Had I done so, I would have been an eye-witness and would have had to be interviewed and most likely would have been called to testify at the trial, assuming there is one.

  
  

  What’s more, it clouded up and started to drizzle around five.

  • 3:29 pm
  • 6 Comments