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- Story Listed as: True Life For Adults
- Theme: Drama / Human Interest
- Subject: Life Experience
- Published: 05/22/2021
Stories I Share With Friends
Born 1951, M, from Viera, Florida, United StatesStories I Share With Friends
Unlike my fiction, these stories are all true.
Break-in
“Did you hear that?” My wife poked me in the ribs with her elbow. “Was that the back door?”
I sat up in bed and looked over at the bedside clock. It was 10:50 PM on a Saturday night in 1974 and I had to be up at a quarter after five if I was going to make it to the pre-alert briefing on time. I was a USAF Missile Combat Crew Commander in the Titan ICBM system, stationed at Davis-Monthan AFB outside Tucson, AZ. Alerts were 24 hours long and sleep while on duty was sporadic at best. I needed my rest.
“Mmumph!”, I snorted. “What’s wrong?”
Jenny started to say something, but was interrupted by a loud rattle from the kitchen. Someone was messing with the knob on the back door. I hopped up, opened a drawer in our dresser, and picked up my .45. I bought the gun when I was an enlisted man in the Army, before I got smart, transferred to the Air Force and got my commission. It was a GI weapon, probably brought back from Viet Nam. I paid $80 for it and hadn’t asked any questions.
“Somebody’s trying to break in,” I whispered. “Call the cops!” I slipped into the hall and peeked around the kitchen door frame just in time to see the green plastic panel that had been set into the middle of the back door crack and scatter across the floor. “This guy has to be crazy,” I thought. “There are two cars in the carport! Does he think there’s no one home?” I moved across the living room and into the kitchen through the far doorway.
When we bought this house, it was pretty obvious that the back door was a weak spot. The cheap plastic panel, about 14 inches wide by 4 feet high, could be easily kicked out, giving an intruder access to the deadbolt knob on the inside. I should have replaced the whole door, but I kept putting it off. Instead, I screwed two heavy-duty eye-bolts into the sides of the door frame at waist level on the inside and ran a piece of ¾” steel rebar through them, making it impossible to open the door. I drilled a hole in the rebar and used a small padlock to secure it to one of the eye-bolts.
The intruder reached inside, found the deadlock knob and unlocked it. He turned the outside doorknob and pushed. The door moved an inch before hitting the rebar. I walked silently across the kitchen and stood next to the door with my back against the wall. The doorknob was less than a foot away. The intruder grabbed the rebar and tried to move it. No luck. The bar wasn’t going anywhere.
A dark-haired head appeared through the hole where the panel had been and the intruder examined the rebar, trying to identify the problem. He twisted the padlock and banged the rebar back and forth, making quite a lot of noise. From the bedroom, I could hear Jenny on the phone with the cops. Was this guy deaf or crazy or what? He turned his head in my direction, but was so intent on the rebar that he didn’t notice me standing right there.
Off in the distance, I heard a siren. This guy might be a total loon, but was he really going to hang around with a code-three cop on the way?
I swung around facing the door, grabbed the intruder’s right wrist and shoved my gun into his belly. I explained to him in very colorful terms that, if he did anything that I didn’t specifically tell him to do, I was going to spread his insides all over the back yard. I’m pretty sure he didn’t speak English, but he understood me well enough.
Now, you should understand that, through all this, I was wearing my .45 and my wedding ring. That’s it. I called to Jenny to bring me a pair of shorts and I’ll leave the process of her getting them on me while I was holding a man at gunpoint to your imagination. Whatever you’re thinking, yeah, that’s about right. It was awkward.
Before long, we had plenty of company. The cops cuffed the intruder and took my statement. Apparently, he was an illegal. No surprise there. By the time the cops were gone and I’d screwed a piece of plywood over the hole in the back door, it was after 1 AM.
Luckily, Sundays were pretty quiet for missile crews and, aside from running some training scenarios with my crew and reacting to a few exercises from the SAC Command Post, I found time for a few naps.
What happened to the intruder? Damned if I know. I never heard a thing about it.
But you can be sure I replaced that back door on Monday!!
_______________________
Joke Gone Wrong
Florence, Italy, 2013. My wife and I were on vacation. We’ve made it a habit to take a trip to Europe every year since we retired and this year we were seeing Rome, Florence and Venice.
Jenny and I came out of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence on a Saturday afternoon. The steps outside the Gallery and those across the wide pedestrian walkway were crowded with people, drinking wine and enjoying the late August weather. Street performers were everywhere.
As we walked into a nearby plaza, I glanced to my right at a particularly ugly statue. Suddenly, a hand appeared, reaching for my right side at about belt level. At home in Florida, I always carry a handgun right there and I’ve practiced what are known as “retention” techniques to keep anyone from snatching my gun. I snapped my right hand down across the back of the invading hand, got a good grip, bent my wrist back and turned to find myself holding a mime in a wrist lock.
Apparently, this guy had snuck up behind me, intending to tickle me under the short ribs for the crowd’s entertainment. Instead of succeeding with his planned joke, the joker ended up on one knee, in considerable pain. The crowd roared with laughter.
I eased up on the pressure. Slowly, I waggled my left index finger in the poor guy’s face and shook my head, “no”. The crowd clapped and cheered. I released the mime and stepped back. He got to his feet and, you have to give him credit, gave me a deep bow. Then he turned to the crowd and threw his arms open wide, as if the whole thing was his idea!
Explaining to Jenny why I’d assaulted a mine took a while.
I’ve searched YouTube, hoping to find a video of the encounter, but no luck.
_______________________
Bad Robber!!
“Anything I can help you with?” asked the clerk hopefully. It was a slow day in the jewelry store and she probably worked on commission.
“Not really,” I said. “I’m just trying to stay out of lady’s shoe departments.” My wife Jenny was determined to find just the right pair of heels for a “Friends of the Symphony” fund raiser the following weekend. Since it’s a well-established fact that I have no taste, I was staying out of her way.
The clerk smiled. “Okay, let me know if you need anything.” She didn’t move and I could see her checking me out. I was looking at the watch displays and was wearing a nice, expensive-looking watch. Adding two and two, she asked if I wanted to check out the Rolexes that were on sale.
“No thanks. I’m more of a Breitling fan.” Not that I could afford a Breitling!
Twenty minutes later, I wandered back into Macy’s and saw that Jenny was trying on a pair of shoes. I got her attention and pointed to the exit. She nodded.
I walked outside and stood under the portico on the East side of the mall. My view of the parking lot was less than exciting. To my left, a guy in his early thirties, wearing jeans, a faded polo shirt, sunglasses and a reversed Florida Gators cap leaned against the wall. I assumed he was also waiting for someone. As it turned out, I was right.
Five minutes later, Jenny came out carrying a shoebox-size shopping bag. As she gave me a kiss, the guy I’d noticed earlier walked quickly over to us. I automatically checked his hands and saw the knife.
I shoved Jenny out of the way and took a short step back, raising my hands chest high in apparent surrender. The instant the robber opened his mouth, I snapped a hard, straight, no wind-up kick into the center of his left thigh. As his leg buckled, turning him to my right, I stepped forward and smacked him with a full-swing right-handed roundhouse slap to the side of his head, using lots of English and plenty of follow-through. I’m not a big guy, but I stay in shape and I’m fortunate to have inherited my father’s quick reflexes. The impact of my palm against his head sounded like hitting a medicine ball with a two-by-six. The robber dropped like a stone. His knife bounced away and came to rest next to the door.
I glanced at Jenny to make sure she was unhurt, then pulled a small can of pepper spray out of the left front pocket of my cargo shorts. Bending down, I dosed the robber thoroughly in his eyes, nose and mouth. His whole face clenched and a spreading wet patch appeared at his crotch. I was pleased.
I turned to Jenny. “Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. What the hell was that about?”
“Well, I don’t think this guy was collecting for Goodwill. Give me a minute.”
I dialed 911 on my cell phone.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“I’d like to report an attempted armed robbery.”
“What is your location?”
“East entrance to Macy’s at the Melbourne Square Mall on 192.”
“Are there any injuries?”
“Well, the robber isn’t feeling too great right now, but it’s nothing serious.”
I described the robber and his intended victims.
“Officers are on the way,” the dispatcher said.
The robber was sobbing and gasping through a blanket of tears and snot. I squatted down next to him.
“Broke into the wrong goddamn rec room, didn’t you, you bastard?”
He didn’t react, probably busy trying not to crap in his pants.
“I guess he never saw the movie Tremors,” I said to Jenny.
Jenny smiled. “The one with the big worms? Yeah, I remember it! That couple had every gun in the world and blasted the crap out of the worm. Great scene!”
A Melbourne PD patrol car pulled up. I shoot in pistol matches with cops from several departments, but I didn’t recognize this one.
“What’s the problem, folks?” he asked.
I handed him my driver’s license, retired military ID and Florida Concealed Weapon carry permit.
“I’m the complainant. This guy pulled a knife on us. Fearing for my life and the life of my wife, I defended myself.”
The Deputy looked at my permit and then at me. “Are you armed, sir?”
“Yes sir, I am.”
“You didn’t shoot him?”
“Nope. I didn’t have to. He had a knife, but he made up for it by being really slow and stupid.”
The cop grinned. “You’re right about that! He’s been slow and stupid all his life.”
The cop pulled out a pair of handcuffs and rolled the robber onto his stomach. “How you doin’, Jimmy?” He snapped the cuffs on and yanked Jimmy to his feet. He walked the dazed robber, who was limping badly, to the patrol car. He wiped the worst of the slime off Jimmy’s face with a rag and shoved him into the back seat, then slammed the door.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said in a tone that clearly indicated that whether I minded was irrelevant, “but I’d like to lock your gun in my trunk until we’re done with the formalities”.
“No problem. Do you want to get it?”
“Yeah, just stand right there.” He reached under my Hawaiian shirt, pulled out my Glock and deposited it in the trunk of his car. Then he reached into his shirt pocket for a notebook. “OK, tell me what happened.”
I went through the story while the cop took notes and bagged the knife. EMTs showed up and checked Jimmy for injuries. They poured a bottle of water into his eyes and found a growing bruise on his thigh. Jimmy complained loudly and wanted to go to the hospital, but the EMTs and the cop just laughed at him.
While this was going on, the cop’s shift supervisor showed up. He and the cop had a conversation that I couldn’t hear. They examined my IDs, spending most of their time looking at my military ID. The cop opened the trunk to show his boss my pistol. The supervisor looked toward me and smiled, giving me a thumbs-up.
As the supervisor drove off, the cop loaded Jimmy back into the patrol car. He shook my hand.
“You did a good job. Every cop in Brevard County knows Jimmy. This’ll be his fourth armed robbery arrest. I don’t think they’ll let him out so fast this time.”
He gave me his card. “I’ll be surprised if the DA wants to plead this piece of crap down to anything less than felony armed robbery. There’s a good chance this’ll go to trial. Somebody will call you if they need your testimony.”
“No problem, Officer. I’ll be available.”
The cop dug my pistol out of his trunk, unloaded it and gave me the gun and magazine. After he left, I reloaded and holstered my gun. I picked up Jenny’s bag and we started walking to our car.
“Sorry about pushing you that way. I didn’t know what that jackass was planning. For all I knew, he might have been some kind of psycho junky. If he’d gone after you, I’d have had to shoot him for sure.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. You were so quick! I didn’t know what was going on ‘till he was on the ground and I saw the knife. Do you think he was going to hurt us?”
I shrugged. “There’s no way to know. What I do know is, there’s no good reason to trust some stranger who pulls a knife on you. You have to assume he intends to use it. The rule is, ‘Hands, Weapons, Death’. You look at his hands. If he’s armed, you deal with him immediately. Fortunately for him, when I raised my hands, he was looking at them instead of paying attention to what counted. If he’d made a move toward you, I’d have shot him so fast and so many times...” My voice trailed off.
Jenny took the bag and hugged me. “I’ve never been really comfortable with you carrying that gun all the time, but now I’m glad you do. I know you’ll never use it unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
*****
POSTSCRIPT: This incident happened in late 1997. Jimmy (not his real name) got 15 years as an habitual offender and was granted early release in 2006. He almost immediately violated his probation by leaving the state. He was killed in a botched home invasion in Colorado eight months later by an alert single mom with a shotgun.
Apparently, Jimmy never quite mastered the victim selection process.
_____________________
Buenos Aires, Argentina November 2019
After a successful hunt for Blackbuck and wild boar, my hunting buddy Mike and I were staying in a hotel in Buenos Aries, planning two guided tours around town the following day. Mike was pretty pooped and I wasn’t, so I decided to take a walk and look over the main drag.
We had been warned that, due to Argentina’s horrible economy, runaway inflation and the fact that over a third of the population was unemployed, living in abject poverty and desperate, the streets weren’t what you’d call safe. The first day, we hadn’t walked a block before two people cautioned us not to show an expensive camera or watch or a cell phone. Apparently, street robberies were common.
That night, the “Broadway of Buenos Aries” was busy and working hard to live up to its name with very limited success. Walking back to the hotel through dark, unfamiliar streets, I wanted to check Google Maps on my phone to be sure I was going the right way. The street I was on was almost deserted, with only one young couple on the other side walking toward me. I pulled out my phone and had just confirmed my route when the couple separated, the man crossing the street to get ahead of me and the woman moving rapidly until she was past me and then looping around toward me. “Can I help you?”, she asked in surprisingly good English. It didn’t take high intelligence to see that she was hoping to get me to turn toward her, putting my back to her partner.
I quickly pocketed my phone and put my back to the nearest building. “No thanks”, I said while looking back and forth at the pair. “I’m fine.” Seeing me looking her in the eye, obviously aware of the couple’s intentions and ready to deal with trouble, dramatically changed her attitude. They were perfectly willing to push or knock down the white-haired Gringo, grab his phone and whatever else they could and run, but when they saw they’d have to fight me, that was more than they wanted. They re-crossed the street and went on their way.
As a vacation spot, I don’t recommend Argentina.
John Lisbeth
Stories I Share With Friends(John Lisbeth)
Stories I Share With Friends
Unlike my fiction, these stories are all true.
Break-in
“Did you hear that?” My wife poked me in the ribs with her elbow. “Was that the back door?”
I sat up in bed and looked over at the bedside clock. It was 10:50 PM on a Saturday night in 1974 and I had to be up at a quarter after five if I was going to make it to the pre-alert briefing on time. I was a USAF Missile Combat Crew Commander in the Titan ICBM system, stationed at Davis-Monthan AFB outside Tucson, AZ. Alerts were 24 hours long and sleep while on duty was sporadic at best. I needed my rest.
“Mmumph!”, I snorted. “What’s wrong?”
Jenny started to say something, but was interrupted by a loud rattle from the kitchen. Someone was messing with the knob on the back door. I hopped up, opened a drawer in our dresser, and picked up my .45. I bought the gun when I was an enlisted man in the Army, before I got smart, transferred to the Air Force and got my commission. It was a GI weapon, probably brought back from Viet Nam. I paid $80 for it and hadn’t asked any questions.
“Somebody’s trying to break in,” I whispered. “Call the cops!” I slipped into the hall and peeked around the kitchen door frame just in time to see the green plastic panel that had been set into the middle of the back door crack and scatter across the floor. “This guy has to be crazy,” I thought. “There are two cars in the carport! Does he think there’s no one home?” I moved across the living room and into the kitchen through the far doorway.
When we bought this house, it was pretty obvious that the back door was a weak spot. The cheap plastic panel, about 14 inches wide by 4 feet high, could be easily kicked out, giving an intruder access to the deadbolt knob on the inside. I should have replaced the whole door, but I kept putting it off. Instead, I screwed two heavy-duty eye-bolts into the sides of the door frame at waist level on the inside and ran a piece of ¾” steel rebar through them, making it impossible to open the door. I drilled a hole in the rebar and used a small padlock to secure it to one of the eye-bolts.
The intruder reached inside, found the deadlock knob and unlocked it. He turned the outside doorknob and pushed. The door moved an inch before hitting the rebar. I walked silently across the kitchen and stood next to the door with my back against the wall. The doorknob was less than a foot away. The intruder grabbed the rebar and tried to move it. No luck. The bar wasn’t going anywhere.
A dark-haired head appeared through the hole where the panel had been and the intruder examined the rebar, trying to identify the problem. He twisted the padlock and banged the rebar back and forth, making quite a lot of noise. From the bedroom, I could hear Jenny on the phone with the cops. Was this guy deaf or crazy or what? He turned his head in my direction, but was so intent on the rebar that he didn’t notice me standing right there.
Off in the distance, I heard a siren. This guy might be a total loon, but was he really going to hang around with a code-three cop on the way?
I swung around facing the door, grabbed the intruder’s right wrist and shoved my gun into his belly. I explained to him in very colorful terms that, if he did anything that I didn’t specifically tell him to do, I was going to spread his insides all over the back yard. I’m pretty sure he didn’t speak English, but he understood me well enough.
Now, you should understand that, through all this, I was wearing my .45 and my wedding ring. That’s it. I called to Jenny to bring me a pair of shorts and I’ll leave the process of her getting them on me while I was holding a man at gunpoint to your imagination. Whatever you’re thinking, yeah, that’s about right. It was awkward.
Before long, we had plenty of company. The cops cuffed the intruder and took my statement. Apparently, he was an illegal. No surprise there. By the time the cops were gone and I’d screwed a piece of plywood over the hole in the back door, it was after 1 AM.
Luckily, Sundays were pretty quiet for missile crews and, aside from running some training scenarios with my crew and reacting to a few exercises from the SAC Command Post, I found time for a few naps.
What happened to the intruder? Damned if I know. I never heard a thing about it.
But you can be sure I replaced that back door on Monday!!
_______________________
Joke Gone Wrong
Florence, Italy, 2013. My wife and I were on vacation. We’ve made it a habit to take a trip to Europe every year since we retired and this year we were seeing Rome, Florence and Venice.
Jenny and I came out of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence on a Saturday afternoon. The steps outside the Gallery and those across the wide pedestrian walkway were crowded with people, drinking wine and enjoying the late August weather. Street performers were everywhere.
As we walked into a nearby plaza, I glanced to my right at a particularly ugly statue. Suddenly, a hand appeared, reaching for my right side at about belt level. At home in Florida, I always carry a handgun right there and I’ve practiced what are known as “retention” techniques to keep anyone from snatching my gun. I snapped my right hand down across the back of the invading hand, got a good grip, bent my wrist back and turned to find myself holding a mime in a wrist lock.
Apparently, this guy had snuck up behind me, intending to tickle me under the short ribs for the crowd’s entertainment. Instead of succeeding with his planned joke, the joker ended up on one knee, in considerable pain. The crowd roared with laughter.
I eased up on the pressure. Slowly, I waggled my left index finger in the poor guy’s face and shook my head, “no”. The crowd clapped and cheered. I released the mime and stepped back. He got to his feet and, you have to give him credit, gave me a deep bow. Then he turned to the crowd and threw his arms open wide, as if the whole thing was his idea!
Explaining to Jenny why I’d assaulted a mine took a while.
I’ve searched YouTube, hoping to find a video of the encounter, but no luck.
_______________________
Bad Robber!!
“Anything I can help you with?” asked the clerk hopefully. It was a slow day in the jewelry store and she probably worked on commission.
“Not really,” I said. “I’m just trying to stay out of lady’s shoe departments.” My wife Jenny was determined to find just the right pair of heels for a “Friends of the Symphony” fund raiser the following weekend. Since it’s a well-established fact that I have no taste, I was staying out of her way.
The clerk smiled. “Okay, let me know if you need anything.” She didn’t move and I could see her checking me out. I was looking at the watch displays and was wearing a nice, expensive-looking watch. Adding two and two, she asked if I wanted to check out the Rolexes that were on sale.
“No thanks. I’m more of a Breitling fan.” Not that I could afford a Breitling!
Twenty minutes later, I wandered back into Macy’s and saw that Jenny was trying on a pair of shoes. I got her attention and pointed to the exit. She nodded.
I walked outside and stood under the portico on the East side of the mall. My view of the parking lot was less than exciting. To my left, a guy in his early thirties, wearing jeans, a faded polo shirt, sunglasses and a reversed Florida Gators cap leaned against the wall. I assumed he was also waiting for someone. As it turned out, I was right.
Five minutes later, Jenny came out carrying a shoebox-size shopping bag. As she gave me a kiss, the guy I’d noticed earlier walked quickly over to us. I automatically checked his hands and saw the knife.
I shoved Jenny out of the way and took a short step back, raising my hands chest high in apparent surrender. The instant the robber opened his mouth, I snapped a hard, straight, no wind-up kick into the center of his left thigh. As his leg buckled, turning him to my right, I stepped forward and smacked him with a full-swing right-handed roundhouse slap to the side of his head, using lots of English and plenty of follow-through. I’m not a big guy, but I stay in shape and I’m fortunate to have inherited my father’s quick reflexes. The impact of my palm against his head sounded like hitting a medicine ball with a two-by-six. The robber dropped like a stone. His knife bounced away and came to rest next to the door.
I glanced at Jenny to make sure she was unhurt, then pulled a small can of pepper spray out of the left front pocket of my cargo shorts. Bending down, I dosed the robber thoroughly in his eyes, nose and mouth. His whole face clenched and a spreading wet patch appeared at his crotch. I was pleased.
I turned to Jenny. “Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. What the hell was that about?”
“Well, I don’t think this guy was collecting for Goodwill. Give me a minute.”
I dialed 911 on my cell phone.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“I’d like to report an attempted armed robbery.”
“What is your location?”
“East entrance to Macy’s at the Melbourne Square Mall on 192.”
“Are there any injuries?”
“Well, the robber isn’t feeling too great right now, but it’s nothing serious.”
I described the robber and his intended victims.
“Officers are on the way,” the dispatcher said.
The robber was sobbing and gasping through a blanket of tears and snot. I squatted down next to him.
“Broke into the wrong goddamn rec room, didn’t you, you bastard?”
He didn’t react, probably busy trying not to crap in his pants.
“I guess he never saw the movie Tremors,” I said to Jenny.
Jenny smiled. “The one with the big worms? Yeah, I remember it! That couple had every gun in the world and blasted the crap out of the worm. Great scene!”
A Melbourne PD patrol car pulled up. I shoot in pistol matches with cops from several departments, but I didn’t recognize this one.
“What’s the problem, folks?” he asked.
I handed him my driver’s license, retired military ID and Florida Concealed Weapon carry permit.
“I’m the complainant. This guy pulled a knife on us. Fearing for my life and the life of my wife, I defended myself.”
The Deputy looked at my permit and then at me. “Are you armed, sir?”
“Yes sir, I am.”
“You didn’t shoot him?”
“Nope. I didn’t have to. He had a knife, but he made up for it by being really slow and stupid.”
The cop grinned. “You’re right about that! He’s been slow and stupid all his life.”
The cop pulled out a pair of handcuffs and rolled the robber onto his stomach. “How you doin’, Jimmy?” He snapped the cuffs on and yanked Jimmy to his feet. He walked the dazed robber, who was limping badly, to the patrol car. He wiped the worst of the slime off Jimmy’s face with a rag and shoved him into the back seat, then slammed the door.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said in a tone that clearly indicated that whether I minded was irrelevant, “but I’d like to lock your gun in my trunk until we’re done with the formalities”.
“No problem. Do you want to get it?”
“Yeah, just stand right there.” He reached under my Hawaiian shirt, pulled out my Glock and deposited it in the trunk of his car. Then he reached into his shirt pocket for a notebook. “OK, tell me what happened.”
I went through the story while the cop took notes and bagged the knife. EMTs showed up and checked Jimmy for injuries. They poured a bottle of water into his eyes and found a growing bruise on his thigh. Jimmy complained loudly and wanted to go to the hospital, but the EMTs and the cop just laughed at him.
While this was going on, the cop’s shift supervisor showed up. He and the cop had a conversation that I couldn’t hear. They examined my IDs, spending most of their time looking at my military ID. The cop opened the trunk to show his boss my pistol. The supervisor looked toward me and smiled, giving me a thumbs-up.
As the supervisor drove off, the cop loaded Jimmy back into the patrol car. He shook my hand.
“You did a good job. Every cop in Brevard County knows Jimmy. This’ll be his fourth armed robbery arrest. I don’t think they’ll let him out so fast this time.”
He gave me his card. “I’ll be surprised if the DA wants to plead this piece of crap down to anything less than felony armed robbery. There’s a good chance this’ll go to trial. Somebody will call you if they need your testimony.”
“No problem, Officer. I’ll be available.”
The cop dug my pistol out of his trunk, unloaded it and gave me the gun and magazine. After he left, I reloaded and holstered my gun. I picked up Jenny’s bag and we started walking to our car.
“Sorry about pushing you that way. I didn’t know what that jackass was planning. For all I knew, he might have been some kind of psycho junky. If he’d gone after you, I’d have had to shoot him for sure.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. You were so quick! I didn’t know what was going on ‘till he was on the ground and I saw the knife. Do you think he was going to hurt us?”
I shrugged. “There’s no way to know. What I do know is, there’s no good reason to trust some stranger who pulls a knife on you. You have to assume he intends to use it. The rule is, ‘Hands, Weapons, Death’. You look at his hands. If he’s armed, you deal with him immediately. Fortunately for him, when I raised my hands, he was looking at them instead of paying attention to what counted. If he’d made a move toward you, I’d have shot him so fast and so many times...” My voice trailed off.
Jenny took the bag and hugged me. “I’ve never been really comfortable with you carrying that gun all the time, but now I’m glad you do. I know you’ll never use it unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
*****
POSTSCRIPT: This incident happened in late 1997. Jimmy (not his real name) got 15 years as an habitual offender and was granted early release in 2006. He almost immediately violated his probation by leaving the state. He was killed in a botched home invasion in Colorado eight months later by an alert single mom with a shotgun.
Apparently, Jimmy never quite mastered the victim selection process.
_____________________
Buenos Aires, Argentina November 2019
After a successful hunt for Blackbuck and wild boar, my hunting buddy Mike and I were staying in a hotel in Buenos Aries, planning two guided tours around town the following day. Mike was pretty pooped and I wasn’t, so I decided to take a walk and look over the main drag.
We had been warned that, due to Argentina’s horrible economy, runaway inflation and the fact that over a third of the population was unemployed, living in abject poverty and desperate, the streets weren’t what you’d call safe. The first day, we hadn’t walked a block before two people cautioned us not to show an expensive camera or watch or a cell phone. Apparently, street robberies were common.
That night, the “Broadway of Buenos Aries” was busy and working hard to live up to its name with very limited success. Walking back to the hotel through dark, unfamiliar streets, I wanted to check Google Maps on my phone to be sure I was going the right way. The street I was on was almost deserted, with only one young couple on the other side walking toward me. I pulled out my phone and had just confirmed my route when the couple separated, the man crossing the street to get ahead of me and the woman moving rapidly until she was past me and then looping around toward me. “Can I help you?”, she asked in surprisingly good English. It didn’t take high intelligence to see that she was hoping to get me to turn toward her, putting my back to her partner.
I quickly pocketed my phone and put my back to the nearest building. “No thanks”, I said while looking back and forth at the pair. “I’m fine.” Seeing me looking her in the eye, obviously aware of the couple’s intentions and ready to deal with trouble, dramatically changed her attitude. They were perfectly willing to push or knock down the white-haired Gringo, grab his phone and whatever else they could and run, but when they saw they’d have to fight me, that was more than they wanted. They re-crossed the street and went on their way.
As a vacation spot, I don’t recommend Argentina.
John Lisbeth
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John Lisbeth
05/31/2021Thanks for the kind words. When you reach my age, there are going to be stories to tell.
Help Us Understand What's Happening
JD
05/22/2021You've had some amazing life experiences, John. I really enjoyed reading all of your True Stories. I wish everyone knew how to dispatch would-be criminals before they can cause serious harm, the way you have been able to do. Bravo! Thank you for your service to your country and to the communities you have protected. And thanks for sharing your short stories on Storystar! : )
ReplyHelp Us Understand What's Happening
JD
06/06/2021Happy short story STAR of the week, John! Thanks again for sharing your short stories on Storystar! : )
Help Us Understand What's Happening
JD
05/31/2021Of course, not everyone has the same training and life experience that you do. So it is not surprising that most people do not see it coming when they become victims of crime, unfortunately. Most people also would not know what to do even if they did see it coming....
Help Us Understand What's Happening
John Lisbeth
05/31/2021Thanks! I learned long ago to pay attention to my surroundings and to be prepared. People who are crime victims and tell the cops, "He just came out of nowhere" make me laugh. People don't pay attention and when they get in trouble, they're always so surprised.
Thanks again, John
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