My little sister came downstairs and asked my dad to drive her to a party and he said yes, and they left. About 5 min later I hear the front door slam and my mom yell
“THERES A MAN WITH A GUN AT THE DOOR CALL THE POLICE!”
“What?” I responded. Thinking, I don’t know what I was thinking.
“CALL THE POLICE HE HAS A GUN”
I didn’t have a phone in the basement so my mom grabbed one and went the laundry room where there weren’t any windows because the guy was still on the porch looking in the window. As my mom was on the phone with the police I was waiting at the basement door. She kept yelling to stay away from the windows and in the basement. Come on really, some dude has a gun on my front yard? I am not staying in the basement and leaving my mom up stairs alone. I ran up stairs and into the office and grabbed our shotguns. I ran back to the laundry room, tossing my mom our single shot shotgun. I broke the double barrel and confirmed my suspicions, empty. My mom thinks it’s too dangerous to have ammo in the house because we have an alarm system and don’t guns need since we don’t live in the city anymore. So if he broke in, the plan was to bullshit him until he left, the cops came or whatever I guess. Then I heard a noise outside the kitchen door and the police on the phone said they had a guy checking the house, and that they had the suspect in custody. They said they had the house secure and that my dad should not try to come home but instead he should wait at the corner. They had the whole street shut down. I guess the cop on the phone heard we had guns and so he was like “ma’am, ma’am you and your son have firearms? Put them down we are on our way”. This is when I am sure the cop must have wondered to himself what kind of idiots he was dealing with. “My son has a double barrel shotgun and there’s another shotgun but they are both empty”.
A police officer rang our doorbell and said it was ok, they had the guy in the squad car and were searching him. They had m16’s, mp5s, and shotguns. They came loaded for bear. The reason we hadn’t seen any lights is because they secured the block and advanced on foot and surrounded the guy in the street. SWAT team style stuff I guess. So what kind of gun did he have in his hand? A black berry and a clipboard. It was one of those clip boards that opens up and is about an inch thick. One of the officers was came up to the door and said he knew exactly what happened. He was holding the end of the clipboard with the rest behind his coat and his blackberry was in his hand so all my mom could see was the top of his hand with the grip of the gun (his blackberry) and the top of the slide (the bottom of the clip board). What happened is that my dad has just left so when the doorbell rang she thought it was him, that he had forgotten something. We don’t answer the door after dark. Instead it was a large man with a coat covering his face. They made eye contact and he said nothing, instead he just started to raise his hand from his side behind his coat with the silver and black object in his right hand. She saw it and it flashed through her head, he just saw my husband leave that’s a gun this is a robbery. She jumped back and slammed the door and locked the dead bolt. The rest you know.
Why would my mom see a silver and black shape and assume it was a gun? Because my mom didn’t come from the suburbs she grew up in New Orleans in the 70’s. Fat City and the club scene was bringing in big drugs and big killings all over the city. Race riots indiscriminately destroyed property and maimed people. It was a dangerous place in a dangerous time. So bad that her mother, a five foot tall sweet Italian women named Rosalie, had to carry a semiautomatic berretta in her purse. It didn’t help that Rosalie’s cousin had been murdered and cut in to pieces and stuffed in a garbage can for his truck and her brother had been robbed at gunpoint while delivering bread. When my mom was little there was a young man living on their street who was always in and out of trouble. When my mom’s neighbor was out he would come and break into her house and play with her German Shepherds. The dogs soon became accustomed to him. One day after her husband went to work the young man came over and raped her. A few years later he was run over by a car and died in the gutter, it’s suspected that it was not an accident. She was raised to be cautious, and it saved her life. One day on her way home from work late at night a truck was blocking the road and a young man was lying on the ground as if he had been hit. “I broke his neck he can’t move please get out and help us”. My mom was suspicious, she told them she was almost home and would call the police. Angrily the man said, “Come on get out and help us.” She jumped the curb and drove home. By the time the police arrived the truck and the kid on the bike were gone and no ambulances had been called. It had all been a rouse to get her out of the car. Then after she married my dad they were eating in the city when a man came in and robbed the place, she had to hide her engagement ring in her shoe. Then later on a scuba trip they went into a gas station and there was a man threatening to blow it up because he blamed them for her daughter’s death. My parents have a million stories like that. That was the world they grew up in and that is why my mothers instincts tonight caused her to react the way she did. Even after living in the suburbs for 20 plus years tonight she saw something that registered as a threat to her and her family and she reacted.
“THERES A MAN WITH A GUN AT THE DOOR CALL THE POLICE!”
“What?” I responded. Thinking, I don’t know what I was thinking.
“CALL THE POLICE HE HAS A GUN”
I didn’t have a phone in the basement so my mom grabbed one and went the laundry room where there weren’t any windows because the guy was still on the porch looking in the window. As my mom was on the phone with the police I was waiting at the basement door. She kept yelling to stay away from the windows and in the basement. Come on really, some dude has a gun on my front yard? I am not staying in the basement and leaving my mom up stairs alone. I ran up stairs and into the office and grabbed our shotguns. I ran back to the laundry room, tossing my mom our single shot shotgun. I broke the double barrel and confirmed my suspicions, empty. My mom thinks it’s too dangerous to have ammo in the house because we have an alarm system and don’t guns need since we don’t live in the city anymore. So if he broke in, the plan was to bullshit him until he left, the cops came or whatever I guess. Then I heard a noise outside the kitchen door and the police on the phone said they had a guy checking the house, and that they had the suspect in custody. They said they had the house secure and that my dad should not try to come home but instead he should wait at the corner. They had the whole street shut down. I guess the cop on the phone heard we had guns and so he was like “ma’am, ma’am you and your son have firearms? Put them down we are on our way”. This is when I am sure the cop must have wondered to himself what kind of idiots he was dealing with. “My son has a double barrel shotgun and there’s another shotgun but they are both empty”.
A police officer rang our doorbell and said it was ok, they had the guy in the squad car and were searching him. They had m16’s, mp5s, and shotguns. They came loaded for bear. The reason we hadn’t seen any lights is because they secured the block and advanced on foot and surrounded the guy in the street. SWAT team style stuff I guess. So what kind of gun did he have in his hand? A black berry and a clipboard. It was one of those clip boards that opens up and is about an inch thick. One of the officers was came up to the door and said he knew exactly what happened. He was holding the end of the clipboard with the rest behind his coat and his blackberry was in his hand so all my mom could see was the top of his hand with the grip of the gun (his blackberry) and the top of the slide (the bottom of the clip board). What happened is that my dad has just left so when the doorbell rang she thought it was him, that he had forgotten something. We don’t answer the door after dark. Instead it was a large man with a coat covering his face. They made eye contact and he said nothing, instead he just started to raise his hand from his side behind his coat with the silver and black object in his right hand. She saw it and it flashed through her head, he just saw my husband leave that’s a gun this is a robbery. She jumped back and slammed the door and locked the dead bolt. The rest you know.
Why would my mom see a silver and black shape and assume it was a gun? Because my mom didn’t come from the suburbs she grew up in New Orleans in the 70’s. Fat City and the club scene was bringing in big drugs and big killings all over the city. Race riots indiscriminately destroyed property and maimed people. It was a dangerous place in a dangerous time. So bad that her mother, a five foot tall sweet Italian women named Rosalie, had to carry a semiautomatic berretta in her purse. It didn’t help that Rosalie’s cousin had been murdered and cut in to pieces and stuffed in a garbage can for his truck and her brother had been robbed at gunpoint while delivering bread. When my mom was little there was a young man living on their street who was always in and out of trouble. When my mom’s neighbor was out he would come and break into her house and play with her German Shepherds. The dogs soon became accustomed to him. One day after her husband went to work the young man came over and raped her. A few years later he was run over by a car and died in the gutter, it’s suspected that it was not an accident. She was raised to be cautious, and it saved her life. One day on her way home from work late at night a truck was blocking the road and a young man was lying on the ground as if he had been hit. “I broke his neck he can’t move please get out and help us”. My mom was suspicious, she told them she was almost home and would call the police. Angrily the man said, “Come on get out and help us.” She jumped the curb and drove home. By the time the police arrived the truck and the kid on the bike were gone and no ambulances had been called. It had all been a rouse to get her out of the car. Then after she married my dad they were eating in the city when a man came in and robbed the place, she had to hide her engagement ring in her shoe. Then later on a scuba trip they went into a gas station and there was a man threatening to blow it up because he blamed them for her daughter’s death. My parents have a million stories like that. That was the world they grew up in and that is why my mothers instincts tonight caused her to react the way she did. Even after living in the suburbs for 20 plus years tonight she saw something that registered as a threat to her and her family and she reacted.
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