The story of my
getting the gun is
here. I had gone from Oregon to Huntington Park (a suburb of Los Angeles), California to stay with my grandparents while I finished high school.
The house that I had found for them was perhaps not the best, but the price was right - $17,500.00. The main problem was that it had been the headquarters of a local gang. The neighborhood improved measurably when we bought the house - but I guess not everyone got the word that the place had changed hands.
Anyway, come Christmas Eve my three little girl cousins came to stay the night with grandma and grandpa. I was evicted from the spare bedroom and settled on the couch. A few hours later, their dad came rolling in, drunk as usual. He got the couch and I dossed out under the dining room table.
A few hours earlier I had presented myself with my Christmas present, a Navy Arms '58 Remington that I had actually had for over a year. To make the event official, I loaded and capped the gun and propped it up in the china cabinet as a display.
Sometime after midnight something woke me up. I figured it was my uncle, tossing his cookies, but I rolled over and looked into the kitchen.
Someone was coming in the back door! Automatically, I thought of the shotgun, but it was in the bedroom, clear across the house. Then I remembered the Remington. I rolled over to the china cabinet, popped the door open, grabbed the gun, and rolled back.
I guess he heard me, as he had stopped in the doorway. I was about to yell at him to get out of the house when he reached into the dish drain and pulled out grandpa's huge butcher knife.
That was enough for me! I thumbed back the hammer, lined up on the guy's silhouette as well as I could, and pulled the trigger.
FLASH!! I was blinded and half-deaf! I knew that I had hit him, because the flame and sparks from the muzzle hit him high on the chest - but that was all that I saw for a while. On the other hand, I could hear at least three people yelling and screaming in Spanish. Unacceptable. I lined up on what I thought was someone in the doorway and fired again. More screaming and yelling, but it was getting farther away. Much better.
I hunkered down and waited. A car peeled out in the alley and took off. I waited some more. Still no vision, just stars and stripes. I hear the cousins whispering, grandpa's gruff, "What's going on out there?" Waited some more.
Grandma turns on her bedroom light, peeks into the living room. My uncle's still passed out. The girls are still whispering.
My vision starts coming back. I ease up out of my blankets and head for the kitchen. Slip and almost fall. Stand still and look around. The floor looks odd. Shiny and blotchy. I step carefully around the dark areas and reach the back door and the light switches. Turn on the lights, close the door. There's blood everywhere! Blobs on the floor, spatters on the counters, walls, - even the ceiling. The girls peek our of the bedroom. The oldest starts throwing up. I reach for the phone, call the local police. A woman answers. I tell her that I had shot an intruder. She asks if the intruder is still there. I say, "No."
She asks if there's a body on the premises. Again, "No."
She says that she'll send a unit as soon as possible.
I never did see a police car that night.
By the way, how do you get blood out of acoustic tile?
