DickP
Member
I really enjoy reading everyone's S&T posts - been meaning to cough up my own story for quite awhile, so here goes:
About seven years ago I lived in a small apartment in a neighborhood just north of downtown San Antonio. A friend of mine lived in the same neighborhood, his place was 15-20 blocks from mine and we would frequently walk between the two.
I had acquired my CHL a year or two prior and by this point had pretty firmly incorporated daily carry into my regimen.
This particular evening my friend and I were to meet a mutual acquaintance at a bar for a drink, then return to my friend's apartment. My friend was to drive us to the bar and back to his place. I would walk home from there. Because of the detour to the bar, I had decided to leave the gun at home.
We had a drink at the bar and returned to my friend's place without incident, then spent an enjoyable evening chain-smoking cigarettes and playing chess. I left his place at about 2:00 in the morning and headed home, on foot.
Correction, I was carrying - a laptop that I had left there previously.
I always walked the same route. It didn't involve crossing any major thoroughfares, and after-hours it wasn't uncommon for me to make it all the way home without a single car passing me. Decent sidewalks most of the way. Leaving his place and heading towards mine, the neighborhood transitioned from gentrified-gone-a-little-shabby to distinctly lower income. Far fewer streetlights, as well. Neighborhood makeup seemed predominantly retirement age, though - no kids working on cars during the day or cruising around at night. Very quiet, in general.
Three blocks from my house I'm walking north up the street approaching a two-way stop intersection 30 or 40 yards ahead of me. East/west traffic has no stop sign. The lighting is very poor here, there's a streetlight directly over the intersection, and I'm just passing under the only other streetlight.
A slow-moving car heading westbound crawls to a stop in the middle of that intersection and I freeze. Its a big, old, four-door sedan and even though it's perpendicular to me at this point I can see that only its running lights are on. The windows are up and due to tinting or reflection I can't see any of its occupants.
In hindsight, it was really cinematic. The car and I are in the only two pools of light along the entire block, neither of us moving.
My heart has crawled up my ribcage and is trying to hammer its way out of my throat. The absurdity of the position I've put myself in washes over me and I have an image of my pistol in its gunsafe (safe at home!) and am struggling to delay the self-reproaches until later, if I have a later. I transfer the laptop to my weakside hand and shift my body so that my strongside is quartered slightly away from them. Then I sweep my sportcoat back with my strong hand and pretend to draw a gun from inside my waistband and hold it down against my leg. I'm puffing out my chest and staring hard at the car, hoping that with the lighting, the distance, and my quartering away they won't see that my hand is empty.
The sedan is still idling in the middle of the intersection.
At this point I decided that if they wheel the car around and head in my direction, I was going to toss my laptop and vault the fence into the backyard of the house next to me. For those unfamiliar with San Antonio, we have two breeds of dogs here - chihuahuas and pit bulls. Everyone in that neighborhood seemed to have at least one or the other, and I had no doubt that vaulting fences and darting through backyards would inevitably come to end by me being pulled down by someone's dog. But I had a moment of absolute clarity in which I chose having a perplexed grandmother trying to pull her pitty off the crazy white kid in her backyard over the certain evil that was sitting in that car.
The brakelights disappeared and I braced myself, but the car slowly continued westbound through the intersection and out of sight. I listened to its engine, and for any slamming doors but it seemed like it had taken off without reducing speed again or anyone getting out. There was an elementary school about a block behind me, on the other side of the street and I ran to it, jumped the fence, and spent the next 30 minutes hidden in an alcove of the building.
After a half hour with no sign of anyone, I scrambled home.
Well, there it is. Been meaning to share that story with you all for quite awhile.
About seven years ago I lived in a small apartment in a neighborhood just north of downtown San Antonio. A friend of mine lived in the same neighborhood, his place was 15-20 blocks from mine and we would frequently walk between the two.
I had acquired my CHL a year or two prior and by this point had pretty firmly incorporated daily carry into my regimen.
This particular evening my friend and I were to meet a mutual acquaintance at a bar for a drink, then return to my friend's apartment. My friend was to drive us to the bar and back to his place. I would walk home from there. Because of the detour to the bar, I had decided to leave the gun at home.
We had a drink at the bar and returned to my friend's place without incident, then spent an enjoyable evening chain-smoking cigarettes and playing chess. I left his place at about 2:00 in the morning and headed home, on foot.
Correction, I was carrying - a laptop that I had left there previously.
I always walked the same route. It didn't involve crossing any major thoroughfares, and after-hours it wasn't uncommon for me to make it all the way home without a single car passing me. Decent sidewalks most of the way. Leaving his place and heading towards mine, the neighborhood transitioned from gentrified-gone-a-little-shabby to distinctly lower income. Far fewer streetlights, as well. Neighborhood makeup seemed predominantly retirement age, though - no kids working on cars during the day or cruising around at night. Very quiet, in general.
Three blocks from my house I'm walking north up the street approaching a two-way stop intersection 30 or 40 yards ahead of me. East/west traffic has no stop sign. The lighting is very poor here, there's a streetlight directly over the intersection, and I'm just passing under the only other streetlight.
A slow-moving car heading westbound crawls to a stop in the middle of that intersection and I freeze. Its a big, old, four-door sedan and even though it's perpendicular to me at this point I can see that only its running lights are on. The windows are up and due to tinting or reflection I can't see any of its occupants.
In hindsight, it was really cinematic. The car and I are in the only two pools of light along the entire block, neither of us moving.
My heart has crawled up my ribcage and is trying to hammer its way out of my throat. The absurdity of the position I've put myself in washes over me and I have an image of my pistol in its gunsafe (safe at home!) and am struggling to delay the self-reproaches until later, if I have a later. I transfer the laptop to my weakside hand and shift my body so that my strongside is quartered slightly away from them. Then I sweep my sportcoat back with my strong hand and pretend to draw a gun from inside my waistband and hold it down against my leg. I'm puffing out my chest and staring hard at the car, hoping that with the lighting, the distance, and my quartering away they won't see that my hand is empty.
The sedan is still idling in the middle of the intersection.
At this point I decided that if they wheel the car around and head in my direction, I was going to toss my laptop and vault the fence into the backyard of the house next to me. For those unfamiliar with San Antonio, we have two breeds of dogs here - chihuahuas and pit bulls. Everyone in that neighborhood seemed to have at least one or the other, and I had no doubt that vaulting fences and darting through backyards would inevitably come to end by me being pulled down by someone's dog. But I had a moment of absolute clarity in which I chose having a perplexed grandmother trying to pull her pitty off the crazy white kid in her backyard over the certain evil that was sitting in that car.
The brakelights disappeared and I braced myself, but the car slowly continued westbound through the intersection and out of sight. I listened to its engine, and for any slamming doors but it seemed like it had taken off without reducing speed again or anyone getting out. There was an elementary school about a block behind me, on the other side of the street and I ran to it, jumped the fence, and spent the next 30 minutes hidden in an alcove of the building.
After a half hour with no sign of anyone, I scrambled home.
Well, there it is. Been meaning to share that story with you all for quite awhile.
