MA> You can keep your l9ll .45's with their $900 modifications and
MA> extended magazines.   If I can't stop 'em with six...
If you come to my neighborhood, either carry speedloaders, or else don't
double-tap and don't miss, cuz the gang-bangers 'round here travel in
groups of five. Let me share something I learned this month. This month
I participated in my first bowling pin match.  You try to shoot five
bowling pins off of a table faster than the other guy. The previous
month I did it, but only for funsies, not for money and not against
anyone.  It was no problem hitting the pin at 20 or 25 feet (I forget
exact distance.) This month I plunked my money down, and GEEZE, did
that cause the adrenalin to flow!  It was a lesson in how being charged
with adrenalin, even in a friendly match, affects one's aim. It took me
20 shots of .45acp to put five pins off the 4'x8' table.  And
strangely enough, I still beat the other guy.
Lesson one: Don't ever give up!  Don't stop until the goal has been
accomplished because you never know when the other guy will screw up
worse than you.
Lesson two: 20 shots to knock down five bowling pins when I'm under the
stress of "friendly" adrenalin levels.  How many shots to stop five
attackers when I'm under the stress of "life or death" adrenalin levels?
You may say that the other four bowling pins don't run away when you
shoot the first one.   Well, I believe your average street mugger will
run away when you draw on him or his accomplice, because the average
petty street thug is a coward who only picks on people he thinks won't
fight back, and who will more often than not run away at any sign of
determined resistance.
BUT, gang-member street-level drug dealers, and *doped-up* street punks
don't value their lives at all.  I saw it in their eyes this past winter
when I went to my local Burger King during the Big Freeze one early
evening.  The 5-member drug dealing team had left their normal outdoors
sales location to warm up inside the restaurant, without even attempting
a pretense of ordering a burger or coffee, just the five of them sitting
there with no food or anything on the table in front of them.  They knew
I was not their customer, and I knew what they were.  So did the BK
employees who were too scared shitless to do anything.  They didn't mess
with anyone that night, and no one messed with them.  But millions of
years of evolutionary survival instinct (or a God-given survival
instinct/gut-feel if you so believe) caused the hair on the back of my
neck to stand up. This was not the first group of five I've seen.  More
often than not, the gang-members or the gang-wannabes hang out in groups.
Five seems to be the magic number.
That sub-zero December night when I saw the soul-less fearless faces of
*five* drug dealers staring at me came back to me when I realized it
took me 20 rounds to knock down five bowling pins on a bright warm May
afternoon.  I now carry two extra magazines instead of one.
Another incident last month taught me about dope-using street punks.  A
15-year-old gangster wannabe who lives in my apartment complex had a
bone to pick with the teenage son of my immediate next-door neighbor.
With rock in hand the punk stood on the front porch that I share with my
neighbor and threatened to hurt people and break windows.  Knowing that
police don't respond to reports of verbal threats (someone has to be
hurt, or property damaged before they'll respond in this neighborhood) I
went outside to protect my picture window and my neighbor's son.  Up to
that point, the 15-year-old punk was all talk, but refused to leave my
porch and refused to drop the rock.  Weighing 230 pounds to his 115, it
was easy for me to use a little leverage to gently and quickly lower him
to the ground without hurting either of us.   With my one hand on his
neck and my other hand on the rock, he gave it up. And I immediately let
him back up.  But boy, did he go off verbally. His favorite insult was
"you muther f-ckin' nigger" which I found slightly amusing because he is
black and I am white.
Then I remembered something that my neighbor, a high school teacher (the
threatened boy's father) told me about teen boys and their need to strut
and talk big in front of their buddies. So I let the kid blow off steam.
By taking his rock I had humiliated him in front of his buddies -- there
were six or seven of them on the sidewalk in front of my porch, plus four
other littler neighbor kids who were not part of his posse -- and he
needed to save face by standing up to me. However, I was the one who
gained the respect of those four little bystanders because throughout the
incident I did not yell back, did not insult, and did not use the n-word.
I retreated back into my townhouse.  He came right up to my door, so I
grabbed my pepper spray and went back out.  He backed down a little but
was still calling me "muther f-ckin' nigger" and telling me I was going
to be sorry for doing what I did.  He never laid a hand on me, and never
broke anything, so I knew that if I called the police that they wouldn't
do anything.  I was determined not to throw the first punch since I was
twice his size.  But he was trying very hard to get me to throw the
first punch.  He wanted me to beat the living daylights out of him so
*I* could be arrested!  He was verbally pushing all the buttons, using
fighting words, and making all the right threats to provoke a response,
but stopping short of anything for which he could actually be arrested.
The little sucker knew the system, and he was playing me.  Once I
figured him out, I turned the tables.  I became Phil Donahue.  I asked
him "Do you need a hug?"  I went into a feel-good sermon about letting
go of the hate and learning to love.  A posse member spoke up, and I
offered him a hug too.  They didn't know how to handle that, so they
left.  I reported the incident to the apartment manager who let me in on
a few things.  The kid is on drugs, he's been doing the same thing all
over the complex, and his mother is in prison.  And yes, I'm moving the
hell out of here.
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 þ SLMR 2.1a þ Whitewater isn't over until the First Lady sings.
(1:231/875)
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