Story of The Lost Beretta

A young man in jail encounters a fascinating old timer who tales of secret never shared before in the days of his youth.

Prologue

It is the tale that tales, not the one who tales it or some mess like that. I can’t really remember how the saying really went but I think that’s as close to it as I’m going to get so I’m sticking with it. What I do know, is that I’ve been to jail many of times. And when you’ve been in jail with as much time as I’ve put in it, then there is bound to be a story or two that you just never truly forget. It’s been about 18 years since that day, but I still remember it like the sky is blue and the way the grass is green by the prairie side over in Borden, Indiana. His first name, this man, this teller of tales, I cannot recall. Mr. Beans I think we called him, and if we’re going to be honest, I believe his name to be pretty irrelevant. It is his story that captivated me all those years ago...Now that is something that I will never forget. 

The Story of the Missing Gun

The year was 2011 or so, and I had just gotten my first DUI at 21. Back then, a man could get a DUI and they’d breathalyze you until you hit all 0’s and after that, they’d let you walk free. Problem was, I’d always get in the slammer blowing at least a .2 something. I think the science behind it is a bottle of beer is out your blood stream in an hour or something like that so blowing a point 2, I think anyone could tell you it’d be damn near an entire day before they’d even consider letting you out. Needless to say, my a*s was staying for the long haul. 

If I remember correctly, it was a Friday, and I had just gotten in there around 3 in the morning or so; the drunk tank already near full of guy’s either strung out on something or they were just as drunk as I as. It wouldn’t be until I got my 2nd DUI, which would be a year or so later, that’d those days would be over. I’d be in the drunk tank with people not just with drunks and dopies, but with domestic battery cases and even to drug pushin and the like. Of course, as I said before, that wouldn’t be until much later. 

Anyways, I get in there with my mat, my blanket, my little orange slippers that hurt like hell to walk in, and a little plastic cup. It was like walking into a goddamn slumber party. A slumber party full of drunks and druggies. Now I’d been to jail before so I kind of knew what the deal was with the whole processing mess but yet I had never seen it to the extent as I had that night in 2011. The air reeked of something like a Mardi Gras puke and s**t fest, minus the sex and beads (I’d know what Mardi Gras was 5 to 6 years later during my college days). 

The CO, correction officer for short, let me in and told the other guys to make room, which there really wasn’t any room to be made enough as it was. There were guys on matts facing horizontal, vertical, diagonal, zig zagged; you name it. If you wanted to connect all the mats in that small, 190 square feet of space, you’d probably see several isosceles triangles inside one another. The only spot  being anywhere close to available (and that’s exaggerating), was by the damn shitter. Now I wasn’t really next to the shitter because it was parsed by a wall maybe 4 foot high so in a way, kind of on the other side of it. But I’ll be a damned lie if I told you if I laid flat on that matt fully extended, my foot wouldn’t be partially sticking into the entrance and into whatever son of a b***h had missed the tanker with. So I had to curl my feet up to my knees to avoid it. It still did not ease my mind that someone could (and was) busting a load off at an opposite angle of mine. 

The air had a musty thickness to it and even though I was drunk out of my mind, I found it hard to ignore the profound smell of farts, feet, and God knows what else in that place. Indeed, it would be a long night until I could blow a solid 0 and I thought then this hell could lapse into eternity. As uncomfortable as I was, I was fortunately drunk enough to (with little amount of effort) ignore the distastefulness of the air and eventually dozed off. I didn’t bother to stay awake to listen to what several of the inmates were conversing about. I just wanted to get out of there and fast and sleep seemed to be my answer to accelerate the time. 

It wasn’t until around 6 in the morning or so that I involuntarily woke up. The CO came in giving people chow in paper sacks. He called us name by name, and that’s how I remember that man’s last name, cause they called it in alphabetical order. I also remember his name because it was right at chow time. His name, was Mr. Beans. 

“Beans.” The CO called, but there was no answer. “Beans, wake up. Mr. Beans.” Some of us in that musty a*s room started looking around; hell, even I did. Even though I had no clue who it was I was looking for or why I should even give a damn for that matter, I naturally played the part and looked around for this ‘Mr. Beans’.

I could tell the CO, a short and hairless chubby man, was getting pretty pissed repeating himself the way he did and when he was about to shout, that was when someone gave a response. It was the guy two matts away from me and even further away from the shitter. It was near the center of the back wall. I heard a rumbling noise as he arose from his sleep. 

“I heard ya danmnit. It ain’t like I’ve moved since I’ve got here.” The gentlemen said this with an accent not familiar to me. He was a black man, and he looked to be about in his mid 50’s or so. His hair was near to shoulder length and I noticed it was awfully matted in some areas. His skin was slightly ashy and sagged in some areas indicating his age. He smacked his lips a bit, as if confirming he still had some teeth, and turned toward the CO as he opened his eyes. 

“I said I’m here boss.” 

The CO stared at him a bit, reached into this container, and threw him chow in a paper bag and resumed to call out the next man on the list. Mr. Beans caught it groggily, and placed it next to him before going back to sleep. Finally, the CO called my name.

“Here.” I replied. 

He reached once again into that plastic container of his and threw me something. I caught it just as lazily as Mr. Beans did, and peeked into it before placing it in my lap. There wasn’t any way in hell I was placing food on those floors, not back there I wasn’t, yet I saw other inmates do exactly that. Once he was done calling everyone off the list and before he shut the door, I asked him if he could breathalyze me. 

The CO almost cocked his head to the side and almost laughed. I could see it as he spoke to me.

“You just blew damn near a .3 two hours ago. Give it some time Cannon.” And  that was it. He shut the door and I could hear him laughing as he walked away. Another voice, most likely another CO, came and asked him what took so long.

‘What was that about?’

‘Newbie thinks he’s gonna blow a .1 after two hours.’ 

‘Well he might be superman. Never know.’

 

I could hear them both chuckling together as the sound of their footsteps slowly faded away. 

Under my breath, I called them both b******s though I didn’t dare say this out loud. I looked in the sack that was just thrown to me to see what I got. If I was gonna get out of this, I thought, then I need to eat whatever it is that they give me. As I was digging through the brown paper sack I heard a croaky voice call my name. It was Mr. Beans.

“Cannon, what’d ya blow before coming in?” 

I looked up at him and as I actually got the chance to observe the man, I began to feel a bit startled. He looked to be that of a man that should probably be at home in a rocking chair, not in a cell getting thrown sack lunches at him. I couldn’t sense a crime from his body, let alone deviance.

“A .2 something” I said, looking back into the chow they gave me, which wasn’t much. A peanut butter sandwhich, one hard boiled egg, some yogurt in a cup and some f*****g generic kool-aid that was cherry flavor. The road to sobriety would be a long one, indeed. 

“You was drinkin and drivin?” He asked with that unfamiliar accent of his, pulling out his sandwich and unwrapping it carefully. The accent and dialect reflected that of a southerner, though I have heard individuals here sound somewhat southern themselves. Even I myself, a man who has been in Indiana for most of his life, have been complimented (or insulted) on my own speech formalities. 

“Yea. Highway 65 South. Right before you hit the bridge to Kentucky. Think I would have made it too, if I wasn’t swerving.”

Mr. Beans laughed at this, though I didn’t really see what was humorous about it. By this time, about a third of the guys in the cell with us were waking up. It wouldn’t be long until more than half would be included in our conversation. 

“S**t, got me doing 40 in the 30” one man said. This was a white gentlemen, with longish and wildish ginger hair and he had a lot of random tattoos on his arms and neck (at the time, I only two tattoos). I noticed in his hand that he was already done with half of his damned sandwich. 

Nobody else talked about their charges for a little while. They just talked about jail s**t. Things like when bond was coming, how they hoped they wouldn’t be seeing judge such and such for their case, when population was opening up again; all of these matters which were totally oblivious to me. That was when Mr. Beans spoke yet again.

“Got me for a damned handgun possession charge.” He said. Everyone kind of paused and listened to what this elder man, the oldest out of all of us had to say. Well, probably the oldest besides the heroin addict shitting his guts out on the toilet on the other side of me, that is. That was when I heard a story, the story that I would never forget. The one out of many I would hear through these strange times of mine going in and out of these four walls. With every time of these departures telling myself I’m leaving this place for good yet surely only to return wondering what went wrong in my life. And with each time upon leaving, another story lingering with a valuable lesson to cling unto to give me hope for a brighter tomorrow.  And it all began with this first teller of tales. This is the story of Mr. Beans.

I

“Well, it was 1998.” he humbly said, still carefully unwrapping his sandwich with shaky fingers. I listened closely to that accent of his tentatively. The word ‘was’ came out as wuz and I wondered if I, myself, sounded the same to all of the yankees I’ve met amongst my travels in the past. 

“Even back in those days, it really wasn’t no thing to be carrying around a couple pistols bein as young as we was. Hell, we all did it. It was Derby weekend and I was living out in Elizabethtown Kentucky, no place for a black man to be at that time. Hell, not even now it ain’t, but I found it peaceful enough and I’d soon was fin to buy me some land out thataways while I was convinced the city was just setting us black folk up with the crack epidemic and all that. I had grown around that stuff all my life in the city, you see, and I s’pose it was why I wanted to get as far away from it as I could.

Before we was all packin heat, one of my cousins had gotten into dippin an a dabblin in some bullshit, and ended up killing a man after a robbery attempt. My cousin lived through it, but the man that he shot (and done kilt) ended up wounding him something badly in the back of his right leg. Could of bled out to death is what they told em if nobody would of called the ambulance in time, which on the west side of the city, it’s a miracle that someone even did that. Too many folks afraid of being caught up in some bullshit and ain’t want nothin to do with it.”

“Plus” he added. “Ain’t nobody have a cell phone like ya’ll youngins do now so if you were out in a jam, you’d be prayin someone was close enough to a pay phone to pull ya out of it. And I guess after seein what happened to him, we didn’t want it to happen to us.”

“Well, next thing you know, we was all packin some heat and even though I was never really into it like that, the street life that is, I s’pose you couldn’t blame a man for arming himself. Especially when I got out to Elizabethtown, which if you don’t know, is the goddamn sticks. Turnt out though, that Elizabethtown was far safer for a black man than the ghetto was ever gonna be and that’s a fact."

"So, I finally got out of the rut and decided to purchase property out there and live out my life. I ended up startin my own lawn business and it wasn’t doing that worse off, now that I think about it. Course I was in my mid 30’s round that time but better now than never so they say. Anybody want this f****n thing?”

Mr. Beans held out his sandwich. By that time, I’d say about 80% of us were awake and someone from the rear next to the door said he’d take it. Mr. Beans threw it to the guy. Aint no jelly on this f****n thing! the man cried out. 

“That’s cause the jelly packet is at the bottom of the bag you dumb son of a b***h.” Mr. Beans said. That got some of us guys laughing a little. After the man found the jelly and was struggling to open it, Mr. Beans continued.

“So Derby was a day I’d never forget and it’d been I’d say 10 years or so since I last went. And 5 more years before that; both times were in the infield. I don’t know how I did it.”

“Why’d you wait 10 years to go back?” I asked, scraping out some yogurt from the plastic container. It looked like it had been sitting outside of the fridge for a good couple of hours or so. In any normal situation, I’d toss it away without a second thought. But this wasn’t exactly a normal situation, so I debated while I listened. 

“That damn infield mostly.” He said blatantly. “That and I got caught cheatin on my girlfriend at the time with some white woman I ain’t never met before, drunker than a skunk off them damn mint Julips. One of her hoe a*s friends we went to school with saw me and it was over. Tried arguing the case to her but you can’t really argue against another woman’s word; hoe or no hoe. She forgave me but told me I couldn’t go there anymore, especially not to that damn infield.”

I took a mental note to visit the infield one day. Actually, the next year, I did go there and Mr. Beans wasn’t lying. It’s like a free for all down there. Waves upon waves of drunk people. Old, young, it didn’t matter. People openly doing coke or screwing in the port-o-potties wasn’t an uncommon sight to see. I regretted going, but it was still fun I’ll admit.

“So” Mr. Beans said. “one of my cousins, the one that got shot those many years ago, calls me up and asked if I wanted to go. I told him sure, but I had to check with my girl at the time, the one I was telling you about. He told me ‘no, dont do that. Just tell her we’re going off to Bardstown road instead.’ 'What difference does it make?’ I asked him and he said ‘cause then you can just show her your stamps at the local bars and you’ll be good.’ I told him that didn’t sound like a bad idea and so I went with it.  

“What ended up happening was we never did go to no Derby. Hell, we wasn’t even within a 4 mile radius of the place. When my cousin said we was going to Bardstown, that’s what he really meant. Bardstown was so full of people that we had forgot all about the damn Derby. Me and two other cousins, Jalen and Phillip, went to pre-game at Thomas’ house. Thomas was the one I was telling you that had gotten shot. Course I get there and all of them are about ready to go. Phillip had brought his girlfriend at the time with him, and she must have been the most sober out of all of us because no more than 10 minutes pass by and we was poundin whiskey shots back to back. Someone rolled a blunt sometime afterwards and soon enough, there was another. About 30 minutes roll around and I’ll be the first to admit I was pretty gone. ‘Throwed’ is how those Texas boys like to call it.”

Some of the guys in the cell where yelling ‘purple stuff’ this and ‘sippin on syzrup’ that and I knew what they all meant. Mr. Beans just waved them off, rummaging in his paper bag for something else to eat. He pulled out a yogurt, grunted, and tossed it to me. I took it greedily and opened it since I had just gotten finished with the last one that I ultimately decided on saying ‘f**k it’ and taking a chance with. “Stuff f***s up an old mans stomach” he said and then pulled out a small box of Fruity Pebbles and opened it. He then pulled out a small carton of milk and ate the cereal before gulping it down with the milk. “Can’t find my f****n spoon. Know they gonna charge me 3 dollars and some change for that one.” He said. 

“You can have mine.” I told him and he laughed, followed by a hacked cough. It didn’t sound too good and as morbid as I hated to be, I wondered how many years the old man had left on the old ticker.

 “I sure as hell wouldn’t say no to it young man.” He told me. I faintly smiled and tossed him the spoon. He caught it, observed it, and said “wasn’t you just eating yogurt with this?” My smile slowly faded to a blank stare and he laughed that hacking cough of his. “And you want to check your BAC already? Ain’t that some s**t!” 

Some of the guys really howled at that one. Even I couldn’t help but laugh. He threw the spoon back to me and took another shot of Pebbles before being chased with that lukewarm jail milk. 

“What happened next?” The red head said. I looked over his way and seen that mostly everyone was up at this point. No one was saying a word. I’ve been to jail many times throughout the years, and rarely does everyone pause to hear just one man speak, especially an old man like Mr. Beans. But his story got much more intense, like it was some sort of jail soap opera that resonated and ricocheted off the walls and into our hearts.

“So after the back to back shots and blunt smokin, we all decided it was time to head out. All of us drove separate except for me and Jalen because I didn’t want him driving in his condition. He was the youngest out of all us and if someone was gonna take the fall for something, I couldn’t live with myself if it was gonna be someone other than me. Where we headed first was a place near the middle of Bardstown, called Blue Jays or some silly name like that but where we really wanted to go was a little bit further down, into a place called Sully’s.”

Right then, there were hoops and hollers throughout the cell. I remember hearing about it even when I was in High School because they would let the underage girls in (and some of the guys if you were cool enough). Of course, this was never the case with me but nonetheless, I have heard of its notoriety. 

“Damn that place got some bad a*s b*****s!” said someone lying beside me.

“Cover is a mother f**k on Saturday nights!” Said another across the room.

“Damn! That’s where I got arrested at last time!” Said the crackhead on the shitter (still).

“Is Sully’s really that old?” Is what I asked.

“Yes they do, yes it is, yes I have too, and f**k you for thinking I’m that old.” Mr. Beans answered with a grin. I noticed he had gold teeth scattered throughout the crowns of his canines. We all laughed at this, including Mr. Beans. 

“Well, Sully’s was just so packed that night that the line to get in was wrappin round the damn block it seemed like. And this was round 12 at night mind you! Didn’t help that it was raining either and just finding parking was like finding one at a goddamn college sweet 16 game. We all decided we’d check out Blue Jay’s first, and if it was bullshit, we’d just stick it out and wait in line at Sully’s. Well, the line for Blue Jay’s was quick enough; flash your ID, get a pat down, and walk right on in. And that’s exactly what happened.”

“We get in there and everyone is about as drunk as we were, although by this time, I was kind of sobering up a bit. Must have been the rain hammering down on us. First thing Jalen says is ‘lets go get a round of shots’ and so we go off into the crowd. There wasn’t much room to do anything in there and there wasn’t that much of a dance floor either. Just a long a*s bar with some tables by the entrance and a DJ down one hall and the outside area on the other. Took me 10 minutes to get a f*****g water when Thomas laughed. He was just standing right behind me, obviously higher than a damn blimp in the sky. ‘Whats so funny?’ I asked him and he says ‘They didn’t even check that I had my gun on me’. I paused for a moment and I swear to you that’s when I almost spewed the water I had just got right back into the bartender’s face. 

“‘You brought a gun in here? I asked to which Thomas replies ‘Course I did. It’s Derby.’ and that was that gentlemen. I can go on about how Sully’s was amazing and how I got a blowjob right there on the dancefloor but I won’t get into all that. I just know that was the first and last time I ever went to that place. Not because it was bad, I think; it really is something to marvel at and it really does have a lot going for it, but I’d say it was the crowd I didn’t so much care for. You know the type. The type that had my cousin thinking it’d be a good idea to bring his gun in the first place, if you know what I mean.”

He paused. Then, in deep thought said “Well, I guess technically…I did go back again for a brief second, but it was on the same night after we initially left.” That’s when someone interrupted the story. 

That blowjob will get ya everytime someone said, but Mr. Beans ignored the comment with such apathy that you’d be convinced whoever said that never even existed. 

“We get back.” He continued, “and Jalen is passed out on the couch yapping about some girl he had met with a lazy eye and it’s just me and Thomas still awake. It was about 3:30 in the morning at this point and I was about ready to call it a night my damned self. Phillip had already headed back to his place back in Kentucky with his lady friend. Me and Thomas was just shooting the s**t about the good old days when I saw a shotgun laying by the door of his room. I picked it up, cocked it back without thinking, and out came a 12 gauge slug. ‘Good Lord’ I said. ‘Good thing you didn’t bring this one in with you too’ I told him, just joking. ‘Can’t hide this one up your a*s’ and we both laughed. Just guys being guys, if you will.

‘Yea’ he says. ‘Except the one on me don’t got a safety on it.’ He pulled up his shirt, felt on his waist where the gun was holstered, should have been holstered, and suddenly made a face that to this day, I will never forget. Can’t forget. I didn’t like that look and when he started nervously patting on the other side of him, I really started gettin the jitters. 

‘Yea the f**k right’ he said and walked out of the room and straight out to his car, which was the newest Camero out at that time. I soon followed him and there he was, looking underneath the seats and the floor boards, cursing himself with the same mantra over and over again. I ran in and got a flashlight and started looking on the other side in every which nook and cranny those cars have these day (which is a lot), but nothing turned up but some change and some cigar wrappers. Even though I knew in the back of my mind there was no way I’d find what we was looking for on my side of the car, I searched anyhow because it was better than just standing there. 

‘Thomas, I’m gonna open up the gates’ I told him because he always got out of the car to open up the gate before pulling all the way in the driveway. So maybe, just maybe, if it did fall out, it’d be laying somewhere around that-a-ways. He started looking in the grass in the backyard and along the walkway to his back patio whence we came while I pulled open the gate and searched over there. I’d hoped I’d find it, but I didn’t see a damn thing. Just dewed out grass and aged and cracked concrete. By this time Thomas was on the same side of the car that I had just searched, muttering under his breath ‘yea right. Yea the f**k right’." 

"'Yea, it is the f**k right' is what I wanted to say, but didn’t dare. He had killed a man once you know, and you never know when a man has reached the brink of killing another or not. Especially not with my cousin Thomas. He was just so damned monotonous all the time we could never tell when he was pissed or being sarcastic or both.”

“What’s monotonous mean?” The guy behind me asked. Mr. Beans paused, let out a sigh, and reached in his bag for an orange. 

“It means you needa lay off that goddamn crack and read a book, Frank. That’s what it means.”

Again, that had most of us guys cracking up. I for one, was just hoping that guy would get off the shitter for once. I mean, what on earth was he doing over there? Then a part of me decided it was best if I didn't know, and that's the thing with being in jail. Sometimes, it was just best to leave things alone and let the universe take its course. Lesson to you if God forbid you ever end up there. 

“Anyways” Mr. Beans continued, as he peeled his orange with his fingernails, “I didn’t want to tell Thomas that I didn’t find that gun but I had to, so when I did, he just sprung up on his two feet and said ‘f**k this’ and walked around the car and back into the house. I didn’t like the sound of that particular tone he had. Didn’t like the situation we was in at all as a matter of fact." 

"I followed him a good 15 paces back before I saw him searching in his room again. He had a futon couch and I sat on it as I watched the hope in this mans eyes painfully and slowly fade out, one minute at a time. Finally, about 10 minutes later, he sat down on one of his Lazyboy recliners and rolls a blunt. Then it got quiet for awhile. Finally I asked him, ‘it was pretty crowded in that Sully’s place, you think it might be in there?’"

"My cousin Thomas just shook his head. ‘I remember I had it on me when we left’ he said. He sounded tired. Fatigued. Worn out and losing the fight against falling asleep." 

"‘Well’, I told him. ‘Maybe it dropped out when you were getting in your car. You know, with gravity and all that’ which is true because the way they make these sports cars, you’re not really parallel in em. No, your a*s is in that seat at some acute angle like it’s some damn rocket man ship. I saw him considering that option, though it was plain as all day that he didn’t fully believe in it. And neither did I, but it was something. Then he told me ‘I got out when you and Jalen was following me to take a piss when you was stuck at the red light. That’s the only other place it could be.’"

"‘You got out and took a piss at the red light?’ I asked Thomas in disbelief. I remembered us being separated at one point, but I aint ever recall remembering him getting out to take no leak anywhere. 

‘Yea’ he says, smoking his blunt. I wanted badly to hit it but I couldn’t; not that late at night. Doing so would of put me to sleep faster than Kimbo knocking out a Backstreet Boy’s singer. ‘Well, if we’re gonna do this, we need to do it now’ I told him. He told me he knew; that he wanted to smoke a little first, and that we’d first head back to Sully’s, which by the time we got there, would be closed. It was damn near almost 4 in the morning. So that’s exactly what we did."

“Now, you got two black men in a car at 4 in the morning in a brand new Corvette headed from Indiana back over the bridge straight for the club again. Try doing that s**t in Elizabethtown and we’d be pulled over for sure before even making it a block from the driveway. But I wasn’t drivin so it didn’t matter to me anymore like it did when I was with Jalen. Looking back on it now though, I would have told him we’d best to wait. To pray it’d be there in the morning, wherever it was, and to keep our fingers crossed that nobody used it to kill anybody. Well, we went back and never found it.”

Nobody said anything in the jail cell. I think we were just too entranced at how someone could lose a handgun so easily in the first place, although, I admit s**t happens. I’m sure it happens all the time but I mean, if it ever happened to me, I just don’t know what I’d do. Call the police on myself first? That’s a tough one. Get the f**k out of here someone said though I was too engulfed in the story to know (or care) exactly who said it. 

“That’s right. We never found it. Sully’s was still miraculously open too. The staff was there cleaning the place after hours and after we checked the parking lot and didn’t find anything, my cousin went in asking if anyone found a gun. I was outside by the car smoking a cigarette and even at that distance, I could tell that damn near immediately after he walked out (casually mind you), the whole staff was on panic mode. I saw a shadow run across the entrance door and another waving their hands in the air. "

 ‘F**k em.’ my cousin said. ‘Oh my God, you lost a gun?’ He mimicked in a squeaky voice. ‘Yea, that’s what I said. Stupid. Let me get a cigarette off you, cousin.’ 

"Now fellas, at this point I tried my damndest not to laugh. The situation we were in was so messed up, that at this point, I had to laugh. Here my cousin walks into a bar at 4 in the morning talking about a lost gun, then walks out like nothing ever happened and I’m telling you I could see the staff running around that place like a fire broke out inside it. He acted like it was totally normal to ask such a thing. That’s what I loved about my cousin though, fellas. You really didn’t have a choice."

Anyways, clearly pissed, we next checked the streets where he claimed to have gotten out to take a piss at. It was underneath an expressway overhead not too far from where the bridge linking back to Indiana was. He parked his car on the side of the road and turned on the hazard lights. He got out and started frantically searching while I waited inside. Ten minutes later, I decided to get out and helped look for it too. Again, we found nothing."

“Damn.” I said. 

“Damn is right.” Mr. Beans acknowledged. 

“So what’d he do?” The redhead asked.

“My cousin reported seeing a random gun on the ground the next day, concealing the fact that he was the owner of it. I ended up driving back home where I stayed out by the Kentuckiana Bridge and passed out. It was probably 5 or so when it was all done and over with.”

By that time, he had finished his orange and was lying back down to sleep. He was very careful to put all his orange peelings into the brown bag he no longer wanted and off to the side of his mat. Some guys were getting a little pissed that he cut the story off like that but most of us was just asking him how and why it happened. And of course, not to mention did he really get a blowjob at Sully’s or not. He wouldn’t answer us, either because he didn’t want to or because he just stopped giving a s**t. Nobody knew why he stopped but pretty soon, Mr. Beans was snoring. He slept until they gave us lunch about 4 hours later. 

II

Intermittence

After Mr. Beans went to sleep, I stayed up a bit chatting with the other inmates here and there, telling them I prayed I wouldn’t get my license taken away. Most of them laughed at my charge, though there were actually several guys in there that were facing the exact same thing I was. It is called the drunk tank you know, and for a reason. What I didn’t understand however, was that there were people in there facing drug charges who’ve been in that cell for damn near a week and still not have received word of a court date. I still had a lot to learn about the jurisdiction system but I felt confident enough that what I did you know about it was this: it’s a gigantic cluster f**k. 

After listening to some of the guys (some of them new and some of them veterans) touch on random topics ranging from strippers to taking one more hit of meth, I too, went back to sleep. I forget how long I was out for but I must have still been pretty drunk because sleep came as naturally as an acorn falling off of a tree on a windy day. I awoke to the cell door opening and heard the CO (who was someone totally different now) call out some names followed by the sounds of plastic trays smacking against hard concrete before it closed again. I sluggishly rose up to take a piss not long afterwards (thank God I wasn’t drunk enough to piss on the mat I was on) and hoping Frankie the crackhead wouldn’t be there to greet me. I wasn’t sure Frankie was his real name or not. All I knew was he finally wasn't on the toilet, thank God. 

After I was done, I noticed that an open spot was now available in the tetras-like room of green mats that we all slept on. It was in the left corner behind Mr. Beans, several feet away. Even more of a relief was that the spot was away and on the other side of the shitter. It must have been where Frankie was sleeping before they processed him out or bonded him or whatever the f**k that they did with him, I was sure of it. In that spot, there’d be a guy above me against the base wall and there’d be a guy beneath me. The way the others were sleeping, I wouldn’t have anyone’s feet in my face (and more importantly, my head) as a launch pad for unexpected farts, (which happened a lot) nor would my feet be in someone else’s face. I seized the opportunity and took it while I could and went back to sleep. 

It would be around 1 o’clock in the afternoon when they’d check on us again and this would be apparently lunch time. I made myself get up so I could get more food in my system to sober up quicker. I wasn’t sure if this worked or not, but it was better than just waiting for time to do its thing. The procedure was the same as it had been the first time; attendance was taken first, and then sack lunches were hurled at us as if this was a game of dodge ball. I caught mine with sloppy precision but had managed to have a handle on it. Others were not so fortunate. Mr. Beans was one of them. I could hear the thwak the paper bag made as it hit him square in the face. For some reason, it reminded me of some of the comic-book sound effects I'd imagine as a kid. 

‘What the f**k!’ 

It was extremely hard not to laugh at that, even though I came inches away from getting hit myself. Given his age, his profound grogginess, and slow reflexes, this made it a bit entertaining to witness firsthand. Of course, I think anyone getting hit in the face with a sack lunch would be pretty funny.

“Tried calling your name to wake up.” The CO said, before resuming the sack lunch execution trial. 

“Hitting an old man like that. What’s this world coming to?” He replied, rubbing his head. He began to slowly rise off his back with his blanket still covering him. He reminded me of Linus for some reason and this made it harder to conceal any notions of a smile.

“There’s a goddamn apple in this.” 

He gave it a quick glance before peering around elsewhere in the bag to see what other goodies had made impact with his face. He stared toward the shitter. “Frankie, you want this apple you old b*****d?” There was no answer, just as I suspected there wouldn’t be. Mr. Beans looked around confused, and called out his name again. 

“He went to med for approval, I think.” One inmate said. 

Probably using the shitter up there too I thought to myself. Mr. Beans made a face that was hard not to forget then. It looked like a face that was tired and full of remorse. He just shook his head and stared down at his bag. “Drugs is killing our people.” 

Nobody said anything. The only sound was the catch and misses of the paper sack lunches being hurled at it’s intended (or unintended) recipient. There would be an occasional f**k! or gotdamn man! but other than that, it was eerily silent. When the sack toss was over, the CO shut the door and it was just us again. I was quickly understanding how things began to operate here and the thought of it produced an overwhelming wave of depression over me. I wanted to take my mind off of it, then I remembered Mr. Beans’ story. How he had just cut out and fell asleep with all of us hanging over the edge for it. 

“Well?” I asked. 

Startled, he quickly jerked around and for the first time, I saw what appeared to be frightened anger in the man’s face. It gave me chills and I for a quick moment, was afraid he was going to actually hit me. He must have thought I was Frankie because after a moments hesitation, he returned back to normal. Then I remembered that the spot I had taken was Frankies. I don’t know why, but I suddenly felt bad. 

“Well what boy? I don’t owe you nothin.” He replied, turning back around. I didn’t understand where that was coming from. Was he mad? Was it that he was taking Frankie’s disappearance out on me or was it because I startled him? Was it because of both? Then, at that moment, something else more logical outweighed the first two options. He doesn’t remember. He’s old and doesn’t remember the story. I was going to say something when the ginger, whose name I would later find out to be George Pratz, took to my side. 

“The gun. You was talking about a gun. You don’t remember?”

Mr. Beans’ face swelled up and under normal circumstances, it would have been almost comical. He made the face of a man who just learned that he had been wearing his shirt inside out for an entire day. Only it wasn’t funny. Nothing was funny about the face that I was looking at. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, as if selecting his words wisely before speaking them.

“How ya’ll know about that?” He asked in a timid tone. 

“Because old man, you even had me listening to it. I want to go to Sully’s now.” Another man said. He was a young guy like me that stayed near the doors and some of us laughed. 

“Sully’s....” Mr. Beans reiterated back. He seemed to be in deep thought. “Now that was a hell of a place. You might even get a blowjob there if you’re lucky enough.” 

He really doesn’t remember I thought again. This guy is in his 50’s or something and the dementia is already getting to him. He really doesn’t f*****g remember.  

“Yea, and I’m going as soon as I get out.” The young man said. “Now finish the story.” 

“Well, I ain’t never really talked to anyone about Sully’s before so I guess’nt I must have told you boys. I thought that was all a dream.”

“No.” I said. “It wasn’t. And listening to it passes the time so I can blow that .08” 

Mr. Beans laughed at that suddenly, and I relaxed a bit. Hearing him laugh was a good thing. “Well I do remember that, you drunken motherfucka. Boy, you aint blowin no point 8 anytime soon, I can tell you that from experience.”

Before I could say anything back, Mr. Beans continued his story about the missing Beretta and I shut my mouth. All of us did. 

III 

“Well, course at first, my cousin was a little paranoid about the whole thing. Who wouldn’t? He done lost an illegal firearm with his prints on it that had no safety with a round in the goddamn chamber. But like all bad things in life, time heals all wounds. And by that, what I mean is hopefully, with each day without incident, maybe the somebody who did find it (if it was even found to begin with) threw the son of a b***h away or something. We doubted that’d be the case, but it was all we had to cling unto. That and God of course, boys. That and God.

A year passed and then another. No word of that gun had ever come up and one by one, we began to let it pass as if it never had happened, so long as nobody ever mentioned it. And pretty soon enough, with time, we had honestly forgotten about the damned thing. 

Thomas ended up having a kid with some girl he’d been on and off with since junior high and I was finally getting my mortgage approved to get a house for my business out in Elizabethtown. I had met a girl that helped make that happen in the real estate business who would later become my wife. Well, ex-wife now, but that’s not really important. Just know that she was the one who actually recommended me moving out to that honky a*s town in the first place. 

‘The city has too much competition, Mr. Beans.’ she’d say and I’d just sit there across from her desk shakin my head up and down. ‘Yes ma’am, no ma’am, all that good jazz. What she didn’t know (or maybe she did) was that I was really thinkin ‘ those have got to be the brightest green eyes I’ve ever seen.’ 

Eventually, before the deal was sealed, I grabbed a pair and I did say that to her. We ended up married a year or so later. Her old man didn’t like it; a black man weddin his daughter and all. I think her family was one generation away from being racist in my honest opinion, but that was okay. After seeing we was serious, he helped me get my business up and running by getting the word out and finding some help locally. Everyone knew the man and that was good for me. Everyone knows everybody in a little town like that and he was pretty well respected in those parts. 

Things were going okay with the business I had up there believe it or not. Not outstanding but not like a f****n Hollywood Video Store either. I was getting by and I could afford a roof over my head with or without my wife alongside me. That boys, is a feeling greater than any other. The feeling of independence. That and knowing I had some guaranteed a*s to come home too after a long days’ worth of work made it even better. That’s the bonus prize. 

We had our first child a year later, and the business was pulling in more than to provide a roof over our heads at that time. We were going to need it for the little one to come. I really wasn’t expectin a child or nothin like that but I wasn’t opposed to it neither. To me, that just made me want to become even more independent. A career, a wife, and ultimately, a family; you could say I was set now.

As you can imagine, her old man didn’t like a negro being born into a white family, but he eventually gave in and loved the boy regardless. Then one day, after taking Christopher home from the hospital, that’s what we named him, her old man was waiting at the house for us. He didn’t show up at his birth so now I’m getting a little worried. He was smoking a Camel on our porch and was cleaning his hunting rifle. That’d be enough to call the cops over here, but over there, it was normal for people to walk around with their shotguns and pistols hoisted out on the sides on some Clint Eastwood s**t. It is Kentucky, you know. The real Kentucky. Not this Louisville or Lexington s**t. As far as I’m concerned, all them places are just a cover up for the real deal. 

She’s carrying the baby inside and I followed her, tipping my hat to the man, when he tugged on my shoulder. 

‘I want to have a word with you real quick, Cleetus.’ He didn’t look at me when he said it. Just kept brushin off that rifle of his with the freehand still on my shoulder. And even though my name isn’t no f****n Cleetus, I stood there to see what he wanted. 

‘You got a family now, boy.’ he says, taking a puff off that nasty a*s Camel. ‘You know where your at and you know what kind of town this is. You following me?’

I shook my head like I did, but I really didn’t. Thought he was gonna say somethin like my next step was to have a farm and raise some damned chickens. Continue the family legacy and all that bullshit. But to my surprise, it didn’t have nothing to do with any of that. 

‘You know how to use one of these?’ He asked, nodding his head towards the rifle he was cleaning. That’s when he looked at me with a troubling seriousness in his eyes. I told him that I did, that I was from the city, and knowing how to use one wasn’t anything much newer than finding out that Madona was a w***e. Course I told him I never done shot one of those things though. That rifle he was cleanin right there on our front porch for the whole damn world to see. I just told him I’ve had experience with firearms.

At the end of the day fellas (though a week would be more correct), he took me to an outdoor flee market not more than 30 minutes away from my house. We was goin gun huntin.”

-Some of the guys looked confused when Mr. Beans said that, even myself. Gun shopping at a flee market? Now I done heard it all I thought, but I heard rumors that these places did exist. In Kentucky, you could go to a flee market and just purchase a gun with no paper work. I had a friend that did 4 years for armed robbery tell me so himself. He couldn’t own one legally, yet he had over a dozen or so. The guns, he had said, had all been purchased at one of these flee markets. No paperwork. To entertain these thoughts, Mr. Beans resumed.-

“Yep. Sounds crazy but it’s true. Can’t do that in the city of Louisville. They won’t allow it. But 30 minutes outside of the city? Well s**t, f**k California fellas. Kentucky is the Wild Wild West. 

The crazy thing about it is her old man and the entire damn town saw nothin strange about it. They thought what everybody else was doing was the strange thing. And it is something to really marvel at. The only catch about those places is that it has to be outside though. I never really understood entirely why it had to be outside, but I suppose it makes sense. Can’t have a sociopath runnin around in the building and start spraying up the place. But then again, with that many guns as I saw that day, he probably wouldn’t have gotten far before some 2nd amendment patriot decided that the perpetrator needed an appointment to see our beloved maker and creator. ASAP. That, and I guess it'd be 4th of July if a fire broke out.

So here I am, it’s a Saturday in the middle of the summer, walking through rows upon rows of booths and tents with people selling nothing but guns. Old guns, new guns, antique guns, long ones and short ones, nickel plated and gold. There was no limit to it gentlemen. I wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere in the midst of those booths, someone was selling f*****g grenade launchers. I was with her old man and I was thinking to myself about how I didn’t feel like really needing a gun. Yea, the town was a generation away from being racist but I just couldn’t see someone robbin us for no reason out in those parts. Cause your black, is what I knew her old man would probably tell me, but I still didn’t think it was necessary.

‘A family man gotta have somethin to protect his family with’ is all he kept saying so I just went with it so he’d get off my a*s about the whole thing. On one condition however. I let it be known to him, before we even got into the car, that I didn't want a rifle. He got pissed at that. I told him a wanted a pistol. 

‘A rifle is more accurate.’ He told me, and I told him I didn’t care. I didn’t want one and that a pistol would be enough. A 9 mm to be exact. Nothing smaller, nothing larger. A 9 would do just fine. 

He kept trying to get me to change my mind as we walked past all these questionable booths. I say questionable cause I kept tellin myself there ain’t no way in hell that any of this is s**t is legal. It seemed that half of the merchants were old alcoholics trying to get some money for the next fifth or pint. The smell of alcohol was damn near everywhere, I definitely remember that part. And of course, in a place like that, it’s buy at your own risk. If it didn’t work, oh well. That’s your own damn fault for trusting an alcoholic in the first place. 

So we’re passing booth upon booth with her dad wanting to stop at every other one and me telling him I had things to do that day, let’s just get a pistol and be done with it. Every booth he stopped at had rifles that he would show me, and at every booth stopped at, I told em I didn’t want one. It was like going shopping with a woman but with guns. I think we’ve all been there before. We want to get what we want and leave. They want to check out every single thing on sale or just for the hell of it. I think he was worse, if that’s even possible. I finally about had it. 

I told myself that the next booth he stops at will be our last. Pistol or rifle, I’ll get whatever I see first and come back later to trade it in for something else, if they'd let me. Well, the booth he stopped at certainly had both pistols and rifles for sure. As he magnified over some old WWI  relic, I ignored him and went off to look at what kind of pistols he was carrying. That’s when I saw it. 

 

Now, remember it’s been about a good 5 years or so since my cousin lost his gun so you would think that I wouldn’t recognize it. But I did. The merchant had a glass box case with about 10 or so pistols in it. They all laid in an orderly fashion over top a thin sheet of navy blue nylon. What stood out to me was a snub nose, a Ruger, a couple of .38’s, and of course, my cousins gun. A 9 millimeter Nano Beretta. 

‘So’ you might be askin yourself, ‘could be the same make and model. Don’t mean that that’s the same one.’ 

I know that’s what you’re thinking cause I thought the same thing myself. Regardless if it was the same one or not, I asked the merchant to let me hold it. He got it out of the case, cocked it back, and stared down the chamber before handing it to me. ‘No safety on it for some reason.’ He said with a toothless grin. ‘Jus makin sure it’s empty jus in case.’

I can’t tell you how I knew that after all these years, it was my cousin’s gun and I can’t tell you why after all these years, it had somehow ended up in the possession of this strange man of questionable character who now stood before me. If my wife’s old man was trying to say something to me, I wasn’t listening. Wasn’t listening to anything around me but the beat of my heart and that mechanical cocking sound the gun made when the bolt slid and locked into place. I had so many questions for this man. 

Why was the serial number scratched off to leave but only one alphanumeric character on it? (Just as my cousin had done)

Or 

Why the hell was the paint chipped off on the very top of the rear sight? (Just as my cousins’ was from dropping it all those years ago) 

And finally, 

Why the f**k was there no safety on it when all the standard models of this gun had in fact, a manufacturer mandated safety installed on every one that left the factory? 

But in that moment gentlemen, I could only manage to mutter but a single sentence to this man. 

‘Where did you get this?’

I wasn’t even looking him when I asked. I was still staring at that gun like I was possessed. I had a really creepy experience with Dejavu and it took me back to the night all of us went out like it was yesterday. 

‘Funny you should ask that.’ The man said. What he said next was about when I zoned out completely. I was going back into the time chamber and my mind just wasn’t there anymore. There’s no other way I can really describe it. 

Small, minute details I couldn’t tell you even back then became so vivid and so lucid to me. It was as if I was looking at my life not with my own eyes anymore, but through the lens of a microscope. Things like what song we was listening to on the way across the bridge versus on the way back from it. I’ll tell you what I heard on the way to Sully’s. It was goddamned Brittney Spears ‘Oops I Did it Again’ from 99.7 so I switched the station to 95.8 and we listened to the ‘First of The Month’ by the Diplomats. Details like how one of the bouncers from that night had a lazy eye and a birthmark underneath that eye and I kept thinking he knew I was trying hard not to stare at that fucked up eye of his. Details like the exact amount of gas I paid for, 11 dollars and 53 cents, thankfully was enough to get me and Jalen across the bridge and back because he had a 4 cylinder Pontiac Grand Am, 1988. It needed a new water pump in it also. 

Needless to say, I got scared, and I ain’t afraid to admit it. I got scared fellas. Scared shitless to where all the hairs on my body were startin to stand up and I ain’t never been scared like that before except for one time messin round with this girl who I found out was doin heroin so I had to go make sure I didn’t have the AIDS at the doctors office the next day. He told me it was stupid to test for AIDS the next day. I remembered all that.

I wanted it to stop, but it (the gun) wouldn’t let me. It was like it wanted to show me where Thomas had dropped it and it was damned determined to do so, from start to finish. 

I remembered the exact amount of drinks I took the night at his house. I remembered the bouncer pattin him down at that Blue Jay’s or whatever but only it was me who felt the pat down. A*****e frisked him from the top and stopped right at the waist. If he would of went down a little further, he would have felt the holster on my cousins hip, but he didn’t cause he was thinking ‘they don’t pay me enough for this s**t’ so he avoided it on purpose. Don’t ask me how I knew all this gentlemen, but at that moment, I did. And I was scared. 

It took me inside Blue Jay’s and my cousin was checking out this young red bone (fine black girl for you who don’t know) with a fine backside wearing a Maxi dress when someone bumped into him and broke his line of sight of her and he was a little pissed about it. Meanwhile, I was at the bar waiting 10 f*****g minutes and 13.5 seconds for that f*****g water. Jalen was in the bathroom puking and Phillip and his girlfriend were trying to dance together, but they wasn’t really feeling the s****y music the DJ was playing so they just kind of stood off to the side lacing hands. I thought that’d be it. Prayed it would be it. There was a guy who bumped into my cousin and that's what caused him to drop the gun, but it didn't end there. It still wanted to show me more. 

It fast forwarded me through time into Sully’s and I saw that bouncer with the lazy eye I was tellin ya’ll about and he really was thinking that I was rudely glancing at that eye of his. The girl I just got a blowjob from, spoiler alert, had just shot up a thing of heroin in the lady’s bathroom right before I met her. Thomas was on the dance floor (they had 2 of them) and he was trying to get with this dyke looking b***h (which he almost did), until her girlfriend came and cockblocked him. Jalen was with me but I ditched him to get a blowjob and then I found out that he….”

-Suddenly, Mr. Beans paused mid-sentence abruptly. He really didn’t look like he was with us anymore, just like he was describing in his story. He looked like he was reliving the whole thing again and I swear to you that his eyes started watering. Maybe it was just me, but I’m pretty sure some of the other guys can attest to it as well.-

“I was scared fellas.” He finally said. “You know what astral projection is, Cannon?”

Why the f**k are you asking me?  

That's what I wanted to say, but I decided to just go along with it. Maybe he likes me or something. Better friends than enemies in a place like this. 

“I think so.” I said. “Like flying out of your body or something right?” 

“Pretty much.” He replied. He still looked pretty spaced out but he was on the moon now which was better than 30 seconds prior. What he looked like then was being somewhere lost in a galaxy called Nebulan 5. Either that or he was having a stroke of some sorts. 

“That’s what it felt like when I held that gun, only I was living everybody’s experience. Not just my own. It was like I was in 5 different bodies at the same time, and again, it scared me beyond whits end. Do you read?”

For a moment, I didn’t know what he was talking about, let alone talking to me. Then I understood. By his mat and his old sack lunch on the ground was a pretty decent sized book. It had a bookmark tassel sticking out of it and then I knew. 

“I used to go to church.” I said, almost shamefully. “I read a little bit.” 

Mr. Beans smiled almost forcefully and grabbed his book and set it on his lap. “My momma always used to tell me, if I was ever in trouble, call upon the name of Jesus.” He said. 

“Only been a handful of times in my life that I ever did that. One time was when I got that little STD scare I mentioned. Another time was when the doctor said my son might come into this world a little deformed cause he was born prematurely. That experience with the gun was another moment I admitted my powerlessness over to him. Maybe you’ve done it too. This is your first time in jail ain’t it?”

“Yea. It sucks.”

“And you prolly already done asked God if things are gonna be okay, haven’t you?” 

 “Yea, I have. Still am if we’re being honest.”

“There’s power in that name, don’t ever forget it. I ask’d him for help right then. To get me back to the real world and out of that nightmare. And you know what? One minute I was feeling what heroin felt like from that girl, the next minute, I was back in Kentucky 30 minutes away from Elizabethtown talking with that old merchant again. I damned near cried, I was so relieved to be out of it.”

For a moment, he stopped talking and appeared to be almost in a trance like state. He wasn’t in Nebulan 5 anymore but he sure as hell wasn’t any closer to earth as we’ve come to understand it. We all waited for what he was going to say next, almost like the way a crowd at a basketball game waits to see if that last attempt before the buzzer times out is the winning shot of the season.

“I bought the gun.” He finally said. I brought 150 dollars with me and gave him every last of it. I didn’t want to bargain or barter. I just gave him the money and took the gun and walked away with it. Her old man was furious, talkin bout it was only worth half of that and I paid too much for it and so on and so forth. I didn’t care. The only thing I was thinkin about was that I needed to show this to my cousin. If I knew at the time what that decision would do to my life - end a happy marriage, cause a long life relationship with a family member to fall in shambles, make me a felon - I would have just left it alone. But of course, I couldn't have known it was gonna do all that. 

When I got home, my wife thought nothing of it. She was raised around guns after all, and owning a firearm was just as normal as eatin ribs with your hands instead of a fork, though I have seen some people make the attempt, God knows why.

I got on the phone and called my cousin and told him what I just told all of you, minus the part of how it seemed to project me back into time. Course he tells me I’m crazy and I must be hittin the bottle again and this and that. That was, until I asked him if he remembered the serial number. His reaction, as I suspected it would be, was inevitable. 

‘How the hell would I know something like that after all these years?’ He asked me. I could tell in his voice that he was getting concerned about my mental state, and it was rare for Thomas to be concerned about anything. 

‘You wouldn’t’ I told him. ‘But I bet you you’d remember the only number left on it.’ 

He didn’t immediately say anything to this and for a minute, I thought we had been disconnected until he asked me ‘What number would that be?’

‘A seven.’ I calmly told him. ‘The only number that had meant any-"

-‘How many sevens?’ He asked me. 

It didn’t bother me that I had been interrupted. And let me tell you that being interrupted has got to be one of the worst pet peeves I have with today’s day and age. But like I said, it didn’t bother me that day. Not in the slightest. Because I knew he was finally taking this thing a little more serious now. What was frightening was that I didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing.

‘Three.’ I said. ‘There’s more, but you scratched it off to make it have three sev-’

-He laughed (interrupting for the second time) and told me to stop f*****g with him. I told him I was not, and to get his a*s over my place as soon as possible. He told me he couldn’t do it until his girl came back home to watch their kid but he would come over afterwards. Give or take 3 hours later, he did stop by. No call, no text, no nothin. Typical Thomas for you. Just shows up with me lying on the living room couch thinking the time could not move any slower. When he came in the door, the formalities and greetings were quick. I wanted to get straight to business. I could tell that he did, too.

I gave him the gun and he looked at it and studied it for a long while, just as I had when I bought it. From the outside looking in, I really hoped I didn’t have the blank facial expression he had when I held it at the fairgrounds. Just as I had felt possessed, my cousin looked like he was possessed; staring at it the way he did. I didn’t like that look. I snatched it out of his hands and I he got mad and half lunged for it. 

‘Is it the gun or is it not?’ I asked him, holding it back away from him. His eyes were wide and distraught like a frightened animals. Right then, I wanted to destroy the f*****g thing more than ever. ‘Thomas!’ I yelled. ‘Is it or is it not the damned gun?’

Slowly but surely, he was snapping out of that numb-like state of his and I felt a little relieved to see that he was. Finally, he said ‘Where’d you get it from again?’ 

I told him where I got it, and we both agreed to go there together in the morning and ask the guy ourselves. Remember, whatever he told me the day I purchased the gun, I wasn’t listening. Didn’t hear a damned thing he said to me. I was back in the 90’s. When I came too, I had just given him some money and walked off with it. My cousin didn’t believe me on that one either but I told him he was just goin have to see for himself. And he did see gentlemen. That, he did. 

I took him to that outdoor flee market on the fairgrounds and ignored his comments, for I had said the same things to my father-in-law when he took me there the first time. The problem, I discovered, was actually finding the same merchant again. There was just so many. That, and there was no guarantee the same guy would even be there anymore. And if he was, would he even be in the same spot? After hours of walking around, I found that he was. Same beard, some tootless grin, same whiskey breath. It was our guy.

Me and my cousin both approached him and asked if he remembered me or not. He said that he did; that it wasn’t everyday a colored person comes out and buys a gun out in the middle of nowhere. If it were any other time, I think I would have punched him but this wasn’t any other time. I asked him again where he got it. He said he didn’t like that tone in my voice, that he already told me, and that if I was the police from the city, then it was totally legal what he was doing. I told him I wasn’t and that I was just curious. 

‘Ain’t got no safety on it.’ My cousin added. ‘Just wanted to know who’d make something like that. I want one and here we are.’ 

‘Well gee.’ The old man said. ‘What I told you before is all I really know about it. Plus’-he was looking directly at my cousin now- ‘I don’t have another one. Highly doubt that I ever will.’ 

I told him I didn’t remember, and that I was in a hurry that day. After pressing him for a bit, he finally told me and my cousin how he came across it. Or should I say, how it came across him.

‘There’s a gun stop over near Murray, Kentucky.’ He told us. ‘Sergeants, I think they call it. Well, I gotta cousin over thataways that loves that place. He loves it so much that he works there now. That’s where he got the gun from and after a long night of drinkin, I told em I’d trade em a bottle of moonshine for that there thing your holdin in your hands. Honestly I didn’t think I could sell it, being how its beat up the way it is but you fellas seem to take a fair keen interest in it.’ At this, the man laughed, exposing a disturbing (but brief) revelation that the teeth he had probably wouldn’t be sticking around much longer. 

‘Sergeants?’ My cousin asked. ‘That’s the name of a gun store?’

‘Well yea, but it’s more like a tactical warehouse. Guns is just part of it. They sell ropes, knives, flashlights, vests, quick draw holsters. Things like that. Bunch of outdoorsmen s**t if your into it.’

‘Why would they have this gun there?’

‘I dunno.’ the old man said. ‘They take in alot of used s**t and the guy who owns the place used to be a cop, hence the name of the store. Some of them guns they get, they get em from criminal cases. Lost and stolen, returns from fired deputies; just a bunch of s**t the legal system ain’t got time to dispose of really.’ 

‘That’s legal?’ we both said. The old man just takes a good stare at us before finally telling us that if we thought it to be that outrageous, then maybe we’d should just go back to California where we’d come from.

‘We’re from here. Louisville.’ My cousin told him.

‘That ain’t no f****n Kentucky.’ The merchant said, and for the first time since I’ve encountered the man, I could tell it was a little more than just the booze talking now. 

‘You think you two are the first I’ve sold to; that we’ve sold too? I get all the time that what we’re doing here is difficult for any city slicker to comprehend. That maybe there’s something wrong with how we do things out here. And for a time, I was thinkin maybe them folks from the city was right. Maybe somethen is wrong with us. But then I look at you two, and all the rest that’s come before and plenty more to come after you, and I see that I’m not the one in the wrong.’

I didn’t catch his meaning. I thought maybe it was just another drunk redneck talking s**t. I could tell my cousin wanted nothing of it and was nudging me to go along and leave the old timer to rant. But I didn’t. I shook and nodded my head to affirm I was listening to the man as he went on.

‘I’ve been livin in this town for over 40 years.’ He continued. ‘40 years and I have only heard of one fatal shooting, and that was over a man protectin his property against the town meth addict sneakin on the ranch again. Joe didn’t even mean to kill the man, but he had bled out on the way to the hospital and you know what? Legal system here threw that case away. What’d they do in your city for somethen like that? Shootin a man vandalizing your property?

He wanted an answer, so I told him the best one I could come up with. I wasn’t no damn lawyer but it made sense to me when I told him: ‘it depends’. And that was the damned truth of it. Depends if you was really in danger or not, depends if the other guy had a weapon pointed at you, depended if you was white or black, depended on alot of things. It. Just. F*****g. Depends, fellas. 

‘We don’t have that it 'depends' problem here.’ The old man told us. ‘Like I said, of all my time here, I’ve only heard of one shooting. How many shootings you guys have happen where you live over the past 40 years?’ 

Both of us said nothing. Me because I was thinking this guy made somewhat of a point. My cousin because he just wanted to go already.

‘That’s why I moved out to Elizabethtown’ I finally told him. ‘I'm done with the city.’ 

At this, the man nodded to me and eye to eye, I could see that even though I was colored, he welcomed me here. Just had to play by the rules, just like anywhere else. In Compton you can’t wear blue in certain parts. Over here, you didn’t wear red when UK got beat by the Cardinals. Where I’m from, you didn’t wear red not just because of some silly basketball game, you didn’t wear red cause you didn’t want to get shot over a silly basketball game. Two different worlds. Both had the same aspects that if you played your part, then there wouldn’t be any problems. Then the man stuck out his hand to me and smiled that half assed toothless grin I wanted to so dearly punch out no more than 5 minutes ago. And then we shook fellas. We shook. Just like men should.

‘Welcome to the neighborhood brother.’ Was what he said. I’d never forget that. My cousin on the other hand, was still giving me that look. That ‘I want to get the hell out of here ASAP’ look, and I didn’t blame him. He and I were both from the city and we as men, decided to choose our own paths. He chose the city. I chose something else. 

‘You fish? Hike? Any of that?’ The merchant asked me, grinning. I saw in the corner of my eyes my cousin rolling his. 

‘No, I told him, but I’d like to take my boy when he gets older. We could learn together.’ 

He turned that grin into that smile of his smile and claps me on the back. ‘Best fishin in all of Kentucky, not countin Purduca of course.’ 

‘Maybe I should go there then.’ 

He then shot me a glance that I didn’t really care much for, but I knew what it meant. ‘Probably not a good idea. Not yet. Make some friends here first and go with them but even if you do, probably not a good idea.’

I just nodded and told him I understood and told him thanks for the info he gave us about the gun. ‘Guess that’s all we’re gonna know.’ Thomas enthusiastically commented. That comment was coated in sarcasm. The old man heard this.

‘Well gee, if you boys are that serious about it, I guess I could give old wet brain a call to get the number of the store.’

And so he did fellas. Right in front of us on speaker phone. His wet brain cousin picked up, said he’d call em back, that he was drunker than s**t in a whorehouse somewhere, and he’d give it to us when he could. I said it was okay if he gave him my number and that was that. I didn’t think he would call back and I was already preparing to just look the number up myself when we got home later on. 

Well, later that night, me and Thomas did every damn Google search you could think of and nothing came out of it. Sergeants was a b***h of a keyword to use. S**t about Army and Marine veterans and Murray State College kept popping up but no gun stores. We looked up the gun stores there, called them, and none had an answer for us. ‘Nope. Never heard of it.’ or ‘You mean the memorial cemetery?’ I was about to just give up when I got the call. It was the merchant’s cousin wet brain. He sounded like he had been drinking but he wasn’t slurring too badly for me to not understand what he was saying. He gave me the number to the store, but that’d they probably would never pick up. They never did in places like that. He told me if I wanted to check it out, I’d have to drive there. 

So I said f**k it and drove fellas. As stupid as the whole thing sounds (could've been a trap for all I knew), I decided it was worth it. I drove all the way to Murray State Kentucky, with that damned gun in the glove box which was about 3 hours from Elizabethtown. It was damn near on the borderline of Missouri. And then I-”

-There was a banging on the cell door and Mr. Beans stopped in the middle of his story. The door swung open. All of us turned around in an instant towards the loud banging sound it made. The CO stepped in but he wasn’t throwing out paper lunch sacks this time. He was calling people’s names for another reason. One of the names called was Mr. Beans.

“What is it again? I’m in the middle of something here.” Mr. Beans said. I could see that he looked pissed. 

“Meds." The CO replied. "Gotta get you med checked so you can move up to population. Can’t get you up there without the okay from the doc. Especially with that arthritis you got going on.”

“Oh, I almost forgot. Well, let me get my Bible. I don’t go anywhere without it you know.”

“We know Mr. Beans, we know.” The CO replied, with a faint smile.

“Did I ever tell you my momma said ain’t nothin impossible with the power of Christ on your side?” 

“Yes, Mr. Beans you did. Mrs. Ashburn from your church called to tell you to be strong.” 

  “Aww, Mrs. Ashburn. Whoo wee! God sure blessed me with that one! She still gotta behind like a 20 somethen year old!”

“Your story.” I said. “You’re coming back and finishing your story, right?” 

Mr. Beans was up and about now, oblivious that I had just spoken no less than 5 feet from him. His blanket was neatly folded and his bible was clenched tightly in his right, bony hand. He was about to bend down and pick up what was left of the two previous paper bags we had gotten when someone next to him rolled over and scooped it up and handed it to him. 

“Why thank you, son. Maybe there is hope for all you young fellas respectin your elders and the like. But don’t respect this a*****e here.” He pointed at the CO and laughter sprung and bounced about within our cell walls. The CO was about to say something when Mr. Beans told him “You know I’m messin with you. Fellas,” he said, turning around to look at all of us, “this here is probably one of the best CO’s they got in this s**t hole. Treat him good and he’ll treat you good. Trust me, I’ve done seen what the opposite can do.”

The CO paused his tongue. Reconsidered what to say next, if anything. “Telling them another bed time story?” The CO asked playfully. Mr. Beans was walking over mats here and there, being careful not to step on anyone but even more so careful not to fall and break a f*****g hip. 

“Yea, just tellin em bout that damned gun. Did I ever tell you about it?” 

The CO shook his head. “No, don’t think you have. You have so many it’s hard to keep track.” 

Mr. Beans was near the CO at this point, and together, they walked out of the cell and into the hallway and off to the medical examiner's office. Wherever the hell that was. Even when the door shut, we could still hear him talking as he strolled slowly down the hallway until his voice was but something faint in the emptiness we were all so used to being in. 

“I thought I told ya’ll about that one. That damned gun was a pain in my a*s, I swear to you. Did you know it’s been to over 10 different States?”

“Oh really? No Mr. Beans, I didn’t know that.”

“Yep, it sure has. Hell, I even found out the damned thing traveled across the-”

And by then, I could hear no more. All I could think of now was hearing the rest of his story, absent of asking the CO if I could get breathalyzed again. I just hoped the old man wouldn’t have a heart attack before finishing it. And with that, I laid my head down and slept for a while.

IV

Dinner was served in a paper bag again. This time it was some kind of tuna sandwich wrapped sloppily in saran wrap with a side of yogurt, two celery sticks, a packet of Kool-Aid, and a red apple. I ate the apple and half of the sandwich but could bear no more. To hell with being sober if the cost is getting some kind of stomach virus. That didn’t stop some of the others from bargaining over this and over that. Some was still trading breakfast items, much to my surprise. The highest bid always seemed to go towards those little Kool-Aid packets. I noticed very quickly that a man would be willing to trade in not only an entire sandwich for one of those Kool-Aid packets, but his soul as well. I decided to see what the big fuss was about. 

The flavor I had was cherry, a flavor I had found repugnant since my childhood. It didn’t make it any better that the water we were using was from the sink right above the shitter, activated briefly by the push of a button. The water sprouted weakly from it, as if the very construct itself defied the very reason it was created. Looking at the water alone made me want to turn away, a mixture of heavy clouds and small particles moving sluggishly throughout it. 

When I tasted the Kool-Aid however, I could see why a man would trade or even kill for it. Put simply, it was delicious. Even with the horrible conditions of the water, it tasted sweet with a bit of tarty flavor yet as fresh as the sun going up to begin a new day. I didn’t even really mix it that well (given what I had to work with) and it was a wonder I could mix it at all, but it made no difference. The Kool-Aid in jail was the best I have ever had in my life. 

As I walked from the shitter fountain back to my matt, I noticed there were less bodies occupying the room now. Still crowded, the cell didn’t feel as 'stuffy' anymore. Mr. Beans had not returned, but his mattress still remained in the same position as he had left it. I sat on my mattress, Indian style with legs crossed, and carefully took small sips of the Kool-Aid so it wouldn’t spill on me or the mattress I now called my bed. It was already halfway gone, as the sizes of the plastic cups they gave us were no bigger than a child’s cup from McDonalds, if that. 

Next to Mr. Beans’ mattress, sat a stack of neatly collected books. I squinted my eyes to get a good look at the top one, as I did not want to touch the man’s possessions, and I saw that it was an AA book. I liked to read, but had no interest in such things at that time of my life. I sighed with frustration, my impatience now more than ever crawling away at my temper. 

I laid back down and instead, tried to focus on other things outside of the cell, though I felt it would make things worse. I thought what my girlfriend at the time was doing. I wondered if she even knew I was here and if so, how worried she might be. Then I wondered if she cared at all. We had been going up and down in our relationship in the last couple of months and I doubted if her knowing I was in jail would help with anything. I thought about my mother, how Mr. Beans was talking about his. She too, had talked to me about God and the good graces of our Lord above. I thought then that I was being punished by turning away from her, calling her belief system she clung so dearly to, nothing more than a bunch of hog wash created by a bunch of primitive old drunks who had nothing better else to do but tell fables and tales. Tales like Mr. Beans had told. Tales that probably many of us in here thought was just hog wash from an old man who couldn’t tell his first name from his last. But if that was true, why were we so drawn to it? Or better yet, were we drawn to it at all or were we simply bored?

As I reflected upon this, I decided that we were indeed, drawn to it. Bullshit or not, we were more than drawn to it; we were indulged in it. And, I reasoned with myself, suppose if we didn’t believe in it, would it really have mattered so long as the man who told us himself, believed in it? It was then that I wanted desperately to call my mother. Tell her I fucked up, and fucked up bad. I wasn’t just facing a DUI. I was facing resisting arrest, reckless endangerment, and telling an officer to go f**k himself. I wasn’t sure what charge that would fall under, but I was pretty confident that they’d throw it in there somehow, someway. Then I decided it was best not to think about things like that in jail either. It was hard not to when all you had was time, and it was then, that I wanted to grab that AA book in hopes that it would take my mind off of things. 

I did so (casually instead of carefully), with no objection from the other inmates. Tip toeing and being sneaky drew more intention to you. Made it looked like you were up to no good with malicious intent. 

I observed that the book underneath it was some article about the miracles Jesus could do in our lives. I stuck to AA instead. Luckily for me, this book also had stories. Stories from the words of alcoholics that had also been in my position, if not worse. And that was the thing, I wanted to read of worse. I wanted to read something that would make my situation look like a walk in the park, and I did read of such stories. The first story right off the bat was of a man who had not just one, not two, but 7 damn DUI’s in his lifetime. Each story I read was a little more obscene, a little more drastic than the last. As for the first story, his seventh DUI had been his last drink because he had hit somebody, killed them, and did some harsh time for it. 

I didn't particularly like the idea that I was deriving from someone else's failures in order to be optimistic about my own, but it was what I needed. While I was reading, some of the other guys were talking about how they got into this mess. Heroin, a thing that would ultimately take the life of my own cousin years later, was among some of the reasons these guys were here. One guy talked about how his wife set him up for domestic violence while another willingly opened up about a fist fight that had gotten a bit out of hand and someone had gotten shot as a result of it. I laid there thinking to myself, that I needed to be grateful. And then there was Mr. Beans and his story.

The CO had told him that he’d had so many stories, that they had lost track of all of them. At this I wondered who is this Mr. Beans fellow honestly? Was he really just a senile old man or was he, behind closed doors, a mobster? It was really hard to tell, but I knew one thing: I had to admire the man. As I continued reading (and getting sleepy), I thought that maybe it would be my turn to tell the stories someday. I shuddered at the thought.

When Mr. Beans came back to us, I had already fallen asleep plus had woken up to breakfast thrown at my face. My body was giving me the sure signs that a hangover was looming overhead and I really wished for a f*****g aspirin instead of an apple. I was halfway through the meal when they let the old man back in. He was a bit groggy, but otherwise still the cheerful old man I remembered when we last saw him here. 

“Mornin fellas.” He said with a smile. He was walking around the mats and as I looked, I noticed some of those free spaces had been filled with new bodies. I supposed that made sense because it had been a Saturday night and surely every weekend there’s some unlucky b*****d who must take the fall for the sins of the outside world and spend their weekend in here.

The CO called my name and told me it was time to take the breathalyzer. I was surprised they had even offered this late in the game. I blew and out came a point 12. 

I was almost there. 

“You should be out by noon or so with a reading like that.” The officer said. 

All I had to do was go back to sleep and by the time I’d wake up, I’d be good. But something came over me just then. I didn’t want to go back to sleep just yet. I decided enough with the bullshit. I was going to hear his story to the end. Whether he remembered telling it or not. But unlike last time, we didn’t need to ask him. He just picked up where he left off, and those of us that were still here when he began stopped talking and listened. 

V

“Like I said, I ended up just driving to the damned place myself. Murray, if ya’ll was paying attention. Didn’t even know what I was even really looking for either. I guess you could say it was answers, but I knew when I got in that car that it wasn’t going to end with that. But what I did know was it’d be a start. And it scared me.

I pulled into an old building, with the sergeant emblem on it (the merchant had shown me what it looked like before I left town) and pulled over to the side of the road. I walked into a ghostly looking place, a bit disorganized and abandoned. Racks here and there with old military jackets and khakis, some cases along the back wall with all kinds of various accessories and gizmos to put on your weapon, another glass table with a bunch of hunting knives of the like on top of em. When I opened the door, a bell rang and suddenly I heard the growl of a dog nearby and then the barking began. It was a German Shepard if I recall correctly, and it ran right up to me from out of nowhere and just started barking away. 

I typically didn’t mind dogs and I’ve come close to a few encounters that could leave a scar on my a*s but this dog in front of me just had the look of a killer written all over it. I think the damned thing was racist to be honest. I took a step back and this seemed to only empower it to bark all the more, edging closer to me with each snap of its jaws. I wanted to kick the son of a b***h but I knew by doing so, it would possibly get me in some deep s**t not just with the dog, but with the owners. A man called out for the dog and like that, he shut right up. 

I was suddenly face to face with a man whom didn’t look the slightest bit of friendly and I couldn’t tell if it was because of me or just because that’s just how he normally looked. He was a stalky looking fellow with a reddish half assed trimmed beard.

‘Help you?’ He asked. 

I told him I had some questions about a certain gun that I had bought out in Elizabethtown and that I could find the answer here. He told me he thought he knew who I was talking about and told me he didn’t do refunds or none of that but that’s when I stopped him in midway sentence.

‘It ain’t about how it works.’ I told him. He looked a little relieved at that but precautious all the same, like I was still up to no good. He raised his eye brow at me and says ‘well what do you got then?’ and so I gave it to him. He stares at it for a moment in disbelief, as if he never expected to see the thing again in his life. Quickly, he says ‘what’s your question?’ 

‘I want to know how the hell it got here'. Next thing you know, we’re in the back of the store and we’re both smoking goddamn camel filtered cigarettes. I had told him my story, the same one I told the merchant and the same one I’m tellin ya’ll now. After hearing it, he almost laughed but I quickly sensed that there was nothing funny about the situation. 

‘Thought I’d never see that f*****g thing again.’ He finally says to which I nodded in agreement. He reaches over to a mini fridge and pulls out a Budweiser and hands me one. ‘Drink?’ I declined respectfully and he shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, you might change your mind after I tell you where we got that there piece in your hand.’ He wasn’t lying. I did have a drink after he told me where he got it from. As I feared, it only opened up more questions."-

-For what seemed like a long time, Mr. Beans didn’t say anything more. He only stared with eyes taken aback with nostalgia at the wall within the edifice known as the home away from home to many of us by now. Finally, and abruptly, he came back to reality and let out a long and depressed sigh. I believe at this point, one more minute of silence would cause us to grapple with the old man, demanding what happened next.-

“Pretty much.” He finally said, looking as if emerging from a long voyage of a maze full of mist, “the gun has been damn near everywhere.” 

“Not just the states, either. I can’t really remember the order exactly, but it was for a time, in Canada, Mexico, and in South America. You see, after that man told me where he got it from back in Murray, strange things started happening. It’s like the answers to its itinerary started coming to me, instead of me coming to it. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s true. 

I’d just be at home, flipping through the channels and come across the news. Saw somethen about a four year old robbery/murder spree solved out in California. The anchorman would talk a little about the case and then they’d switch it over to the prosecutor who would then talk about the murder weapon, the evidence, and all that good jazz. Course there was no weapon at the trial, because it was right here with me. Then the video footage came out.  

I watched in despair at the dumb b*****d (whoever the f**k it was) on live camera, running in that store, drawing out that pistol-my pistol-and firing it, before taking the money and fleeing the scene. I’d pause it right there (we had DVR) and really look at the gun through the video surveillance and sure enough, it looked like mine. Though it was kind of blurry, I could indeed tell, that it was mine. So I called the court house to ask where those case documents were and how I could find them online. Don’t forget fellas, that everything in court is public information. The suspect at trial described the weapon. Same description, same caliber, same serial number (what was left of it anyway), same damn gun. 

Well, during the cross examination sequence, that fellow said he got it from another fellow in New Mexico who worked for the cartel. The guy was known for working with the cartels, and the suspect gave up his name. Course the suspect died in prison a little after he was sentenced, but I did research on the Mexican fellow anyhow. Turned out he was a gun runner. 

Well, the FBI seized his s**t at the State boarder of Nevada during a run and after some intensive searching, they found his inventory stash and there it was, my cousins gun listed among them. I don’t know where the FBI fucked up at because next thing you know, the gun was taking a little trip out to Canada. Or South America. One of the two. 

I know this because months afterwards, the guy from Murray calls me asking if I still had the gun or not. I told him I did. He told me he’d buy it back from me for twice the price and then some. ‘Now what’s this all about?’ I asks him and he told me a Hispanic fellow in Canada, (Vancouver I think it was) called him asking about the very weapon I’m telling you boys about today. At that point, it was getting hard to sleep at night, and my wife was noticing. I’d fall asleep thinking someone, from somewhere, wanted that gun back and they were gonna find me. I don’t know why I thought that, but I did. 

Ultimately, I gave it back to my cousin, who gladly took it back. He kept pestering me about it and I finally just caved in. Gentlemen, on my mother's grave, I assure you that gun is what got my cousin killed some 3 years ago.”

-Right then, I saw what seemed to be a silent tear succinctly slip from the ducts of the man’s left eye.- 

“It started with him not showing up to the family functions, birthdays, and being real slow at returning my calls and the like. Nobody really thought nothing of it at the time. We had kids, hell, even little Jalen had a kid and was about ready to buy a house, so I understood that. But still, something wasn’t really right about the whole thing. Finally, he asked me out of nowhere if he could come over. You know, shoot the s**t, have a beer, smoke one; whatever. Of course, this was my cousin we’re talking about. And if I knew my cousin, I knew something had to be really bothering him to come all the way out to my neck of the woods just to have a damn beer.

He shows up, and he looks like he had lost about a good ten pounds or so. He had dark bags underneath his eyes and his cloths looked like they haven’t been washed in weeks. I haven’t seen him in damn near a year besides the social media and all that, and that wasn’t too often neither. So, we’re in the living room and the wife is making dinner and it’s really just me and him. The kid was in there with us, but he had fallen asleep some couple hours ago watchin that Nickelodeon s**t. 

‘Man, I think you was right about this gun.’ He finally says. 

‘Yea?’ I says back to him. ‘And what’s that?’ 

And so he explained to me that not long after I gave him that gun, he started getting these phone calls with no ID on it. He’d pick up, say hello, and then whoever it was would hang up. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, he told me a disturbing chill would run down the middle of his spine in reaction to the silence on the other end. He told me he started to get paranoid. He never used to take the gun with him, for the serial number was scratched off of it and that’d be illegal if he was caught with it. So he’d usually have something legit on him. Pretty soon, probably a month or so after the strange calls, he began to think someone was out to get him. And they wanted to get him for the gun, for as I told you fellas before, that gun had a lot of history behind it. Bad, nasty, hateful history. Pure evil if we’re gonna be all the way honest.  

Some months after the paranoia, it got real bad. He was convinced that his own girl was after the gun, so that’s when he started carrying it around with him, even though to get caught with something like that would mean instant trouble. He didn’t care, for he explained to me with pleading eyes that whoever had that gun last had kilt somebody with it, and they wanted the damn thing back. I don’t know how he knew that, and he really didn’t bother to explain it neither.

Things, for the most part, were getting out of control at his place. He wasn’t sleeping, he was clocking in late to work, and his old lady was thinking that he was having some type of an affair because he’d be out all night. He’d turn his cell phone off (to stop the strange calls that occasionally came and went) and this made it worse.

‘Why’d you stay out so late’ I asked him and he told me he just didn’t feel safe at his house anymore. Plain and simple as that. 

Well, one night, he came home about 1 am in the morning after drinking a bit. He lived in the city still, and even though he had a house, they didn’t have no garage. You had to park on the street (one of the things I don’t miss about my old city by the way). Anyways, since he came home late, most of the parking spots close to his place were all racked up, so he had to go around the block looking for one. This occasionally would happen from time to time, especially on the weekends, so he thought nothing of it. Just didn’t make it in time to beat everybody else, he thought. Well he found one, and it was by some convenient store called the Circle S. Maybe you’ve heard of it. His neighborhood wasn’t the best when it came to crime enough as it was, but to him, he was used to the crazy s**t. 

‘He’d tell me if you just minded your own business, 9 times out of 10, you’d get left the f**k alone.’ 

Well, that night, he was minding his own and that 10% chance of something happening to him happened. It wasn’t no robbery or nothin like that, but it scared the black off of him nonetheless. For my cousin, the man who has gotten shot at and lived, who has seen his fair days behind bars on multiple occasions, who was used to dealing in drugs; for this man to tell me that what he saw left him shivering. In conclusion, it must’ve been pretty damn bad. 

He told me it was like any other night: some hoopin and hollering here and there, the Johnston’s down the street were having a domestic dispute again, youngsters posted up on the corner of the Circle S asking my cousin if he wanted some dope; ‘the normal’ is what he told me. 

Well, he’s walking past all of this s**t, or in it, and when he turns around the block to walk down the street to his house, he told me he saw something standing there looking at him funny. It was some pale white girl and by her height (4’6 or so), he thought from the distance it looked like a child. She was wearing some kind of eloquent red dress with some white checker patterns going across it. 

He said he stopped right there dead in his tracks, a bit puzzled. A couple of thoughts swirled around his mind then. The first one was even though this wasn’t an all-black neighborhood, he ain’t never seen little white girl like that all his time living there. Well, big whoop. 

‘People move in and move out’ I told him.

He just put his hand up in a ‘let me finish’ gesture, and I reclined back in my chair to hear him out. 

The second thing that puzzled him was that his street was usually full of some kind of activity, day or night. Youngsters playing ball, Mrs. Delores rocking on the porch three houses down, police cars patrolling; he said it was always something. 

But right then and there, he told me for that moment in time, it was just him and that little white girl alone on the whole street. Even the noise from the block he had just walked from moments ago had ceased. He told me he felt like he wasn’t part of this world anymore, if that makes any sense. Of course I was thinking at the time ‘it’s called tunnel vision you fool, and your getting older’ but I held my comments to myself and let him finish. 

He must have known that because now he was telling me as he approached that girl, or whatever it was, he began to see that the colors on her dress were backwards. The dress was really supposed to be white and the linear patterns were supposed to be red. The red began to turn into splotches, and the splotches began to turn into little specks of dark matter scattered here and there. Getting worried now, extremely worried actually, he reached for his pistol and firmly placed his hand around the grip and that’s when he started having trouble finishing the rest of the story to me. 

We took a little time out and I went in the kitchen to go grab him some Dr. Pepper or whatever. I came back into the living room to see him sweating a little, though the temperature in the house was at a 70 flat. I asked him if he was okay, and he says ‘yea’ and takes the soda can and downs it. He asked me if I had any more beer left. I called to my wife to bring him some, and when she couldn't, said that she was busy chopping up celery, I got up and grabbed it for him. After chugging the thing, he pulled himself together and continued to tell me what it was that he saw. 

‘As soon as I did that, grabbed that gun the way I did, something terrible happened.’ He said. According to him, when he blinked, that girl suddenly became no more than how far Mr. Cannon is from me and she was still coming towards him. I had to think about that for a second. That had to be about a 30 foot jump on the drop of a pen. My cousin at the time said he was trembling in his hands, though he was trying hard to hide it. When that girl was damn near nose to nose in his face, he saw that it wasn’t no girl at all, but an older woman. Her face was about 40 or so, but she had the body of 12 year old. I wanted to ask him: 

‘Well how’d ya know if her body was 12 if she was all up in ya face and the like?’ but he answered that question on his own yet again.

‘Her hand slammed against my hand grippin that gun.’ He explained. He said it felt just like a kids hands, soft to the touch and not yet scorn by the hardships of this world. He told me even though she was in his face, the skin of her neck was smooth; no wrinkles or veins or none of that s**t. But the face that stared at him was sagging and had skin tags on her nose and eye lids. Her eyes were also drooping down, almost like someone was having a stroke. She was weeping and that red stuff on her dress, the blood supposedly, was on her face too. He then told me hesitantly, that he swore that she was weeping blood. He seemed to have been saying this to himself instead of to me. As if trying to convince himself over something that he was trying hard to forget. 

She screamed something at him, but he couldn’t understand what it was; she was speaking in a language not familiar to him. He would tell me later that it was French, but at that moment, he didn’t care what it was. All he cared about was getting home to his girl and kid and for the first time in his life, hoped a f****n cop would show up. But they don’t. Not when you really need them, they don’t. I think a lot of you fellas can vouch for that. 

‘Pistolet! Pistolet! Meurte meurte!’

That’s what she kept screaming frantically, eyes streaming with crimson red tears. All the while with those little hands of hers tightly wrapped around that gun. He said she had screamed a bunch of other things too, but that’s what stuck in his head and probably has until the day he died. Paralyzed, he told me all he could do was close his eyes and pray. Just like I told you boys what I did at the flea market. It must have worked because next thing you know, the girl/lady thing disappeared. 

My cousin told me he then booked it with no questions asked, hand on that pistol as tight as ever. He ran like that all the way til he got home. Panting like hell (and considering he should probably give up the weed habit), he finally reached his porch. 

He ran up the stairs and started fumbling around for the keys. His curiosity wanted him to look behind the shoulder but the center part of his brain told him to just find the damn key. He found it, unlocked the door, and leaped into his house. His curiosity would get the better of him though; tricked him, if you will. Because he still needed to turn around to shut the door.

So when he turned to shut the door, he peeked one last time. It would also be the last time he would see her too. He put great emphasis on that statement. Turning quickly to lock the door, there she was, at the bottom steps of his porch, pointing at that gun with a shaky finger and saying the same thing as before. He slammed it shut, dead bolted it, and ran to turn all the lights on in his house. Of course, he woke up the baby with all his runnin around (which to no surprise to anyone), woke up his old lady. He didn’t care. With the baby beginning to cry and seeing that all the lights in the house were on, she confronted him, worried (but more so angry). His words to her were ‘call the police b***h! Call the police!’ And so she did. The police got there and I don’t really need to tell you guys the rest do I?”

-We stood silent. I wasn’t sure if it mattered anymore what we thought came next or not. We just wanted to hear it coming from him at this point. He didn’t give us much time to ponder about it, which was good. The few seconds of mid suspense was already starting to drive me mad. -

“Of course I do.” Mr. Beans said matter-of-fact like. “They arrested him. First they threw him in the looney bin at the hospital, then they got him for all different types of s**t, but mostly for that stupid pistol. The dumbass wouldn’t take it off of his side when the police finally showed up. An officer noticed him gripping something underneath his shirt, recognized it was a gun, and freaked the f**k out. So that was that. 

Out of jail and on bond a couple weeks later, he secluded himself to everyone and thing around him. They took that pistol away from him, and that should have gave him some solace, but it didn’t. Whatever that thing was and what it did to him; the damage had been done. And it only got worse. He eventually lost his job and his old lady took the kid and left him out of fear that he indeed, had lost his mind. He’d walk back and forth in his house hours at a time and every now and then, peep out the window. It took about 3 months of him doing that s**t and an eviction notice from the landlord for him to finally reach out to me. The final thing that brought him physically to me however, wasn’t the girl or whatever it was that he saw. He had gotten robbed. And it was bad. 

He kind of skimmed over it pretty quickly, but from what I could get out of it, he had gotten robbed coming out of one of the liquor stores round his house. And there were plenty of those around. He had started drinkin and probably doing a bit more, but one night as he was coming home from the store, it happened. It was a two man gig and they had set him up. One asking for help while the other came from behind and put a gun to his back. Well, my cousin wasn’t really the one to run from death, needless to say. He was the one usually runnin towards the son of a b***h. 

After feeling the muzzle pressed against his back, he spun around at the perpetrator but not before elbowing the b*****d in the face along the way. A quick wrestling match ensued from there and he was able to take the gun away and then the sound of the gun rang through his ears. It fired like an automatic, he told me. My cousin then rolled over the top of the guy he had just shot and shot the other boy while he was runnin. Then he ran to his house scared shitless trying to register what had just happened, but not before grabbing the alcohol he dropped during the scuffle. They never caught him, which is why he was at my place. Must I tell you the gun used to fire those shots was the very one I have been telling you about this entire time? Again, of course I do, boys. Of course I do. 

I can see that you boys don’t believe me, and sometimes I don’t believe myself either. Unfortunately for me, I looked up the records myself. My cousin did indeed get booked around the time he said he saw that little girl. My cousin did indeed, get arrested for illegally possessing a firearm as a felon in this great country of ours. That firearm they recovered did indeed, match the very description of the one he had somehow wrestled away from some random thugs and held out in front of me as he told me this. As much as I wanted to say he was just going crazy, I couldn’t deny the moment I had when I bought the gun. Even more so, I couldn’t forget the wild goose chase it put me on out in Murray Kentucky. I eventually resonated with what had been told to me and subsequent to this, told him what I thought was right. I told him about my experience with the thing along with the research I’ve conducted.

What we concluded gentlemen, was as plain as it is f*****g day outside. We had to get rid of it. No questions asked. It needed to happen and it needed to happen fast. That was when things really went to s**t and I knew what we were dealing with wasn’t some delusion we’ve fortuitously conspired within the constructs of our seemingly senile minds. No, it was far worse than a quick trip to the 5th floor. If that would be the result, then I can gladly testify that that would be the good ending. Hello darkness, my old f****n friend and hello crayons and Telly Tubby coloring books! 

So right there in the living room while the wife was still cooking (and several Budweiser’s later), I concluded that we should do it together, and not at the place where we lost it all these years ago. I had a reason for this but Thomas immediately counter offered (which I knew he would) and said he’d do it alone. Said he’d do it his way. Said the Ohio River was a 10 minute drive down the street and up the 65 ramp toward Indiana. I tried to tell him no, but he absolutely insisted that he’d do it. We went back and forth on this for a good hour, I remember. It became painstakingly clear to me within a minute of arguing that no matter what I told him, he wasn’t taking no for an answer. At last, I couldn’t dispute it any longer. It was originally his gun after all, and if he wanted to end it, then that’s what he was gonna do. And that night was the last night I saw my cousin alive.

Not two months go by and I discovered he’d gotten gunned down outside his own house. Witnesses said that yes, he had acted unusual lately but nothing malicious-like. The motive behind the shooting to this day, remains unsolved. I didn’t need no PSA to tell me why it happened. Random acts of violence, they said. And since I suppose I was the only one that knew about that scuffle he had, I could even be safe to assume that those boys’ friends caught up to him. But I knew that wasn’t it. I tried to believe that was the reason, but something like an omen within my very soul was convincing my mind that it wasn’t.

At the funeral and through the crowd, for my cousin was pretty popular within the local metro community, I saw a man from a distance. When it was over and I was walking with my wife and boy to the car, he glared me down. It wasn’t any hate nor was there any malice in those eyes. It was just an empty glare, and I wanted to get the f**k out of there. I hurried my wife and boy to the car and told them to wait for me; that’d I’d be talking to an old friend real quick. I don’t know why or even how I had the courage to approach this man, but I did.

The man was by an old willow tree standing alone. He had a suit and tie on like everybody else, was clean shaven and freshly groomed. But there was something off about him and I cannot to this day, tell you what it was. He was neither young nor old, and to you, you’d probably say ‘oh, so about 25’ but that wasn’t it either. There was no smile and there was no indication that we even knew each other; he just followed each step I took with that stainless steel glare. 

When I approached him, he handed me something and I naturally took it and walked away. ‘You know what needs to be done. Finish the job and end all of this.’ I did not look back to ask any questions strictly out of fear but more so because I already knew. What he handed me, wrapped in a fresh nylon auburn cloth, was the goddamn gun as I already knew that it would be. Thoughts racing through my mind at the speed of light, they all pointed to the central foundation that what I held in my hand was not from this world. It’s origins unknown, it’s radiance was of something purely evil that thrived off the suffering and the damned. 

When we got back home, I stayed up all night wondering how I was going to do it. The gun, I had locked away tightly in a safe in our bedroom closet, where I prayed it would stay. Should I take it apart and melt the pieces? Give it back to the police? No, that wouldn’t work for a number of reasons given that they’ve lost it so many damn times. It was ridiculous to think they’d just take it back without any questioning from my end. My next thoughts, more like questions now, were should I just throw it in a river, just as my departed cousin had failed to do? Sell it to some foolish soul dumb enough to buy the damned thing as the merchant had done? 

 

I figured the latter wouldn’t work, as it did find its way to me again, which in turn, found its way back to my cousin. Pondering this, I couldn’t help but have an overwhelming wave of regret try to drown what little conscience I had left. It should of been me that ended up in the grave, not my cousin, for I was the one to give it to him. I cried that night and I’m not the least damned ashamed to admit it to you fellas. 

It would take me 2 years to finally come up with the plan, and in those 2 years, I had lost quite a bit. Everything but my life, it seemed. The gun wanted me alive for some reason. Perhaps to watch me suffer as literally everything I built from the ground began to fall back down to the earth. But for starters, it started f****n with my health. I ended up losing a lot of weight. I was constantly paranoid, though not as much as my cousin had been, but enough that people were getting worried about my mental health. Sleep was getting harder and harder to come by. Thought it'd be the coffee, but nope. Sleep still wasn't coming to me. As you can imagine, this made me feel like s**t after awhile.

After that, the next thing to go was my wife, just as my cousins lady had left him. My wife who, ended up taking the boy and threatening to file for divorce unless I sought out help. I refused to see anybody at the coo coo clinic. Because I couldn’t tell her what was really going on, you see. I couldn’t tell anybody because nobody was ever going to believe me. And even if they did, I feared that they would involuntarily now be involved with something that could very likely get them killed. Or worse. I did tell her something though. And it was partly the truth. What I told her was I felt my cousin’s untimely death had been my fault because I wasn’t there to back him up. 

‘Don’t say that.’ She’d tell me. ‘You would have gotten yourself killed with him.’ And she was probably right. But not because I wouldn’t have a gun on me. Never that. It’d be because I would have fallen victim just like everyone else did while in its possession, and it was starting to become the better option, given that the insomnia was absolutely maddening. In the end, I told her I’d get help, that I think it was just the whole grief thing having a toll on me. My proposal was that it had to be on my time though. That was the deal. 

For months she would threaten to leave me, that she was worried, that our boy was beginning to become afraid of me. And then one day, it happened. She told me it was over. She was shocked when I didn’t stop her from walking out the door. I wanted them gone. Didn’t want that damn gun to get them trying to get to me if you know what I’m sayin. So, they left. 

In the end, I decided to do it the way my cousin tried to do it, except I was gonna lock it in the safe. Wasn’t no need to weigh it down cause the b*****d by itself must have weighed every bit of 50 pounds or more empty. And so on a Saturday night, I threw the safe in the truck and drove back towards the city. I had forgotten one very important and obvious thing though, gentlemen. It was the same thing that landed my cousin in jail the night he saw that ghost b***h. I had the urge to keep the gun on me, making the safe idea completely useless. I don’t know why, and I shouldn’t really have to explain why. Something about that f*****g thing wanted to stick to you like a magnet so I told myself I’ll just have it on me just in case. But just in case what? Some random white supremacist decided to do a drive by shooting on me? To this day, I don’t know why, but I knew if they had gotten my cousin, then the forces behind that gun would surely attempt to get me too. And it did. But it wasn’t by no white supremacist or random ‘act of violence’. It was the police. 

I was about 10 minutes away from the 2nd Street Bridge and turning off of the Muhammad Ali exit when they got me. I didn’t really put up a fight, just did everything they told me to. License and registration and no sir, yes sir. That type of thing, which I’m sure you fellas are fondly familiar with by now. When running my ID, they noticed I had a permit to carry, saw the safe in the back of the pick up and asked if I had anything on me. Wasn’t no reason to lie to them. I simply told them I did. As I expected it would be, it went downhill from there. And I guess that's the end of the story, fellas.”

When Mr. Beans finished his story, there was a long moment of silence. Finally, I asked him “So you got a felony for a handgun?”

Mr. Beans looked startled, almost puzzled. “Felony? For a handgun possession? Heavens no! That was just a misdemeanor.” 

We all then looked as puzzled as he did. The ginger kid was the one to ask the last and final question that would ultimately shock us all. “Why are you on the felony roster then? Didn’t you say you was facing like a year or something?” 

Mr. Beans, still with that puzzled look on his face, told us something that to this day, convinced me he probably has an issue with dementia.

“I’m in here for my 5th DUI. I thought I told ya’ll that?”

Epilogue

I ended up getting out of jail roughly about a day after he told his story. Not because I was still drunk, but because by the time Mr. Beans finished his story, nobody was allowed to leave past 12 pm if I recall correctly. I wasn’t exactly sure, but I do remember blowing a 0.01 right after his story was finished. Of course, I got out as soon as I was able and my family and girlfriend at the time were pissed at me. Saying s**t like ‘How could you be so careless!’ and ‘You could have killed somebody!’; that kind of thing. Can’t really say I learned my lesson because I ended up back where I started roughly a year afterwards and many more to come after that. 

But that’s not to say that I never learned anything from each experience of going in and out of jail. No. I learned a little something new about myself every single time. And not all of it has been through some pragmatic punitive action set against me by the judicial system. Again, I tell you, no. Although at the time, I didn’t realize I was learning anything at all. 

I never saw Mr. Bean’s again after that, if that was his real name. Months after I got out, from time to time I’d see some old fart walking down the street on my way home from work and I’d think of him. I’d wonder how his verdict went. If he’s in jail, then for how long? And if he isn’t, then where is he now? I’d think about if his wife ever came back around or if his kid is still involved in his life. Hell, even to this day 10 something years later, I still think about the man. The most predominate question now being if he’s even alive or not, which I highly doubt he is. 

As far as that story with the gun goes, all of us in the cell at that time kind of had a silent referendum that the old man was probably in the 2nd phase of dementia but that for the most part, aside from the unexplainable, it was probably true. I checked a week after I got out of jail to see what the old man’s charges were. Possession of a stolen firearm and an habitual DUI. Upon reading the charges, I remember thinking I’ll be damned, with a smile on face. So I guess he was right about something. 

But life’s life and I am here to tell you that in jail, it’s really easy to make friends. Likewise, it’s just as easy to lose them. I considered Mr. Beans’ that type of acquaintance, and of course, he would not be the last. You really want to keep in touch when you do finally make it out, but eventually, you get back to your old life and worry how your gonna unfuck what it is that you just did to f**k it up. Nevertheless, the memories of these people can never be so easily forgotten. And sometimes, when it has been awhile, something will remind me of them and it will seem that the tale’s that I’ve heard, manifest into parables. 

I had told some of my friends about the story, and many of them think I’m crazy just for believing the small things such as his residency in Elizabethtown. It is to be expected, as I would have probably thought the same should the situation be reversed. Nonetheless, what I told them was simply what I had heard and it’d sometimes make a good drinking story. Those nights seemed to be the best memories whenever I did drink anymore. I suppose it was because it was me this time, who was doing the story telling. Much like how I’m doing it with you now, I suppose.

Not long after I got out of jail, I decided to take a vacation somewhere. Anywhere was fine with me, so long as I could have some alone time. Some time spent away from the problems of my life I so desperately wanted to escape (though I would find much later, the problem was actually within myself). I decided to head west which lead me into a town, Evansville Indiana, roughly about 2 hours from where I lived at during the time. The plan was to cut through Evansville to get into Kentucky which would ultimately take me straight down to Tennessee. 

Evansville is on the border of Kentucky and the Ohio River. At the time, I really thought nothing of it. Cross the river, head south about a few more hours, and welcome to Tennessee. And that’s exactly what I did. If someone had called me then, I wouldn’t have heard it, for the service in that area was terribly bad. I did however, have a playlist on an old Apple Nano someone gave me some years back so I listened to music for the entire drive. There is a small area between the Ohio River and the border of Kentucky that you have to cross, unlike how it is when you want to get to Louisville. To get to Louisville, you just hop on a f*****g bridge and over the river and that was it. 

In this little area, I decided to make a stop right after I passed the Kentucky state line. The bridge was pretty damn close, such that I could see everything coming and going off of it. I only stopped to take a piss because (you guessed it) I had drank 3 beers before my little hiatus to nowhere. I stopped at an old beat up gas station called the Weigh Station. This was the type of place where all the coffee cup sizes they had was that universally white Styrofoam bullshit that never seems to have a lid. The coffee itself was brewed from an old fashioned at home pot if that tells you anything. 

I walked in, followed by the ring of a little bell, and I see some old man behind the counter reading the paper. He didn’t look up to acknowledge that I had entered the store. I asked for the bathroom and got no response, so I looked for it myself and couldn’t find anything. Eventually, he puts his paper down and tells me that it’s outside next to the tire pump on the far left end of the store. He throws me a single key tied to a long wooden stick which I could have sworn was a tobacco picking stick without the sharpened spearhead on the end. I thanked him and took my piss.

I felt that it is only right to pay for something if you’re going to use a public restroom, especially if it’s not advertised. It’s common courtesy where I’m from so I decided to honor it by purchasing a cup of that one size, piss s**t, coffee. As I approached the counter, a young man came in and beat me to the register. The counterman must have recognized him, because the two were formerly conversing with each other. I figured it was the Grandson or something because I heard the old man tell the younger man something about being good to his ma and pa or something to that nature. 

Anyways, the young guy looks behind him and sees me to which he quickly apologized. I told him it didn’t bother me, that I was in no hurry to get anywhere fast on a day such as this one. He gave me a smile and I gave one back, as much as I could. 

“I’m so used to this place being empty around this time of day.” He told me. 

“Yea? Why’s that?” I asked him, killing time. He told me rush hour brings the most traffic but even more than that, people are used to taking the other bridge back and forth. Not this one. I looked a bit puzzled when the old man asked me “Where you from son?” 

“Jeffersonville sir. Indiana. About two hours east from here give or take.” 

The two men looked at each other and looked back to me. To give them a better idea I added: “It’s right across from Louisville.” 

The younger man’s eyes got wide with some kind of eerie excitement. The elder man’s eyes remained stagnant. 

“You guys over there are really something else, I swear.” The old man politely said. I laughed.

“Why’s that?” 

“Those guys really think their Kentuckians.” The old man replied. “Can’t blame em I guess. Everybody knows em for the Cardinals and that Yum Center Stadium thataways. We enjoy our quiet life out in these parts though.” 

“You speak of Louisville like it’s LA or something.” 

“Guess you have a point. We find lots of things in these rivers but least it ain’t no trash they be dumpin out east. Sometimes we get stuff floating from over there though.” 

Before I could ask anything, the young man pulled something from his front pocket and I quickly realized it was a gun. For the first time in my life, I feared I was going to get shot. Here in this nowhere station out of all places. 

“Found this fishin the other day.” The young guy said. He held the gun by the muzzle instead of the handle grip, though this didn’t do much to calm the tension I felt. Doing something like this where I’m from could easily get you shot or tackled to the ground or both. He seemed to not think anything of this however. “Ain’t worth much, but fix it up a bit and I’m sure I could resell it for something. At least that’s what I’m hopin.”

Curiously, I asked him “What’s wrong with it?”  

“Ain’t got no safety on it. Plus the serial numbers scratched off so we think it’s from some hooligan nonsense back towards your ways. Wouldn't surprise me none.” 

I cut the conversation as short as I could after I heard those words come from his mouth. I kindly paid for my coffee with a $5 dollar bill, thanked them both for their generosity and to keep the change (though I had nothing to be thanking the young man for at all). I exited the store quickly and got in my car and drove off. 

 

I never went to Tennessee that day, but I did get drunk. I kept replaying that story in my mind again and again to the point I felt like I was going to get sick. I don't know why or how, but everything Mr. Beans' had said and did during those arduous hours in jail finally started making sense to me. 

The medical visit. The meds. They weren't blood thinners or anything like that. They were antibiotics. 

Need to make sure your good for population with that [wound] of yours Mr. Beans

The BAC advice.

Yes sir, no sir. I didn't fight with them or anything.  

The questions about his family

Nope. Don’t think I’d be seeing them again anytime soon. Probably for the best. 

It was at that time that I knew what the motive behind his plans were and like some pandemonium, I saw it directly from his point of view. 

This is why he said it took him 2 years to come up with a plan. He had to rack up some DUI's first for the plan to actually work in his favor. He wasn’t in jail for a simple DUI as we had known. It was his 5th one, which in Indiana, would mean he’d be staying in jail for a while, given that only 2 DUI's is considered a felony offense in Indiana. This, I realized, was all part of the plan. Otherwise, another DUI in Kentucky would have had a lesser jail sentence, and that was the thing. He didn’t want to get out. 

On that night, he had gotten drunk, got in his truck, and probably prayed he was going to get pulled over, but not before he got rid of the gun first. In his strange way of thinking, he probably knew it would find him again or worse; something else would find him instead; no matter how he got rid of it. To protect himself, he decided to go to the only place he knew that the gun couldn’t reach him at. Jail. 

 

When he got pulled over, he was right near the slope of the 2nd Street Bridge. After cooperating as collectively (though difficult) as he could, they had asked him to step out of the vehicle to take the field sobriety test. That’s when he made his move. He reached for the gun and attempted to throw it over the bridge before the police could take it. Of course, the police reacted to this as a threat, drew their weapons, and fired.

Miraculously, he was only grazed by the rib-cage (though in his drunken state he probably was hoping to get hit). This explained why we didn't actually see any wounds on him. They were covered up. Meanwhile, the gun successfully went flailing off and over the side ramp of the bridge where it splashed into the murky waters below it. 

The charges I originally saw weren’t complete. This, I couldn’t figure out. He should have gotten endangering a government official or something like that. Not just a damn DUI charge. Did the charges not stick because there was no gun that they could bring in as evidence? No shots of his were fired so how could they get him for endangering a police officer? This I didn’t know, and neither did I want to find out. All I knew right then and there was that he got what he wanted. He got thrown in jail for a habitual DUI on the Indiana side. Not the Kentucky side.

He did it. I thought. That old son of a b***h actually did it. 

I wanted to call someone but as I said before, the phone had no signal. Nobody would believe me anyways, I’m sure of it. Especially as drunk as I had gotten on that long drive back to Jeffersonville Indiana. And if you wanted to know, what made me turn around wasn’t the sight of the gun or the gruesome stories behind it. Sometimes I wish that would have been the case. What scared me more than anything was my sudden urge, this overwhelming sense of duty, to snatch that gun from that man’s hands. Looking every bit as deteriorated as an archaic WWI relic, I had somehow knew that it still (and would) fire if the trigger were pulled. 

With that knowledge in mind, the primary reason why I wanted to run like hell out of that store and back to Indiana was that I would have killed them. Would have killed them both right where they stood; for no reason at all other than just for the thrill of it. Isn't that something? For the f*****g thrill of it! That to me was the scariest thing of all. The thrill of wanting to murder someone in cold blood. I have never, ever, had such an impulse to do something so hideous to a man I have never met before. And I believe, truly believe, that once I did that, it wouldn’t have ended there. The killing would just be getting started. The killing would continue to head south through Kentucky and continue until there was nothing more left in the rusted, decrepit, magazine. Killing every person I could along the way until…Well, I ran out of bullets I guess. But what's to say by some random chance, the old man behind the counter would have a whole box full? 

I suppose I could have ended it. Snatched that gun out from the man’s hands and instead, tossed it back into the river. Or perhaps just simply drive to Tennessee and throw it in the back of a dump truck somewhere; hopefully where it would be crushed and compacted, never to feel the warmth of a  human grip around its handle ever again. I believed it could be possible. That I could be the one to put an end to the wretched thing. 

But I am too weak minded for such a feat. Just I had believed I could have killed them both, I also believe that there are some instances in life where being the hero is the wrong thing to do. It could get you killed. Or worse. It could get somebody else killed. So I thought it best to leave it all well enough alone. What I did do however, was pray when I got in the car. Prayed like hell if I'm going to be honest. I prayed the entire drive back home and when I got into bed that night, I prayed some more. I didn’t know what I was really praying for, but I did it anyways. All I knew was as soon as I saw that gun, the voice of Mr. Beans was like thunder in my ear. Dead or alive, I could hear that voice of his, even to this day. Even as I write this, I can still hear him. That crackling yet tinder southern voice of his, absent of the hacking cough of smokers lungs. It calmed me in such a way that I believe it saved me. What that voice told me was to pray, and so I did. Not looking back but always remembering, I never went to that river again. 

-End

Author's Note

There's probably a bit of small grammatical errors but nothing major. It is the dialogue that I am mostly concerned about. I want it to be clear when the story is being told versus interruptions from the protagonist asking questions, etc.