The Night I Almost Died

Years ago, eons it seems, I worked nights. And was happy about it. 3pm to midnight and so on. Sometimes after work, if the right people were working, we'd go out afterward to a bar or someplace to hang out and complain about customers because, frankly, you all suck.

So, one of these nights come up. I got off a little early (about 11:30pm) and went to a friends' house until midnight and then join the rest of the nocturnal crew at a bar/restaurant called Silky Sullivans. Just before I headed off to the store, I made a quick trip to the bank ATM to get some money. This is where things got interesting.

I pull up in the closest parking spot to the ATM and 4 or 5 spots away there's a little toyota truck. Nothing unusual, even at 1145pm. I walk up, insert my card in the ATM and hear, "Give me your money."

Normally a person hearing this would experience, probably in order of importance, the feelings of fear, fear, concern, fear and arousal (that might be about a 1% of the population.) My reaction was. . .confusion. It was all very. . . odd.

I turned on my heels, wallet in hand and looked at the figure approximately 10 feet from me. Khaki pants, a blue Hawaiian shirt, glasses, and, oh yeah, a smallish silver revolver. I say smallish, but I'm not sure any weapon pointed at you, and capable of killing, qualifies as small.

"I don't have any money." I retorted. Which was true about my wallet, which is how I took what he had to say. I, of course, somehow forgot that I was AT AN ATM!
"Give me what you've got."
His voice was strained and the gun moved slightly. Not with a tremble, but more of a slow, looping, tight motion that never let it's sight leave me.
"I don't have anything." I countered.

Fear was certainly rocketing up the charts on my emotions. It was about #2 on the hit parade, still languishing behind befuddlement.
Then something happened that pushed Fear into the fore.

Click Click Click.
Three pulls of the trigger. Three clicks. Not one bullet fired. No smell of gunpowder. No grocery clerk writhing on the ground in pain. No blood spilled. But Fear? Yes, Fear had come to town.

I was still rooted to my spot, unable and unwilling to move. Why, you might be able to guess. Then, in an instant, the man started to walk to the truck nearby, muttering to himself, "what a joke" in a tone of frustration that would be familiar to anyone who has had some sort of negative thing happen to them. Something like finding out the new part for your car is broken or doesn't fit. Frustration and disbelief. Only in this case, he was frustrated and disbelieving that he wasn't able to shoot me. I was far less frustrated and disbelieving.

I grabbed my ATM card and, quickly letting anger gain ground on fear, and yelled, "Nice fucking joke!" Not exactly a Shakespearean retort, but still. . .

I hopped back in my car, trying to control myself and my emotions and settle things out. Just then Anger took the lead and I remembered, "I have all this hockey equipment here (several sticks being the weapons of my choice.) I will grab a stick and beat the hell out of this clown." Yes, anger had taken hold.

But it wasn't to be just then. The toyota started to leave the bank parking lot, with an angry Mike, bent on destruction, in tow. My would-be killer then turned the wrong way on the divided street, a move I found myself unable to emulate.

I DID notice, in my rear-view mirror, that the toyota re-entered the strip mall parking lot. Letting my better judgement go it's own way, I decided to go through the parking lot, find the toyota, and do what I planned, poorly, to do.

I spun around the corner, flew into the parking lot and. . . . couldn't find the toyota. I didn't see ANY cars. I drove for what seemed like 20 minutes around that lot, but was probably just 4. Nothing.

As I was leaving the parking lot, again, I noticed the toyota parked where I had been parked previously. So, he was going to try it again on someone else. Hell no, thought I.
My embryonic plan was thus: Drive around the corner again, enter the bank lot, block the truck in and, finally, act like a fool. It was probably the opposite of fool-proof. I was full of anger and excitement and revenge and there was a sense of knowing that the endgame had started.

Just before I started my big around-the-corner drive, another car was entering the lot next to me. No no no, I thought. I can't let that a-hole point his shiny revolver at them. I rolled down my window and motioned them to do the same. I yelled/panted that there was a guy with a gun there, and they shouldn't go to the bank. And as happens in stories of this ilk, the people driving happened to be deaf. Yes, that's right. The people who I desperately needed to impart information to were, in the most crucial way, unable to receive this information. I then slipped into "idiot who tries to mime what he means" mode. It worked, and the car backed into the street and sped away.

Now it was my turn. The big moment. Swinging around the corner with tires squealing I slid into the parking lot to find. . .nothing. Empty. The toyota was gone. I was both a little upset with a huge helping of relief. I'm VERY non-confrontational, so actually planning to confront someone leaves me out of my element.

Dutifully I went with my friends to Silky Sullivans and the consensus was that the person who tried to shoot me was a postal employee who had flipped out a day or so earlier and had been shooting people. I hadn't thought of that because a)I don't watch local news and b) at this time it seemed that some postal guy was gunning down people every other week.

When we left the bar around 2am there were police and an ambulance across the street. At an ATM.

Turns out the guy had left my ATM, loaded his revolver, and gone to this other ATM and shot two people. I didn't know this until the next day when the Los Angeles Times had a picture of him being hauled into custody.

I had been lucky. Quite lucky. Very enormously achingly lucky.

My story eventually garnered me the front page of the Orange County Register as "The Victim That Got Away."

Well, gosh.