A Good Guy With a Gun

The misconceptions about heroes

Many people have misconceptions about heroes. They are often envisioned as men and women in uniform, highly trained and decorated fighters standing in defense against evil forces in whatever form they may take. Or maybe they see a masked and caped crusader with beyond normal human capabilities flitting about the seedy shadows of a city to go hand to hand against equally impressive villains during epic battles with nearly soul crushing odds as to the outcome.

For me, however, hero didn't take the form of some femme fatale assassin dressed in skin tight vinyl. Nor was it a dirty sweaty Bruce Willis as he crawled through the innards of some duct work in a far off skyscraper as he quipped off some clever one liner which was delivered in order to assuredly piss off the bad guys. Yippee kay yay!

In my earliest of memories, hero took the form of something much more familiar and closer to home. It was my mother, standing on the front porch wearing nothing but her nightgown one fall evening when the moon was nearly full and the sky was still, clear and calm. Her hair was wild and half in rollers. As wild as the look in her eyes that night which were a mixture of fear and cold determination. My mild mannered mother who made sure her good china was always ready for guests along with appropriate offerings of coffee, tea, or hot cocoa were available to go with equally appropriately chosen cookies and cakes. The same woman who avoided confrontation like the plague so as not to cause a scene. The same woman who taught me my values about community. She was the one person every neighbor could rely on when they needed an ear or a helping hand. That night was no different.

No one would have ever suspected this woman was hiding a steal rod for a spine or that she was a crack shot with a  Winchester .30-30 or that she even owned a gun for that matter.  They certainly would have never guessed that she was more than capable of winning any turkey shoot she entered much to the chagrin to every male contestant. And she surprised everyone by being that one good guy with a gun -- most of all me.

This incident happened when I must have been about 6 years old. I grew up in 80's suburbia in all its glory in a starter neighborhood full of young professionals just starting out in life -- with their careers and their families. As such, our neighborhood had little crime, a lot of backyard barbecues, and the occasional block party. Every other house had children living in it, of which we were all around the same ages. So you can imagine that neighbors knew each other fairly well and were all on first name basis with each other.

One such neighbor was a young couple who lived across the street. They were newly married and had just had their first child a few weeks prior. They were a sweet, friendly and quiet couple -- who were always very nice to me. They looked out for me whenever I was playing in the yard. They were normal. Normal Americans living a normal life.

The night this story takes place wasn't an unusual week night in this small part of the world. Dad was working late at the plant. My mom and I were watching sitcoms in our pajamas as we waited for my older teenage sister to come home from her fast food job at Burger King. This was a normal routine for us before we all headed to bed.

What promised to be an average night turned into anything but. As normal, my sister came home on time. What wasn't normal was her pale face and fear in her eyes. She was breathless.

"Mom, something's wrong across the street." Sounds echoed their way across the street into the house. Sounds that were foreign and terrifying to a 6 year olds mind. Sounds of screams, sobs, and pain. And sounds of a horrible repetitive thudding.

I don't think mom even looked out the window before she made a beeline for the bedroom closet. I don't even remember the tone of her voice when she told my sister to call the police or when she told me to go to bed and not come out. Being 6 years old and too curious for my own good, you can imagine just how well I listened to my mom that night. One might say that I promptly ignored her. I wish I hadn't. I wish I had listened to my mother.

There are some things a 6 year old's brain does not handle well -- especially if they've been sheltered and fiercely guarded their entire life. Seeing your neighbor being beat to death with a baseball bat by two men on a cloudless almost full moon night is one of those things. It was my very first exposure to violence. My first exposure to anything that even suggested that the world was so far from perfect.

And it wasn't a man with a badge, a unit of certified battle-hardened bad asses, or even my personal hero Lynda Carter dressed as Wonder Woman who came to save the day. It was my mother dressed in a flimsy nightgown for body armor who stepped out the front door carrying nothing else but her Winchester .30-30 in her small hands. It was my mother whose lone voice rang out on that night with a strength I never knew her to possess.

"Get off him." Three simple words.

I wonder if icy chills shot down the two men's spines when they heard the click clack of the lever action to that rifle. Did it sound as loud in their ears as it did mine?

I also wonder if those two men's drug addled brains thought for even a moment that the gun might not even be loaded.

I love my parents to death. They really are good, thoughtful people. But there are a few quirks which have never changed throughout the years. One is placing ammo away from the guns. They didn't want a child to accidentally stumble across both of them and get into trouble. The other quirk is that they place important things in places where they won't be forgotten or lost and then promptly forgetting where they have placed them. The ammo to the Winchester .30-30 was no exception.

My mother had no idea where the ammo was moved to. And while she knew the gun wasn't loaded when she stepped out onto the front porch to save a neighbor's life, that fact seemed to escape everyone else's attention. My mother stepped into harm's way knowing full well that she was unarmed. She placed herself in danger. Her only thought was to buy my neighbor minutes more of his life. She did it to save a friend.

So what happened that night?

My neighbor and his wife were really just average Americans living normal, mostly boring lives. He worked in a promising career and loved his wife dearly. Both him and his wife were really just the perfect neighbors. Quiet. Hard working. Never in any legal trouble. And certainly not involved in anything illegal. They were just at the wrong place at the wrong time, which on that night was their home.

The man had recently moved into a house up the street over a block away was another story entirely. He was the nearby city's up and coming middle management drug trafficker who was higher up on the food chain than your average dime bag dealer but not so high up as to live that glamorous cartel lifestyle. No one really knows if he simply didn't remember his street address correctly or if the two thugs who was supposed to be picking up a shipment that night remembered it wrong. Either way, they ended up at the wrong house entirely.

When my neighbor answered the door, he clearly had no idea about the goods these two geniuses were supposed to be picking up.  And well, that really didn't go over to well as my neighbor tried closing the door on them. So, they grabbed a baseball bat out of their car, kicked his front door down, dragged my neighbor into the driveway, and almost beat him to death with a baseball bat.

My neighbor did almost die that night. He was rushed to the hospital. He underwent surgery. I was deemed too young to have the full list of what the damage was. I do remember visiting him in the hospital though. It took him a long time to recover. But he did... eventually. Eventually the casts came off. The stitches were taken out. The bruises eventually faded. And life returned to its normal kind of quiet in our little neighborhood.

The two thugs who paid my neighbor a visit that night were picked up hours after the incident. Apparently the old adage about dumb criminals rang true. They were picked up at the house they were looking for originally... as well as the home owner. They of course sang like canaries and plead guilty to their crimes. That house went on the market once again soon after.

My mom was bawled out by both the police and later my father for stepping out onto that front porch without any ammo in her gun. She was also praised for saving his life.

My neighbor nicknamed my mom his guardian angel. When we eventually moved out of the neighborhood, he asked her who was going to be his protector now. I often wonder if he realizes that he can be that person for himself.

And while it would be years after I turned into an adult that I would actually purchase my first firearm, I always knew firsthand what a good guy with a gun could do.

Author’s Note: In the interest of ensuring that accuracy of this story, I ran it by my mom before publishing. There are a few arguable discrepancies. The most notable being that she says I overstated her shooting abilities. I don’t think I did. The second being that she remembers herself saying “Get the hell off of him.” That being said… I am going to let this story stand as is. My mom really was a good guy with a gun.