What It Was, Was Gunsmoke

Well, an episode of Gunsmoke. That’s exactly what it sounded like.

And funny thing was, I was watchin’ a Gunsmoke marathon. It was prob’ly the sixth show, maybe the seventh.

Just as ol’ Matt took his place in the street and kind’a settled in, a gun went off. I thought it was on the screen at first. You know, ‘cause the other guy in the showdown, the one that’s not in the shot, he always shoots just a blink of an eye before Matt does. So at first I thought that’s what I was hearin’, only it sounded more distant than that.

Well, I slapped the footrest of my recliner down right away, see. And that was almost as loud as the gunshot, but a lot closer I guess.

I say that because it made Mabel jump. She was sittin’ over on the couch, and I guess she’d dozed off or somethin’. Anyway, that big slap right there in the room jarred her out of it pretty quick.

Anyway, I slapped that footrest down right away, but I was still tryin’ to get out of the chair when Mashal Dillon drew his revolver and dropped the other guy. So it took a second or two I guess.

Mabel stared at me from the couch and yelled, “What?” And her eyes all big and round.

So it took maybe another piece of a second for me to tell her to just stay there.

Then I headed for the door.

Well, I guess I just about ripped the door off the hinges. Stupid thing to do, I guess, me not knowin’ what was on the other side. But that’s what happened. Prob’ly I was showin’ off for Mabel. Like them days ain’t long since passed.

And did I stop there? No sir. I ain’t that smart.

I hit the screen door with my shoulder and barreled down off the front stoop like that poem guy with his light brigade or somethin’.

And there he was.

This big ol’ guy was standin’ with his back to me and his arms angled just right. There in front of him was a low bush, and frankly, I thought he was fixin’ to pee in my yard. Though why I thought that when I just heard a gunshot, I have no idea.

But that’s what I thought for sure, just from the way he was standin’. So I yelled at him. I yelled, “Hey! You can’t do that here.”

And dang if he didn’t turn around and point that gun at me. Though I didn’t realize it at the moment. I mean, I thought the guy was fixin’ to pee in my yard, that’s all. So when he turned around, I figured what he had in his hand was still what he had in his hand. And it was, only it wasn’t what I was thinkin’.

Well, about the time he started to turn around, I remembered I don’t have no low bushes in my yard, especially out there in the middle. I mean, who’d have a low bush right out in the middle of the yard like that? Not me, that’s for sure.

Well, I looked closer and recognized it was a human bein’ layin’ on the ground in front of him. Turned out it was that cop he’d just shot. And that’s when I understood he wasn’t fixin’ to pee at all when he was facin’ away from me. He was fixin’ to shoot that man again.

Now I have to tell you, if I’d’a just peeked out through the curtain or somethin’ in the first place, I mean even if I saw what was goin’ on and recognized it for what it was— Well, I ain’t proud of it, but I might’a just let the curtain close and went back to my chair, quiet like. Fact is, I’m almost sure that’s what I would’a done. Though I ain’t proud of it, like I said.

But that wasn’t what happened. In for a penny, in for a dollar, they say. Is that right? That don’t sound right. Anyway, I was in all right, clean up to my knees.

Well anyway, when the fella turned around he kept his arms in the same position. And maybe a half-second after I realized that low bush behind him was a human, well, I finally took the meanin’ of his arms bein’ at that same angle and his hands bein’ pinched together like that. And the reason was, he was holdin’ a gun.

‘Course that made sense all at once, seein’s how I’d just heard a gunshot and that ol’ boy was layin’ on the ground on the other side of him.

Well, I mean it kind’a made sense right there in itself, but it didn’t make sense at all in the overall thing, you know? I mean, we just don’t have things like that go on in our neighborhood.

What I mean, we don’t have any drug dealers and gun runners and the like around here. We’re mostly all god-fearin’ folks around here. Though I guess we don’t have enough sense to fear much else. Or at least I don’t. You know, like stayin’ off a guy you think’s peein’ in your yard when he’s already shot a guy once and he’s fixin’ to shoot him again.

So the guy, he’s standin’ there lookin’ at me, and I’m silhouetted against them damn white asbestos sidin’ tiles with the yellow bug-light porch light behind me. Anyway, he says, “This ain’t none’a your business. Go on back inside.”

You believe that? Guy’s standin’ in my front yard fixin’ to shoot a man in the head and he says it ain’t none’a my business. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he’s tellin’ me what to do! Right there in my own front yard! Now, you ever hear of such a thing?

I’ll tell you one thing. If I thought maybe he was from my neighborhood—which I didn’t, of course, ‘cause we don’t have such dealin’s around here—well that proved for sure that he wasn’t.

Well, now I was in my bare feet. After all, I was watchin’ Gunsmoke on TV just a minute earlier, and when I get home from a hard day in the oil field, them dogs are tired. What I mean, I kick off them boots comin’ through the door, and they don’t get a free ride again ‘til I head out the next mornin’.

Well, except for Friday and Saturday. I get Friday and Saturday off. Mabel, she always makes her doctor appointments on a Friday so the boss didn’t mind tradin’ me Friday for Sunday. And then I don’t mind workin’ on a Sunday like some folks do. You know.

My neighbor across the street, ol’ Fred, he’s a real good guy. Anyway, he asked me one day don’t I mind workin’ on Sunday. So I said why should I. Well, he said ‘cause God took off on Sunday so I should too. So I told him I ain’t God, see. Takes me the whole week to get a week’s worth of work done. Heh.

Anyway, I ain’t ashamed to tell you, after a long day of workin’, it feels pretty good sittin’ there in my recliner and that fan Mabel rigged up for me blowin’ back and forth across my tired old bare feet.

So I was barefoot when I come down off that stoop, and dang if I didn’t step on a tire iron. Probably my boy left it layin’ out there last time he was over. He’s all the time leavin’ stuff there for next time. Or that’s what he calls it. Losin’ it, is what he’s doin’. Misplacin’ it. He generally finds it in my front yard the next time he’s over. Well, if I don’t find it with the lawnmower first. Man, that’s a pain in the butt.

Now I said it was a tire iron, right? ‘Cause that’s important. I don’t mean it was one’a them four-way lug wrenches. My boy always gets them two messed up. A tire iron’s got an angle in it, see. It’s got a lug wrench on it on one end but it’s got a pry bar on the other. You know, in case you got hub caps.

Well, wheel covers really, I guess, but when I was a kid, we called ‘em all hub caps. Anyway, you use the pry bar to get off the wheel cover or the hub cap—you know, whichever one you’ve got—so you can get at the lug nuts.

So I stepped on that tire iron just about the time I saw that guy fixin’ to pee in my yard. Well, he wasn’t, but that’s what I was thinkin’ at the time. Anyway, I’m glad I didn’t yell ouch or anything like that. Then again, I did yell at him that he couldn’t do that here. By which I meant he couldn’t pee in my yard. So I guess I gave him too much warnin’ even with that.

Anyway, when I yelled at him and he turned around and I saw what he was really about, I just kind’a froze up.

When I did, the toes of my right foot kind’a clenched right down over that tire iron.

Now that fella had just told me to mind my own business and get back inside when another cop peeked up past my pickup and hollered at him to drop the gun. It was settin’ out there by the curb. My pickup, not the gun.

Anyway, I guess this ol’ boy in my yard thought there was only one cop in the car. You know, the one he plugged. Silly. I mean, how many people don’t know cops travel in pairs when they can?

So the guy—the fella, not the cop—had just then hollered at me to get back inside and my toes clenched around that tire iron.

Then that other cop hollered at the guy with the gun to drop it.

Well, he didn’t. But he did spin around, only kind’a crouchin’ down like he was a spy or somethin’.

Well, when the cop yelled and the guy flinched like he was gonna turn around, I reached straight down and grabbed that tire iron by the pry-bar end.

By the time he’d swiveled halfway around I was halfway to him. And I gotta tell you, my full intention was to bury the angle of that tire iron in the back of his head. Figure the guy ain’t usin’ his head anyway for nothin’ but a ball-cap rack.

He was wearin’ a nice ball cap too. I mean a good’un. It was one’a them new blue Dallas Cowboys ball caps they come out with. The one that’s got the star on the front? Only the star is blue too and then it’s surrounded by a row of white rolled-up fabric or somethin’. And then on the brim it had these kind’a slashy things like sharks’ teeth or somethin’ in both blue and grey. And the whole thing was surrounded with more’a that white stuff. It was a nice hat.

I seen it after. ‘Course I couldn’a missed it, what with it landin’ right in front of my face like that when the cop shot him and he flopped over.

But I’m gettin’ ahead of myself.

I grabbed up that tire iron by the business end and was almost to the guy. And I couldn’t believe my luck, ‘cause he was taller’n me by three, four inches. So when he stayed crouched down like that, he was the perfect height for me to whack him with that tire iron.

I slapped right up behind him in my bare feet so he couldn’t hear me comin’, and along the way I raised that tire iron straight up over my head. I wasn’t gonna miss, and I was gonna give him a headache like he ain’t never had before. Way I figure it, you just don’t go around tellin’ a man what to do in his own front yard. Back yard either, for that matter.

So the cop hollered and the old boy flinched and squatted down and started turnin’ around and I bend down and grabbed that tire iron and come up on him. And just as I got it raised up good, another gun went off.

Well, I thought for sure I was too late, that he’d done shot that other cop. Either that or the one layin’ there in front of him.

Only I saw a flash and then I spun around hard and jerked down on my butt. Right there in my own front yard! You ever hear of such a thing? And I didn’t have any idea why.

And I was layin’ on my back but I was lookin’ past my feet only just a little to the right at the fella I first thought was gonna pee in my yard. And about the time I saw him there was another shot right quick. Well, he straightened right up. Stood up taller than maybe he ever had before. And then there was another shot, and he jerked and fell over backward.

Well, when he jerked that time, that’s when his ball cap fell off and landed over there by my head. Right beside my head, like it was comin’ to me.

And then that cop come runnin’ up. He kicked the gun away from the fella’s hand and then he looked me over good but quick. Then he squatted down next to the other cop—the one that got shot—and was askin’ if the guy was okay.

And he was. Turned out the bullet had hit one’a them plates in his bulletproof vest. He was sayin’ he was gonna have a good bruise for a few days and that was it, but his buddy told him to stay right there and let the ambulance people look him over.

I guess he agreed, ‘cause then the second cop come back over to me to see if I was all right.

I said yeah at first, but I wasn’t. He’d shot me slap through the soft meat under my right shoulder, only on accident. Seems he was shootin’ at the other guy, the one I thought was gonna pee in my yard, an’ missed ‘cause the guy stayed so low. I guess to him I looked like the upper half of the bad guy. So he plugged me.

Well, it wasn’t hardly no time at all before the sirens commenced to wailin’. Then they got louder and louder and finally Mabel come peekin’ out through the front door.

I heard the screen door squeak, so I rolled my head over that way and looked.

She looked so little and quiet standin’ over there.

Well, she stayed there just long enough to figure out everything was okay enough to come out, and then she did. She come runnin’ across the yard and went to her knees there next to me. “Sam!” she says and looks at the second cop. “What have you done to my Sam?”

So I says, “I’m fine, Mabel. It was just an accident. I’ll be fine. See, I thought there was a fella fixin’ to pee in the yard so I—”

“Well, damn it,” she says. “All this uproar for nothin’.” She looked at the cop. “They gonna take him to the hospital or somethin’?”

“Uh, yes ma’am,” he says. “Give him some stitches, probably keep him overnight to make sure he’s okay.”

“All right,” she says, then turns on her heel. “Call me and I’ll come pick you up.” And back into the house she went.

That must’a been a really great episode of Gunsmoke.

Sure wish I could’a seen it.

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