here's life

This is a pretty nice town.  Especially on the edges.  I was downtown with a friend this evening, I picked him up, drove a block, was going to get gas, he was going to grap something at the gas station, and then we were going to go to small group.  I jump out, stick the nozzle in the gas tank, and sirens start ariving. Hmm, we're downtown, cops are to be expected.  I am getting out my credit card, and officers are pointing guns at the front of the store and yelling "Drop the bag!"  "Put down the gun!"  Maybe I should buy gas later.  Can't get a good view of what is going on without exposing my favorite head---I feel pretty safe, after all, I am behind a big gas pump, and that officer is just sort of standing behind a pillar. But, it seems wise to go sit behind my car, put somemore metal between me and the confrontation.  So, I squat behind my tire, and watch the passing cars gawk at the drama unfolding behind me.  A guy has a camera on a tripod across the street.  The cops still seem to want someone to drop the gun. So, I pray for the situation, that it will end peacefully, and wonder if the cops will feel the need to shoot the guy in the leg or something.  Too bad they can't just do the heroic, passive-aggressive and shoot the gun out of his hands.  Then the ambulance arrives, and drives right into the scene, and the driver seems to jump out and bolt.  It probably was over by then, but I didn't really realize it until a little latter, when I glanced up, and saw people walking about, unguarded.  The cops were putting a guy with a red shirt and shackles into a car.  So, I got up, and started pumping gas.  I soon realize that this parking lot was getting ringed in yellow tape:  "Yeah, I want the whole thing taped off!" So, I stopped the pump ("I'll end up with a partial tank, and my mileage record will be messy!") and then went looking for my friend.  That was when the officers stopped me, and suddenly I realized I was evidence.  My friend was talking to an officer, as I passed with another, and gave him my ID, and name, and SSN (,,,it is for tax purposes, not identification!, aww, forget it. Oh, well)  So, then another officer came with another guy, who seemed to have gotten a gun pointed at him, and then they put us in a cop car. He was somewhat shaken, but not very badly, "That could have been me..." but then the officer asked us not to discuss it.  So, I tried to make conversation, and before long, the cops took us several blocks to the INVESTIGATIONS office.  Where we sat in the waiting room, where are few others were sitting.  Then the place filled up, with people.  Mostly the kind you would find in such a part of town.  Some were insane.  One guy was talking about UFO's "I was in Roswell from suchandsuch date to suchandsuch  date and five hundred airplanes [or was it thousand] flew over, and then five flew over and crashed. It wasn't a UFO that crashed there, because a UFO can't crash. They are spiritual.  They could go right through the earth and come out the other side, you can't crash a UFO!   Not when it can take off without rockets---it didn't burn that guard-shack!" [referencing earlier story about a UFO he saw hover over a guard shack and then take of, without burning it]  "There are only two places other than Saturn and Jupiter that physical life or spiritual life could exist....The sun and the earth.  The sun is holy,..like that box [the Ark of the Covenant], that you couldn't look at unless you were a prophet..." I continued to read the NG about a guy who had a huge fleet of ships, in China, five centuries ago.  Eventually he was telling some antidote about a roller coaster disaster, and the officer took him out in the hall and talked to him.  He was much quieter after that.
Everybody was itching to talk about the most exciting thing that had happened to them in a while, but the officers wanted us not to discuss the incident.  I got the impression that a clerk was fired upon, and nobody knew his condition.
Eventually, the officers brought out a young guy in a red shirt ("Ahh", I thought, "the guy I saw being put in the cop car!") and he sat down with his head in his hands and his family gathered around him, and then a few minutes later, they asked if they could leave, and got up and went out.  ("Hmm, maybe not a suspect...maybe another clerk")  They were slowly working us through, getting each of us interviewed--but it was night, and they didn't have many detectives on duty---"we are bringing more in."  I skipped most of the NG article about Croatia, or Czech Republic or something, filled with death for decades--didn't want to taint my story with gruesome images. "I was sitting by the gas pump, and for hundreds of years, everyone killed everyone else....what?"  Eventually, I was called it--I was the last, out of over a dozen, and talked to the detective for 15 min--it took a long time for me to give the names and ages, and locations of all my siblings!  Then I told what I saw--some big guy in black standing in front of the store, in the shadows, and figured that he was the center of attention. And I sat behind my car. It was a pretty good interview--too bad I so little information. They took my picture "we always take pictures of the witnesses in homicide cases."  And then they took me back to get my car---once again needed my name, date of birth.  And they gave me a note from my friend.  So I dropped his bible off at the place he lives, with a note saying things were good, and went home.  Listened to multiple messages from people, asking about me, and then talked to a guy from small group for a while.  I reallly did not feel scared or anything while it was happening---I would have continued getting gas, but I realized I was not acting very smart. When there are a bunch of cops around with their guns out, it may be good to just chill for a while--the gas pump can wait (it did).

So, that was the excitement.  I might even show up in the news---I'm the guy in blue sitting against the right side of Cecil. (if the camera pans to the right far enough)

One thing that bugged me: as the two cops were escorting me and Big-guy-who-got-the-gun-pulled-on-him into the police station, Cop Two says to Cop One "Did the gun jam?  The gun may have jammed...it was one of those cheap .22 magnums, a Jam-o-matic"  Cop One replied with ambivalence, something about not seeing it.  I was thinking, "Is this guy trying to seed this witness that I can't talk to about his experience?  What is going on?  Have I watched to many Bad Cop movies?"  Maybe I should have mentioned it in my interview.

Now I should check the news and see what REALLY happened: "HUGE blood bath at store! Cops fire dozen of shotgun blasts at suspect!  Store burns to ground and gasoline explodes because some idiot was sitting there with the gas nozzle in his gas tank!