ON THE WRONG END OF A GUN

I want to tell you this true and very real story. With all the talk about stricter rules concerning gun ownership here in the USA, I thought it appropriate. In one sense, as in retrospect, it’s funny - in a morbid kind of way; but as I went through it, nah, it was not funny at all.

Many years ago, I worked as fleet-manager at a car-dealership in San Francisco. A fun friend, JC, was the business-manager – my boss. As it probably still is today, it was a game of selling as many units as possible, making as much money imaginable, so a mix of greed and pushiness dominated; you know, high powered sales attitude. Not that I see anything wrong in that, as long as buyer beware.

So we jumped eagerly into any situation to make a sale; the lore of the mighty dollar. My sales attitude was always in favor of the customer; that was the way I was taught selling, working in Europe. It had worked well there, and it was working really well for me here in the USA. Sure I got caught up in the greediness within the car-business, as we also ran into lean times once in a while; so we worked hard, sold hard and pushed even harder.

This guy, about 35, walked in; I was helping out on the showroom floor, so I greeted him in that charming, self-assured and lovely way of mine. He told me that he wanted to buy a fast and powerful car – and immediately I knew precisely what I wanted to sell him. It was one of last year’s models, which had a hefty bonus pay-out to the one selling it. I asked him to wait while I brought the car around for a test-drive.

He looked rather bland the way he sat and drove the car; overweight and seemingly boring. He had the steering-wheel very close to his chest – a weird driving position. He told me that he needed a car as he had not been around for about five years; later on I found out the significance of that statement. But at the moment I was all: “I’m going to sell him this car and get a big bag full of money;” (the greed part, remember?)

We drove around San Francisco for about 15 minutes and I was wondering why he didn’t want to get on the freeway to test the speed and power – but no. Finally we were going south on Van Ness Avenue towards the dealership; and that was when he told me that something was poking into his lower back. He reached behind him with his left hand and slowly pulled out a handgun that he immediately stuck into my stomach. Now, has that ever happened to you? I hope not. It created one of those few situations in my life where I felt I had to be rather careful about what I was going to say next; something I have always had a slight (read: enormous) problem controlling.

He stopped by the curb, still with what now felt like a huge cannon pressed into my ribs. For some profound reason (duh) he had stopped right in front of the Holy Trinity Cathedral; I thought a mortuary would probably have been more appropriate.

“I’m sorry, but I have to borrow your car…” he said in a calm and controlled voice. My first idiotic thought was to respond like: “That means you are not going to buy it?” as I saw a vast commission and enormous bonus disappearing. But instead I decided to get the hell out of there and wisely negate on being sarcastically funny – but more so bent on staying alive; I considered that a good choice, even back then. I do trust the gun had a lot to do with my decision. Another fleeting thought I had was: “Is that thing loaded – ha-ha?” Or the last gasp before I met my Maker: “Need a tenner for gas?” But I wisely left all the humorous stuff on the floor.

So I quickly hauled my butt out of the car, noted the church and ran as furiously fast I could. The dealership was about 6 blocks away – and I ran and ran and ran, getting rather sweaty… (Yuk).

Finally I stood in front of JC in his office. He calmly looked up as I screamed: “I got a cannon stuck into my stomach and he stole the car and I’m scared and pretty pissed”. JC looked at me and in a calm voice said: “Was it one of last year’s models?” I couldn’t believe that he asked that, as: “OMG, are you okay?” seemed more appropriate – but that was JC, and in retrospect I loved him for it; just such a calm and funny dude, really.

I was brought downtown (doesn’t that sound cool?) by two detectives and gave my report. I spent some hours going through mug-shots; some very scary images. But he wasn’t there. Oh my…

And life continued. For some reason I was okay with all this, and didn’t even think about what could have happened. People around me seemed more upset about it than I was. About once weekly the next couple of months the detectives came by my office and showed me more pictures – but I did not recognize him in any. One of the guys told me that after this gun-slinging dude had asked me to get out of the car, he drove across Golden Gate Bridge and robbed a bank in Marin; at gun-point.

Then one day, my detective pals returned; both grinning from ear to ear. They showed me a line-up of six photos, all nasty looking mug-shots (Yuk) – and there he was. I recognized him at once, though his head was puffy, bruised and beaten up, it looked like. The detectives told me that he had tried to steal a Mercedes from a dealership in Beverly Hills, but while being chased by the police, he crashed into a tree and was arrested. They told me that he had recently spent five years in jail for all kinds of nasty stuff. And of course I remembered that he told me he had not been around for five years – the irony.

They asked me if I was willing to go to Dallas (Texas) to testify if needed. I said yes, of course – like free trip and excitement, huh? And then they told me that he had been transported back to Dallas – on murder charges… All of a sudden I felt I had indeed been very lucky; and life continued.

A few weeks later JC showed up in my office. He had a big smile on his face and a check in his hand. “Can you do that again? We still have some of last year’s models in stock and we really need to get rid of them”. He handed me the check and told me the insurance had paid up and it was my commission plus a rather large bonus. The car was considered sold, though in a rather scary way. JC was happy that another one of “last year’s” units was off the floor – and still giggling.

Being on the wrong end of a gun is not fun – and I know, because I have been there… But luckily, no BANG BANG…

Till next Monday: make it a safe week or better: a safe life

Footnote:

Gun control is a complicated matter, but for starters, there are types of weapons that have absolutely no place in any society. Accessibility to weapons here in the USA is pretty much wide open, where it needs to be narrowed down by tighter restrictions and additional laws. A huge percentage of fatalities caused by guns, is from suicides – makes you think, huh?