White Castle and Shotguns

Okay, so this is a story that happened on one of the last few days of October of last year. It is a little lengthy, but I think it will be appreciated in the end.

I was at work on a Thursday or Sunday night, and had for whatever reason decided to drink coffee... at eight o'clock.

Feeling hyper, I texted Gina to see what she was doing. At that point in time, she was friends with my ex, Chris, and we were attempting a tentative friendship. I texted him to ask if it would be okay if I also hung out with him, Gina and Gage. After receiving an okay, I waited to get off work. At that point in time, hanging out usually meant driving around with the windows down all over the city and playing on jungle gyms like stupid unruly children.

At around eleven thirty, I left work and headed over to where everyone had gathered. Gage had procured some Four Loko. But because I thought I would be driving home later, I passed. And since Chris didn't have a car, Gage would be driving his, so Gage also passed on the drinking. Instead, Gina and Chris drank. But Chris got distracted, and instead of actually drinking all that much, (or even enough to feel buzzed) Gina drank two of them and passed out on the bed. I called her mom on her phone, and she was picked up by two in the morning. We proceeded to play on the computer and I slowly got bored. I was hoping for ACTION!

I realized I was staring at a pair of pants that were mine.

"Why do you have a pair of my pants?" I asked, standing up and walking over to get them. They were my nice black stretchy pants. "And my fucking hoodie?" I punched Chris in the arm annoyed that he had gotten my clothes when he left.

"Umm, I don't know." I shrugged, and started pulling off my work khakis. "What the hell? Don't strip in here!"

"What?" I said, pulling the more comfortable pants on. "It's not like you haven't seen it before. And Gage doesn't care." I buttoned them and pulled on my beige hoodie, then flopped on the bed.

"Still... Geez." He didn't look annoyed even though he was trying to convey he was.

"I am hungry. You will feed me. Gage! To the car!" (I think my original intent was to say Bat Mobile, but didn't know what color his car was.)

They agreed to my request, after all I didn't actually eat very much, and thus would not cost that much. We went downstairs and drove around the city block we were in. I was suddenly out voted for what to get. White Castle was on the menu, and everyone knew I hated White Castle.

I complained bitterly the whole time, and even during the ordering process, the cashier could hear how much I "HATE WHITE CASTLE." The guys got two dozen burgers and sodas. I solemnly took a bite out of the weird little burger, then spit it out into the box again.

"This is fucking disgusting," I said, not realizing there was ketchup, mustard and pickles on the burger. I washed the foul taste down with a huge gulp of soda then crossed my arms in the back seat as Gage steered the car back to Chris's.

The guys then had the bright idea to eat their food out in the cold in the back of the car. I felt obliged to stand outside with them in the thirty-three degree night. They munched through almost six sandwiches before we were too cold to do anything but crawl back in the car. They left the burger bag, plus the empty boxes on the trunk while we thawed.

That was a mistake.

The wind was blowing fiercely that night, but inside the car, it didn't really matter. The heat was blasting incredibly hard and loud, and I was content. Then a red car started rolling slowly down the street. It was three fifteen in the morning. We watched the car as it crept down the pavement, and Chris had the audacity to stare at the driver as he inched by. He was a large white man with short hair and a dark goatee.

They parked at the end of the street and got out. I read the back window: "Just Married."

The wife was still in her wedding dress. The guy looked at us in the car and crushed his face into a scowl. I felt myself lifting one eyebrow, wondering what his problem was. He slowly turned and jerked the back door to his car open and grabbed a cardboard box out from within. Then he very determinedly walked up the middle of the road, all the while scowling at us like we were somehow trespassing on his property.

"New flash," I said in my best anchorman voice, "the road isn't yours, dip-shit." I rolled my eyes, collapsing against the back seat again and still feeling hungry.

The guy and lady went up the house that was the neighbor to Chris's and went in. But then the guy came back out, looking defiant. Chris looked at Gage; I raised my eyebrow again. The guy came up to the window and tapped on the glass on Chris's side of the care.

He rolled the window until there was a tiny crack.

"What?" He said, sounding arrogant. I should have boxed his ears.

"I am sick of this SHIT!" The guy was bellowing like it was not three o'clock in the morning. "Pick this up, or I swear to God!"

I am not really sure what kind of a threat that is. I swear to God! That is nice and dandy, but it doesn't really convey anything, especially what one thinks he will do. I felt the whatever, Stupid, creeping across my face. I could hardly control myself. This guy was, 1. Drunk. 2. A jackass. 3. Getting on my nerves.

"Alright," Chris said, rolling the window up. The guy huffed then turned on his heels and went inside.

At this point, I am going to infer what probably happened. I couldn't see it happening, as I don't have x-ray vision, but it is a good guess.

While we sat cackling like hyenas, asking, "What the fuck is wrong with this dude?" he probably walked upstairs to his apartment where the new wife was waiting. Instead of climbing into bed like a normal person, he instead stripped down to his wife-beater and red boxers, unlocked the balcony door and made the conscious decision to stand out in thirty-three degree weather for no less than ten minutes and stare at us.

Yes, you read that right. And after noticing the crazy jackass in his underwear standing on the balcony, it was a unanimous vote that I had to keep my eye on him, since the back windows were heavily tinted. The guys and I chatted about what a weirdo this guy was, and other inane things. We were all slightly nervous, but not unnecessarily so, and definitely not enough to have one of us climb out of the car to pick up the trash that was sitting on the hood of the car.

After the ten plus minutes of standing in the cold, the guy finally had enough, (and probably chapped nipples) and went inside.

I jokingly said, "I bet he is getting a gun!"

Chris and Gage laughed, and Chris added, "Yeah. Probably has an AK-47 in there!" We laughed some more.

And then we looked over at the sudden movement of the front door to the guy's apartment. He came tramping down the stairs like an enraged gorilla. And he had something long and black in his hand.

I honestly thought for a second, (and later, Chris agreed that he thought the same) that the guy just had a metal bat.

It was only until he had raised it up on his shoulder and cocked it at us that we realized it wasn't. Instead we were looking down the single barrel of a shotgun. He tapped on the glass with it, and Chris inched the window down slightly, cracking it again.

Two things made this situation even worse.

Chris and I both didn't have our phones, and Gage's phone was busy Text Bombing mine. So there was no way to call the police at that moment in time.

"Sir?" Chris said. His voice was more than terse.

"Get the fuck out of the car and pick up this shit!" The guy made a point to not only aim the gun at me, but also at Gage. At this point in time, I was not feeling scared at all. It's arguable I was in shock. It was literally like time was going in slow motion. I was looking at the back of Chris's head and at Gage's profile and at the gun and at the crack in the window. I was focused so much on the situation that was occurring right in front of me that I didn't hear the wife who was shouting on the steps of the apartment complex. Apparently she was yelling at him to not shoot those damned kids.

Chris nodded. "I will get it right now." He opened the door and got out. I watched him head for the back of the car where some of the empty boxes had apparently been knocked over in the October wind. He scooped them up and put them in the bag, then headed back for the door and climbed back in the car again. The guy waved the gun in a circle all the while.

"You kids are a bunch of little shits. Always leaving shit for me to clean up! You make messes all up and down this fucking streets! You think you own this shit? Fuck all of you! You hear me?" (I imagine he actually would have spelled "hear" as "here" if he were to ever write about this incident in memoir.)

Gage and I had barely moved, but Gage had thankfully been smart enough to stop his phone from the Text Bombing app.

The guy huffed some more, then once again turned on his heel, but continued to curse at us loudly.

Gage handed Chris his phone.

"Call your mom," I said. Chris and his mother weren't close, but she was a Lieutenant on the police force, and I knew from the few chats we had had, she was a force to be reckoned with.

"Mommy!" Chris literally said this. He continued in a little boy voice, "This guy just pulled a gun on us!" There was a pause. "Ana, Gage and I." Another pause. "At my house." He nodded, like she could see him doing it. "Mhmm. Yeah, that is the address." He nodded and hummed a again. "Okay. We will call the police."

He dialed 911.

"Hi, my name is Chris," he began, then gave our address. "This guy came out of his house with a single barreled shotgun and told us to clean up trash." There was a pause, "No he is in his house now." He nodded. "Okay. We will wait here."

We waited for only a few minutes, when there was a cop car suddenly in front and behind us. They told us to get out of the car and asked us where the gun was.

"In the house," I said, point towards the door.

"There are no guns in the car?" One of the officers asked, starting to head towards Gage's opened door. We were crowded around the trunk and I was shivering like a loon. The guys stood around me.

"Um... No. We don't own guns, nor do we have permits to own guns." I was totally deadpan while my teeth chattered in my head.

"We still need to search the car." I was dismayed at the older cop went towards Gage's door. I was freezing my ass off, and didn't want to wait for the search. Luckily Chris's mom rolled up the alleyway in an unmarked car.

"What are you doing! These children aren't the criminals! Ana, get in the car! You look half frozen!" Mama Bear was doing her thing.

I climbed in like I as told, relishing the warmth, but sat in the passenger seat. Gage sat behind me on the driver's side, but we had to keep the doors open so we could begin giving our statements. Chris stood in the doorway, hovering over me like a guard dog.

"Are you alright?" I thought about it, then nodded. I was actually fine. Just in shock. By the sheer stupidity of the human race. This guy was going to kill three kids over White Castle burger boxes? I sighed. On his wedding night!

A very friendly looking officer with a shiny bald head came over to talk to Chris and I while Gage talked to someone else. He smiled while I shivered uncontrollably and curled into a seated fetal position. I didn't have my ID on my so I had to verbally give him all of my information. I knew everything he needed though. Then we told the story. Three times we told it each, making sure every detail was right. It wasn't like I was going to forget it though.

I watched the other officers, (there were nine officers on the one-way street) go up to the door and knock. The jackass was still standing there in his boxers and wife-beater. The police went into the house. At that point I had to reiterate my statement. I was feeling warmer though, so I was slightly more animated in the telling. The officer nodded and "mhmm'd" at the right points. When I looked up the guy was in hand cuffs and being led to the "paddy wagon" as Chris informed it was called. I raised an eyebrow.

After all of that, (and the wife standing on the patio yelling at us what white trash we were, [we will disregard the fact that I was the only wholly white person there, Chris being half-black, and Gage being half-Mexican) Chris's mom came over to tell us the news. It was all "confidential" but basically the guy lied about the whereabouts of the gun, having hidden the firearm that had a filed off serial number. That was a felony. The Lieutenant assured us that even if the charges we had were dropped, that felony would stick. He was definitely going to jail.

She also informed us we had to give a formal statement with a lawyer in the morning at 8 o'clock. It was four thirty.

We nodded, then agreed to stay up all night in order to make sure our statement was made. Chris and I went into the house and I got my previously missing clothes, my purse, phone and keys, and went back outside. I followed Gage in my car to his house, where we dropped my car off. Then we went to Walmart, (where I assured them the florescent lights would keep us awake) and we hung out.

Then at seven thirty we returned to the city and went to city hall.

After waiting a long while, the nice bald cop came and fetched us. We gave an official statement to the lawyer.

Sadly, because Chris and I were both honest, we said we weren't actually scared at the moment it happened. Gage was the only one who said he was scared, so there was only one charge via Gage against the guy. But there was the felony charge, and probably some other ones Chris's mom made a huge effort to be pressed on to the jackass.

At least he didn't kill us. Three murder charges would have been a worse way to begin a marriage.