Sometime in my late twenties, I worked for the Pizza King. It was your typical pizza delivery job, with the typical pizza pay. I didn’t mind working at the Pizza King for the most part. I got to work with a lot of great people, most of whom were my friends before I started there.
The manager of the store was one of my best friend’s girlfriends. He used to come in at the end of the night to pick her up from work, after she finished closing out the drawers. While she was figuring out the accounting in the basement, he and I would hang out upstairs in the lounge, and drink sodas.
One night, my buddy had come in while his girlfriend was downstairs finishing up. He had the knack for really cracking me up, so we lost track of time, and sat around drinking coke for about an hour, before we realized she was taking too long to finishing up. He looked at his watch and said, “Let’s go see what’s taking her so long.”
I followed him down the stairs to the basement, walking about two steps in front of him. At the bottom of the stairs, we could see the familiar dim light coming from the tiny office that sat just to the left. When I got to about the third step from the bottom, a man in a black ski mask, and black clothes, came from out of what seemed like nowhere, and yelled, “Get on your @#$%&* knees! On your @#$%&* knees! He was holding a forty-five pistol against my left temple.
I went down the remaining steps, hoping that I wouldn’t cause him jolt the gun, and blow my head off. At the bottom, I proceeded to get onto my knees, followed by my friend. To our left, we could see all the way into the little office. There she was, hog-tied on the floor with duct tape. The tape was covering her eyes, and mouth, and she was lying on her stomach.
People often wonder what they would do in a situation like this, and it always ends with them knocking the gun out of the attacker’s hand, or elbowing him in the gut, or some other heroic thing. I heard it all after this happened. Things like, “I would’ve... or you should’ve... or, If it was me...If that ever happened to me, I would have...” and so on. My answer to them all is an emphatic “Bull”. The truth is that if you have any sense at all, you do what the guy with the gun in your face is telling you to do. I used to get furious when I heard all of those “I would haves” because the truth is, “No you wouldn’t have”.
Back to the floor. After I got onto my knees, the guy with the gun in my face was yelling, “Put your hands behind your head!” I had to set the cup of soda down on the floor, in order to do so, and I can clearly remember myself hoping that it didn’t spill, because I didn’t want to irritate this guy. After all, he did have a forty-five pressed into my temple. He made us go into the room with the girlfriend in it, and drop to our knees on either side of her. Her face looked like something from a movie. There was duct tape wrapped around her whole head, with clumps of hair sticking out everywhere. There was an opening in the tape that allowed her to see me, but I couldn’t see her eyes. She had been crying, and lying on the floor for awhile by the looks of it. In hindsight, this really bothered me. It meant that she had to wait down there, knowing that he was waiting for us to come down or leave. She knew that we would come down though. It must have been horrible for her to wait on the floor all tied up like that.
When we got onto the floor, I was on her left, and my friend was on her right. The man told us to lie down; all the while, keeping the gun at close range to the back of my head. He held the gun in his hand while he taped my wrists together behind my back. When he had finished mine, he taped my friend’s wrists, then his feet, then his feet to his wrists, and his head, covering his eyes and mouth- just like his girlfriend’s. After he finished taping up him all the way, he finished binding me the same way.
We could hear him going through the desk and shuffling papers behind us. When he finished this, he came back over to us and told us that he would be back in fifteen minutes to get the rest of his “stuff”, and that if we moved before he got back, he was going to blow our brains out right there in the Pizza King.
Even until this day, I don’t think too much about what “I could have, or should have” done. I tend to just thank God for not letting him do what he “could have” done.
Well, my friend didn’t believe that the guy would be back like he had said, so as soon as we heard the upstairs door open and close, he managed to get a small Swiss Armey knife out of his pocket, and cut the tape off of himself, his girlfriend, then me. I should make it perfectly clear that I was fully willing to wait there a few more minutes before acting. Who knows, he could have been waiting upstairs, just itching to shoot us for not listening to him. He wasn’t there though when we got upstairs. My friend immediately ran over to a bar that is in the same building with duct tape all over his head yelling, “Call the police, we were just robbed!” He said that the patrons just sat there looking at him for a few minutes, wondering what he was talking about. I guess he probably did look a little odd, even for a Monday night bar crowd in Crawfordsville, IN.
The police station used to be three blocks from the Pizza King, so they showed up fairly quick. They are amazing, the police in Crawfordsville. It took all of about five minutes and a description of the guy with the gun before they started asking if I was involved in it. I told them, “Absolutely! I was involved in it! I was hog tied in the basement with a gun to my head for God’s sake!” I was a suspect for a while, believe it or not. They never labeled me as one to my face, but they interrogated me as if I was driving the getaway car.
For months after the Pizza King deal, I was petrified to walk down the street. I am sure that this is somewhat normal, but I was almost to the point of being incapacitated by fear. Every time I walked down the street to go to work after that, I would look over my shoulder, wondering if the guy with the gun was one of the people walking behind me, or staring at me from a parked car. The majority of this anxiety came from not being able to see his face. As I knew, he could be anyone. And he knew what my face looked like. I keep a newspaper clip telling about the robbery in my wallet. It is laminated, and has been with me since the day after it all happened. It has the facts wrong, but it reminds me that this thing really did happen (wrong number of people involved, etc.). It would come in handy later on down the road, when things in my life started getting really bad. Sometimes, when things would get really crazy later on, and I could not tell what was real or not, I would pull that clipping out, and remind myself that I wasn’t making this stuff up.
The manager of the store was one of my best friend’s girlfriends. He used to come in at the end of the night to pick her up from work, after she finished closing out the drawers. While she was figuring out the accounting in the basement, he and I would hang out upstairs in the lounge, and drink sodas.
One night, my buddy had come in while his girlfriend was downstairs finishing up. He had the knack for really cracking me up, so we lost track of time, and sat around drinking coke for about an hour, before we realized she was taking too long to finishing up. He looked at his watch and said, “Let’s go see what’s taking her so long.”I followed him down the stairs to the basement, walking about two steps in front of him. At the bottom of the stairs, we could see the familiar dim light coming from the tiny office that sat just to the left. When I got to about the third step from the bottom, a man in a black ski mask, and black clothes, came from out of what seemed like nowhere, and yelled, “Get on your @#$%&* knees! On your @#$%&* knees! He was holding a forty-five pistol against my left temple.
I went down the remaining steps, hoping that I wouldn’t cause him jolt the gun, and blow my head off. At the bottom, I proceeded to get onto my knees, followed by my friend. To our left, we could see all the way into the little office. There she was, hog-tied on the floor with duct tape. The tape was covering her eyes, and mouth, and she was lying on her stomach.
People often wonder what they would do in a situation like this, and it always ends with them knocking the gun out of the attacker’s hand, or elbowing him in the gut, or some other heroic thing. I heard it all after this happened. Things like, “I would’ve... or you should’ve... or, If it was me...If that ever happened to me, I would have...” and so on. My answer to them all is an emphatic “Bull”. The truth is that if you have any sense at all, you do what the guy with the gun in your face is telling you to do. I used to get furious when I heard all of those “I would haves” because the truth is, “No you wouldn’t have”.
Back to the floor. After I got onto my knees, the guy with the gun in my face was yelling, “Put your hands behind your head!” I had to set the cup of soda down on the floor, in order to do so, and I can clearly remember myself hoping that it didn’t spill, because I didn’t want to irritate this guy. After all, he did have a forty-five pressed into my temple. He made us go into the room with the girlfriend in it, and drop to our knees on either side of her. Her face looked like something from a movie. There was duct tape wrapped around her whole head, with clumps of hair sticking out everywhere. There was an opening in the tape that allowed her to see me, but I couldn’t see her eyes. She had been crying, and lying on the floor for awhile by the looks of it. In hindsight, this really bothered me. It meant that she had to wait down there, knowing that he was waiting for us to come down or leave. She knew that we would come down though. It must have been horrible for her to wait on the floor all tied up like that.
When we got onto the floor, I was on her left, and my friend was on her right. The man told us to lie down; all the while, keeping the gun at close range to the back of my head. He held the gun in his hand while he taped my wrists together behind my back. When he had finished mine, he taped my friend’s wrists, then his feet, then his feet to his wrists, and his head, covering his eyes and mouth- just like his girlfriend’s. After he finished taping up him all the way, he finished binding me the same way.
We could hear him going through the desk and shuffling papers behind us. When he finished this, he came back over to us and told us that he would be back in fifteen minutes to get the rest of his “stuff”, and that if we moved before he got back, he was going to blow our brains out right there in the Pizza King.
Even until this day, I don’t think too much about what “I could have, or should have” done. I tend to just thank God for not letting him do what he “could have” done.
Well, my friend didn’t believe that the guy would be back like he had said, so as soon as we heard the upstairs door open and close, he managed to get a small Swiss Armey knife out of his pocket, and cut the tape off of himself, his girlfriend, then me. I should make it perfectly clear that I was fully willing to wait there a few more minutes before acting. Who knows, he could have been waiting upstairs, just itching to shoot us for not listening to him. He wasn’t there though when we got upstairs. My friend immediately ran over to a bar that is in the same building with duct tape all over his head yelling, “Call the police, we were just robbed!” He said that the patrons just sat there looking at him for a few minutes, wondering what he was talking about. I guess he probably did look a little odd, even for a Monday night bar crowd in Crawfordsville, IN.
The police station used to be three blocks from the Pizza King, so they showed up fairly quick. They are amazing, the police in Crawfordsville. It took all of about five minutes and a description of the guy with the gun before they started asking if I was involved in it. I told them, “Absolutely! I was involved in it! I was hog tied in the basement with a gun to my head for God’s sake!” I was a suspect for a while, believe it or not. They never labeled me as one to my face, but they interrogated me as if I was driving the getaway car.
For months after the Pizza King deal, I was petrified to walk down the street. I am sure that this is somewhat normal, but I was almost to the point of being incapacitated by fear. Every time I walked down the street to go to work after that, I would look over my shoulder, wondering if the guy with the gun was one of the people walking behind me, or staring at me from a parked car. The majority of this anxiety came from not being able to see his face. As I knew, he could be anyone. And he knew what my face looked like. I keep a newspaper clip telling about the robbery in my wallet. It is laminated, and has been with me since the day after it all happened. It has the facts wrong, but it reminds me that this thing really did happen (wrong number of people involved, etc.). It would come in handy later on down the road, when things in my life started getting really bad. Sometimes, when things would get really crazy later on, and I could not tell what was real or not, I would pull that clipping out, and remind myself that I wasn’t making this stuff up.
2 comments:
surprisingly to me, i remember that event. can't remember much from my own life but i sure can remember yours.
-sistacristian
oops,am i supposed to act like i don't know you like mom does? sorry.
WOW I HAD NO IDEA. YOU WILL HAVE TO SHOW ME THAT CLIPPING.
KANDEO
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