The ebook is available for FREE if you are a Kindle Unlimited subscriber.
The Fix is in Already
5 hours ago
Tuesday, July 4, 2017
Now Available! Red Light Run (Roger Devereux Book 2)
Today is the release date for my second novel, Red Light Run. It is available as an ebook or paperback from Amazon.
The ebook is available for FREE if you are a Kindle Unlimited subscriber.
The ebook is available for FREE if you are a Kindle Unlimited subscriber.
Monday, June 5, 2017
Book Updates AND A FREE SHORT STORY!
The sequel to my first novel Tragic City, titled Red Light Run, will be published on Amazon Kindle on July 4, 2017. The paperback will follow shortly thereafter. I currently have the rough outline for book 3 completed and will be releasing a short story collection within the next couple of months. If you are interested in either book, click on the above links to Amazon.
Tragic City is currently priced at $0.99 and FREE with Kindle Unlimited. Red Light Run is available for preorder with a list price of $2.99 and will also be FREE with Kindle Unlimited.
![Red Light Run (Roger Devereux Book 2) by [McDonald, Robert]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41ff6HF2lCL.jpg)
And now, for your reading pleasure, here is my short story Bad Day. Chronologically this takes place a few years before the events of Tragic City while Roger Devereux was working as a security contractor in Mexico. This is an unedited version of the story, so please forgive me the grammar and/or spelling.
I half listened to the chatter on the radio and focused my eyes on the street vendors and traffic as we tooled along the Juarez roadways in our up armored Land Rover Defender. I glanced toward Terry, my team leader, and saw he was doing the same out his window on the opposite side of the second row seat from me. We were on a parallel path to the main convoy transporting the principal.
Terry idly scratched his thick red beard and glanced at me as he felt my gaze. He gave a slight nod of acknowledgment before glancing back out at the human debris cluttering the busy street.
I’d been on Terry’s team for three month, and this was our third rotation as the Quick React Force, and my first time acting as the team’s assistant team leader. The former ATL had returned to the States upon receiving divorce papers. There were rumors that a tragic donkey show accident had something to do with the divorce, but I wasn’t sure if that was true or just another manifestation of Terry’s sick sense of humor.
Ronnie, riding shotgun directly in front of me, had been pissed. He had more time on the teams and was an Army vet who had served in combat in Iraq. The truth was, he was a decent shooter, but he brought too much baggage from the Army with him. He never missed a chance to criticize the company and tell us how much better the Army would handle our assignments. Most of us wondered why he hadn’t reenlisted, and everyone wished that he had.
His attitude caused a lot of friction, especially with the guys who had never served in the military, and it would probably cause Roland to not renew his contract when the current term was up. He was just barely tolerated on our team, and none of the others would have him.
Both Terry and I had no prior military experience, and Ronnie made sure to let us know that made us lesser men in his eyes. Ryan, our SAW gunner, who rode in the rear luggage compartment with his big gun, was former USAF Security Forces and given slightly more respect. Still, the big Cajun had to listen to endless jokes about his time in the “Chair Force,” and Ronnie had come close to pushing the coonass past his ability to tolerate the ribbing. Ernesto, our driver, had served in the Mexican Marine’s before taking a job with Roland, but Ronnie treated him with the same casual disdain he handed out to me and Terry.
We all knew Ronnie thought he should have Terry’s job. We also knew that if that every happened we’d all quit. And so did Roland.
I had been Terry’s second choice to fill the ATL slot. Terry had made the offer to Ryan first, due to his seniority. Ryan had declined, saying he was just a shooter and preferred it that way. He’d suggested Terry try me.
I’d hesitated at first, but Terry made it simple.
“Look,” he’d said, “it’s a bump in pay with no real increase in responsibility. The only way you take over is if I get taken out, and I like breathing. Plus, it’ll chap Ronnie’s ass to see you get it over him.”
I’d agreed, more for the latter than any other reason.
The radio crackled and the Close Protection Detail’s Team Lead addressed Terry.
“Trouble Shooter One, this is Alpha One, over.”
“Copy, Alpha One,” Terry replied.
“We’re coming to a stop,” Jonathan, call sign Alpha One, said. “Looks like some kind of traffic accident, over.”
“Copy, Alpha One,” Terry said. “We’ll pull it to the curb until you’re rolling again.”
“Roger, Trouble Shooter One, out.”
Ernesto pulled to the curb and we waited with the engine running, thankful for the air conditioning that kept most of the heat out. A couple of minutes went by, and we watched for any sign of a threat. Mostly, we listened to the radio.
Our job was to come in and hit anything and anyone that attacked the convoy so hard they’d be too tied up with us to keep the Close Protection Detail from extracting with the principal. A convenient traffic accident would make the perfect prelude to an ambush, and if this had been our first time out we would have been on high alert. Unfortunately, we’d experienced this one too many times to pay it much concern.
We felt and heard the first explosion at almost the same time. The radio lit up with Jonathan’s adrenaline spiked voice as a second explosion followed.
“Lead vehicle just took an RPG! Fuck, chaser too! Get us the fuck out of—”
Over the radio we heard a single gunshot, followed by three more, and then a loud crash before the radio cut out. In the distance, we heard the distinctive sound of AK rifles firing full automatic.
Not waiting for Terry’s order, Ernesto had the Defender screeching away from the curb and shooting down the nearest ally toward the main convoy. Adrenaline was surging in my system, and I knew everyone must feel the same way as we sped toward our objective. We’d gotten complacent, and it had made our reaction time slow. We should have been rolling as soon as we heard the first explosion, but disbelief had temporarily paralyzed us.
Ernesto crashed through a fruit vendor’s stand at the opposite end of the alley and brought the Defender to a screeching halt just in front of the convoy.
The lead and chase vehicles, both armored Suburbans, were engulfed in flames. It looked like the attackers had hit them with Molotov cocktails after the RPGs. I felt a chill of terror go up my spine as thought about the men who had been inside. Not friends, but certainly close acquaintances.
The principle’s transport, an armored Mercedes G Wagon, had been smashed into and pinned against a concrete road divider by a lifted Ford F-250 pickup truck. Four men were pointing AKs at the SUV, and a fifth was just finishing pouring a can of gasoline on the hood. The windshield was spider webbed from multiple rifle round hits, but so far it looked like it was living up to its manufacturer’s advertised capabilities.
“Take those fuckers out!” Terry ordered as we spilled from the Defender.
The hijackers were just turning toward us as we started spraying hate and hot metal. We let them have it hard and fast, not having to worry about the principle and Close Protection Detail behind the thick armor of the G Wagon. I brought my AR up and put the red dot of the Aimpoint sight on the centerline of one of the AK men and pulled the trigger as fast as I could while still keeping the rifle on target.
He was dead before he hit the ground and I transition to the next armed attacker just as Ryan’s SAW lit off and chewed my new target to pieces. I looked over my Aimpoint for more targets, but finding none lowered the rifle to the ready. All of the hijackers in view were down.
Ronnie started for the G Wagon and I followed, with Terry bringing up the rear. Ryan stayed on the SAW, aiming over the hood of the Defender while using the engine block as cover. Ernesto was still in the Land Rover, behind the wheel and ready to hightail as soon as we saddled back up.
As we reached the Mercedes, the rear passenger door popped open and Jonathan stepped out, his gray suit speckled with blood spray.
“Carl’s dead,” he said without preamble, his voice cracking. “Ricardo shot him in the head just before we got hit by the truck. He must have been in on it. He went for me too, but the angle was wrong and I took it in the armor. Trashed my radio. I put two in the fucker’s skull. Fuck, man, Carl’s dead.”
Carl and Jonathan had been friends for over a decade, and had been working together most of that time. Jonathan was clearly fucked up mentally, but he was doing his best to hold it together.
“Jesus,” Terry said. “The principle?”
“Shitless,” Jonathan said, voice harsh as he tried to keep it steady. “But otherwise okay.”
“Let’s get you both into our vehicle and get the fuck out of here before anyone else shows up,” Terry said.
The street had gone eerily quiet and the normal crowds had vanished. Jonathan pulled the principle from the Mercedes and began to lead him toward the Defender just as the sound of a vehicle caught my ear. In the distance, I could here sirens but this vehicle was much closer and I felt something creepy crawly go up my spine.
“Time to scoot,” Terry said, motioning us toward the Defender.
Ronnie booked it after Jonathan and the principle, and then past them. He was in the shotgun seat and ducked down low with the door shut before I’d taken a step. I heard a vehicle break to a stop behind the corner of a building on the opposite side of the convoy vehicles from us and I turned in that direction.
“Get your ass moving, Devereux!” Terry shouted.
I didn’t hesitate, I turned and sprinted for the the Defender. I heard Terry’s para FAL firing in rapid single shots and glanced over my shoulder in time to see five armed men attempting to get back around the corner of the building where I’d heard the vehicle. Two of them fell to the ground, but the others made it back behind cover.
I checked my sprint, intending to turn and give Terry some covering fire on his way back to the Defender but he yelled again.
“Don’t stop, go!”
I looked back to the Defender and saw Ryan had repositioned at the back of the Defender to have a clear line of fire at the corner the men had come from. I reached the Defender and took up a position between Jonathan and the principle and any threat, just as Terry worked a reload on his FAL and started to sprint out way.
A hijacker with and AK popped around the corner and held his trigger down, firing wildly on full auto. Ryan shredded him with a burst from the SAW but not before one of his rounds felt Murphy’s touch and ripped through Terry’s leg below the knee. He stumbled and went down with a cry, and I started back toward him.
I felt a hand slap my shoulder and then Jonathan was rushing past me.
“I got him,” he shouted. “Stay with the principle.”
I checked my run and duck walked backwards until I felt the open rear passenger door of the Defender at my back. I positioned myself between the open door and any threat outside, covering Jonathan as he sprinted toward Terry. Ryan was firing short, controlled bursts towards the corner to keep anyone from getting to brave and making another kamikaze attack.
Jonathan had just reached Terry and was kneeling down to get him up when a Toyota Tacoma came barreling around the corner. There was a man in the bed manning a fucking Ma Deuce fifty caliber heavy machine gun on a pintle mount. Before either I or Ryan could react he swung the heavy gun’s barrel toward Jonathan and Terry and fired. The booming DOOMDOOMDOOMDOOM drowned out my shout of rage and horror as I watched Jonathan and Terry’s bodies disintegrate under the heavy storm of metal.
I snapped my rifle up, too late to help, and dumped my magazine into the fifty gunner. He fell over the side of the truck and hit the pavement head first with a crack like a bursting egg. Ryan held down the trigger on the SAW and walked the line of fire back and fourth across the cab of the Tacoma until there was not way anything inside could survive.
I worked a mag change and yelled at Ryan.
“Saddle up, let’s get the fuck out of here.”
I crammed into the rear seat of the Defender and pulled the door shut, just as Ryan opened the rear and tossed the SAW inside before clambering his bulk in and pulling the hatch down.
“Drive!” I shouted at Ernesto.
As we sped through the dusty Juarez streets I practiced my breathing, trying to slow my heart rate and keep my hands from shaking. I heard low muttering, and glanced at the principle. He was wide eyed and clearly terrified in his rumpled Brooks Brothers suit, but he was quiet. I glanced into the front seat and saw where the sound was coming from.
Ronnie has crammed himself down onto the floor board in front of the passenger seat. He had his chin tucked into his knees and his arms hugged his legs as he rocked back and forth, tears streaming down his face. I could see his entire body trembling, and I finally made out the muttering.
“Home. Home. I want to go home,” he said, over and over.
He didn’t stop until a doctor tranqed him back at Roland’s compound. They put him on a plane back to the states two days later, his contract terminated early and paid in full with a medical disability bonus.
Roland offered me the Trouble Shooter Team Leader position, and I accepted. I kept it until my contract was up nine months later, and then I went home. Back to Birmingham, Alabama. Where it was safer.
Tragic City is currently priced at $0.99 and FREE with Kindle Unlimited. Red Light Run is available for preorder with a list price of $2.99 and will also be FREE with Kindle Unlimited.
And now, for your reading pleasure, here is my short story Bad Day. Chronologically this takes place a few years before the events of Tragic City while Roger Devereux was working as a security contractor in Mexico. This is an unedited version of the story, so please forgive me the grammar and/or spelling.
I half listened to the chatter on the radio and focused my eyes on the street vendors and traffic as we tooled along the Juarez roadways in our up armored Land Rover Defender. I glanced toward Terry, my team leader, and saw he was doing the same out his window on the opposite side of the second row seat from me. We were on a parallel path to the main convoy transporting the principal.
Terry idly scratched his thick red beard and glanced at me as he felt my gaze. He gave a slight nod of acknowledgment before glancing back out at the human debris cluttering the busy street.
I’d been on Terry’s team for three month, and this was our third rotation as the Quick React Force, and my first time acting as the team’s assistant team leader. The former ATL had returned to the States upon receiving divorce papers. There were rumors that a tragic donkey show accident had something to do with the divorce, but I wasn’t sure if that was true or just another manifestation of Terry’s sick sense of humor.
Ronnie, riding shotgun directly in front of me, had been pissed. He had more time on the teams and was an Army vet who had served in combat in Iraq. The truth was, he was a decent shooter, but he brought too much baggage from the Army with him. He never missed a chance to criticize the company and tell us how much better the Army would handle our assignments. Most of us wondered why he hadn’t reenlisted, and everyone wished that he had.
His attitude caused a lot of friction, especially with the guys who had never served in the military, and it would probably cause Roland to not renew his contract when the current term was up. He was just barely tolerated on our team, and none of the others would have him.
Both Terry and I had no prior military experience, and Ronnie made sure to let us know that made us lesser men in his eyes. Ryan, our SAW gunner, who rode in the rear luggage compartment with his big gun, was former USAF Security Forces and given slightly more respect. Still, the big Cajun had to listen to endless jokes about his time in the “Chair Force,” and Ronnie had come close to pushing the coonass past his ability to tolerate the ribbing. Ernesto, our driver, had served in the Mexican Marine’s before taking a job with Roland, but Ronnie treated him with the same casual disdain he handed out to me and Terry.
We all knew Ronnie thought he should have Terry’s job. We also knew that if that every happened we’d all quit. And so did Roland.
I had been Terry’s second choice to fill the ATL slot. Terry had made the offer to Ryan first, due to his seniority. Ryan had declined, saying he was just a shooter and preferred it that way. He’d suggested Terry try me.
I’d hesitated at first, but Terry made it simple.
“Look,” he’d said, “it’s a bump in pay with no real increase in responsibility. The only way you take over is if I get taken out, and I like breathing. Plus, it’ll chap Ronnie’s ass to see you get it over him.”
I’d agreed, more for the latter than any other reason.
The radio crackled and the Close Protection Detail’s Team Lead addressed Terry.
“Trouble Shooter One, this is Alpha One, over.”
“Copy, Alpha One,” Terry replied.
“We’re coming to a stop,” Jonathan, call sign Alpha One, said. “Looks like some kind of traffic accident, over.”
“Copy, Alpha One,” Terry said. “We’ll pull it to the curb until you’re rolling again.”
“Roger, Trouble Shooter One, out.”
Ernesto pulled to the curb and we waited with the engine running, thankful for the air conditioning that kept most of the heat out. A couple of minutes went by, and we watched for any sign of a threat. Mostly, we listened to the radio.
Our job was to come in and hit anything and anyone that attacked the convoy so hard they’d be too tied up with us to keep the Close Protection Detail from extracting with the principal. A convenient traffic accident would make the perfect prelude to an ambush, and if this had been our first time out we would have been on high alert. Unfortunately, we’d experienced this one too many times to pay it much concern.
We felt and heard the first explosion at almost the same time. The radio lit up with Jonathan’s adrenaline spiked voice as a second explosion followed.
“Lead vehicle just took an RPG! Fuck, chaser too! Get us the fuck out of—”
Over the radio we heard a single gunshot, followed by three more, and then a loud crash before the radio cut out. In the distance, we heard the distinctive sound of AK rifles firing full automatic.
Not waiting for Terry’s order, Ernesto had the Defender screeching away from the curb and shooting down the nearest ally toward the main convoy. Adrenaline was surging in my system, and I knew everyone must feel the same way as we sped toward our objective. We’d gotten complacent, and it had made our reaction time slow. We should have been rolling as soon as we heard the first explosion, but disbelief had temporarily paralyzed us.
Ernesto crashed through a fruit vendor’s stand at the opposite end of the alley and brought the Defender to a screeching halt just in front of the convoy.
The lead and chase vehicles, both armored Suburbans, were engulfed in flames. It looked like the attackers had hit them with Molotov cocktails after the RPGs. I felt a chill of terror go up my spine as thought about the men who had been inside. Not friends, but certainly close acquaintances.
The principle’s transport, an armored Mercedes G Wagon, had been smashed into and pinned against a concrete road divider by a lifted Ford F-250 pickup truck. Four men were pointing AKs at the SUV, and a fifth was just finishing pouring a can of gasoline on the hood. The windshield was spider webbed from multiple rifle round hits, but so far it looked like it was living up to its manufacturer’s advertised capabilities.
“Take those fuckers out!” Terry ordered as we spilled from the Defender.
The hijackers were just turning toward us as we started spraying hate and hot metal. We let them have it hard and fast, not having to worry about the principle and Close Protection Detail behind the thick armor of the G Wagon. I brought my AR up and put the red dot of the Aimpoint sight on the centerline of one of the AK men and pulled the trigger as fast as I could while still keeping the rifle on target.
He was dead before he hit the ground and I transition to the next armed attacker just as Ryan’s SAW lit off and chewed my new target to pieces. I looked over my Aimpoint for more targets, but finding none lowered the rifle to the ready. All of the hijackers in view were down.
Ronnie started for the G Wagon and I followed, with Terry bringing up the rear. Ryan stayed on the SAW, aiming over the hood of the Defender while using the engine block as cover. Ernesto was still in the Land Rover, behind the wheel and ready to hightail as soon as we saddled back up.
As we reached the Mercedes, the rear passenger door popped open and Jonathan stepped out, his gray suit speckled with blood spray.
“Carl’s dead,” he said without preamble, his voice cracking. “Ricardo shot him in the head just before we got hit by the truck. He must have been in on it. He went for me too, but the angle was wrong and I took it in the armor. Trashed my radio. I put two in the fucker’s skull. Fuck, man, Carl’s dead.”
Carl and Jonathan had been friends for over a decade, and had been working together most of that time. Jonathan was clearly fucked up mentally, but he was doing his best to hold it together.
“Jesus,” Terry said. “The principle?”
“Shitless,” Jonathan said, voice harsh as he tried to keep it steady. “But otherwise okay.”
“Let’s get you both into our vehicle and get the fuck out of here before anyone else shows up,” Terry said.
The street had gone eerily quiet and the normal crowds had vanished. Jonathan pulled the principle from the Mercedes and began to lead him toward the Defender just as the sound of a vehicle caught my ear. In the distance, I could here sirens but this vehicle was much closer and I felt something creepy crawly go up my spine.
“Time to scoot,” Terry said, motioning us toward the Defender.
Ronnie booked it after Jonathan and the principle, and then past them. He was in the shotgun seat and ducked down low with the door shut before I’d taken a step. I heard a vehicle break to a stop behind the corner of a building on the opposite side of the convoy vehicles from us and I turned in that direction.
“Get your ass moving, Devereux!” Terry shouted.
I didn’t hesitate, I turned and sprinted for the the Defender. I heard Terry’s para FAL firing in rapid single shots and glanced over my shoulder in time to see five armed men attempting to get back around the corner of the building where I’d heard the vehicle. Two of them fell to the ground, but the others made it back behind cover.
I checked my sprint, intending to turn and give Terry some covering fire on his way back to the Defender but he yelled again.
“Don’t stop, go!”
I looked back to the Defender and saw Ryan had repositioned at the back of the Defender to have a clear line of fire at the corner the men had come from. I reached the Defender and took up a position between Jonathan and the principle and any threat, just as Terry worked a reload on his FAL and started to sprint out way.
A hijacker with and AK popped around the corner and held his trigger down, firing wildly on full auto. Ryan shredded him with a burst from the SAW but not before one of his rounds felt Murphy’s touch and ripped through Terry’s leg below the knee. He stumbled and went down with a cry, and I started back toward him.
I felt a hand slap my shoulder and then Jonathan was rushing past me.
“I got him,” he shouted. “Stay with the principle.”
I checked my run and duck walked backwards until I felt the open rear passenger door of the Defender at my back. I positioned myself between the open door and any threat outside, covering Jonathan as he sprinted toward Terry. Ryan was firing short, controlled bursts towards the corner to keep anyone from getting to brave and making another kamikaze attack.
Jonathan had just reached Terry and was kneeling down to get him up when a Toyota Tacoma came barreling around the corner. There was a man in the bed manning a fucking Ma Deuce fifty caliber heavy machine gun on a pintle mount. Before either I or Ryan could react he swung the heavy gun’s barrel toward Jonathan and Terry and fired. The booming DOOMDOOMDOOMDOOM drowned out my shout of rage and horror as I watched Jonathan and Terry’s bodies disintegrate under the heavy storm of metal.
I snapped my rifle up, too late to help, and dumped my magazine into the fifty gunner. He fell over the side of the truck and hit the pavement head first with a crack like a bursting egg. Ryan held down the trigger on the SAW and walked the line of fire back and fourth across the cab of the Tacoma until there was not way anything inside could survive.
I worked a mag change and yelled at Ryan.
“Saddle up, let’s get the fuck out of here.”
I crammed into the rear seat of the Defender and pulled the door shut, just as Ryan opened the rear and tossed the SAW inside before clambering his bulk in and pulling the hatch down.
“Drive!” I shouted at Ernesto.
As we sped through the dusty Juarez streets I practiced my breathing, trying to slow my heart rate and keep my hands from shaking. I heard low muttering, and glanced at the principle. He was wide eyed and clearly terrified in his rumpled Brooks Brothers suit, but he was quiet. I glanced into the front seat and saw where the sound was coming from.
Ronnie has crammed himself down onto the floor board in front of the passenger seat. He had his chin tucked into his knees and his arms hugged his legs as he rocked back and forth, tears streaming down his face. I could see his entire body trembling, and I finally made out the muttering.
“Home. Home. I want to go home,” he said, over and over.
He didn’t stop until a doctor tranqed him back at Roland’s compound. They put him on a plane back to the states two days later, his contract terminated early and paid in full with a medical disability bonus.
Roland offered me the Trouble Shooter Team Leader position, and I accepted. I kept it until my contract was up nine months later, and then I went home. Back to Birmingham, Alabama. Where it was safer.
Saturday, March 11, 2017
My book Tragic City is a free today on Amazon Kindle!
Tragic City is a hard boiled, neo-noirish crime novel set in Birmingham, Alabama, one of the most violent cities in America.
Get it here!
Get it here!
Sunday, January 15, 2017
Paperback Now Available!
My first novel Tragic City is now available from Amazon.com as a paper back novel (see link below).
Tragic City is a neo-noirish, hard-boiled crime novel set in Birmingham, Alabama. From the back of the book:
"Roger Devereux isn't a knight in shining armor. He drinks, gambles, is prone to violence, and hasn't met a woman he won't take to bed. But when a teenage girl disappears in the Magic City, he's the first person her mother calls. Before he knows it, Roger is thrust into a world of human traffickers, drug dealers, dirty cops, random thugs, and brutal violence."
Check out these five start reviews on Amazon:
"An awesome, gritty, non stop action filled story that will keep you engaged. If you are from Birmingham, or have ever been there you will instantly recognize the city, places, and people. The descriptions are on point, and make you feel as if you were along for the ride. I look forward to spending more time with Roger Devereux in the future."
"Best damn book I have read in a while. This guy is a writer to keep an eye out for. More please."
Sunday, December 25, 2016
Get my book Tragic City FREE today only on Amazon!
Merry Christmas!
As a gift to everyone I have made Tragic City FREE on Kindle! Check it out!
And if you like what you read please review it on Amazon! Here's my first review:
5 Stars
"An awesome, gritty, non stop action filled story that will keep you engaged. If you are from Birmingham, or have ever been there you will instantly recognize the city, places, and people. The descriptions are on point, and make you feel as if you were along for the ride. I look forward to spending more time with Roger Devereux in the future."
As a gift to everyone I have made Tragic City FREE on Kindle! Check it out!
And if you like what you read please review it on Amazon! Here's my first review:
5 Stars
"An awesome, gritty, non stop action filled story that will keep you engaged. If you are from Birmingham, or have ever been there you will instantly recognize the city, places, and people. The descriptions are on point, and make you feel as if you were along for the ride. I look forward to spending more time with Roger Devereux in the future."
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Tuesday, July 26, 2016
Tragic City, Chapter 5, Copyright Robert McDonald 2016 All Rights Reserved
I managed to get the bandage on Steve’s arm and the bleeding under control before the first of three Birmingham PD Ford Explorers screeched to a halt on the street. Two cops jumped out of each, guns drawn, and ordered us all to the ground. They searched us, disarmed me, cuffed us all, and then asked what had happened.
After about fifteens minutes they let the medics in to check out Raymond and Steve. Raymond was dead right there, but they loaded Steve onto a stretcher and put him into an ambulance that left for a nearby emergency room. One of the cops helped me up off the ground and escorted me over to one of the police Fords and put me in the back seat. I watched as they released the woman in the green dress from her handcuffs. They must have realized she was just a witness.
An unmarked police car pulled up and a detective with a stocky build and black hair in a crew cut stepped out. I recognized him from his visits to the cigar shop. He was an old friend of Walt’s, and a veteran homicide detective. He walked over to the two patrol cops who had first arrived on the scene and talked with them for a minute. Then he walked over to the woman in the green dress. He talked to her longer, asking a lot of questions and taking notes. I watched, wondering what was being said.
I tried to keep my imagination from going out of control with worry by focusing on the woman in the loud green dress. She was attractive enough to be a decent distraction from the growing sick feeling in my gut as I wondered what was going to happen to me, if I’d be arrested or charged with murder. Logically that would be nuts, but you hear horror stories if you’ve been in the self defense training community for any time.
Ms. Green Dress was about five-six, maybe one hundred thirty pounds. Long, athletic legs with some well defined curves in the bust and ass. She had that golden shade of skin the old timers called “high yaller,” shoulder length dark hair, and light green eyes. She was a gorgeous woman, I decided, with lips that a lazy novelist would describe as pouty. The dress she was wearing, on the other hand, was fucking hideous. I liked a woman in a sun dress and she clearly had the body for it, but that color did her no justice.
She crossed her arms over her chest as she talked to the detective and glanced my way. I noticed a glint of metal in one nostril and realized she had a hoop piercing there. It was cute and made me smile. She made eye contact with me and smiled back for an instant before dropping it and returning her gaze to the detective as he asked another question. It was the most uncanny thing, having a beautiful woman smile at me after seeing me turn some guy’s head into a canoe like I was Wyatt Earp at the O.K. Carrol.
That last though sent my mind spinning in a new direction. I had killed a man. Now I was sitting in the back of a cop car, maybe under arrest, maybe not, but definitely under a lot of scrutiny. I knew, without a doubt, that I had done what I had too. Had I not acted when I did Steve might be dead right now, and the thought of letting someone innocent die when I could stop it made me feel sick inside. I wasn’t ashamed of what I’d done. In fact I was starting to get a little pissed off. I’d done what any cop worth his badge would have done in a similar situation, but here I was sitting in the back of a patrol vehicle in cuffs.
The detective finished with Ms. Green Dress and gestured her over to the bench seats by one of the picnic tables. He looked over at me then and stared for a a while before narrowing his eyes and then quirking one eyebrow. He walked over to where I sat and opened the door so he could get a better look at me.
“Mr. Devereux?” he asked.
I nodded.
“I’m Detective Darren Wilson, Birmingham PD homicide,” he introduced himself. “I’ve seen you before somewhere, haven’t I?”
“Yes, Sir,” I answered. “At the cigar shop. Walt’s place.”
“That’s right,” he said, nodding. “So what happened here?”
“The man that was stabbed, Steve,” I said.
He nodded.
“I gave him a ride to meet the dead guy. He said his name was Raymond.” I looked him in the eyes as I spoke, holding his gaze and trying to keep my voice even. “Raymond was supposed to have a collectible Rolex that Steve was interested in buying. I came along as backup because it was going to be a cash transaction and Steve was worried it was a too good to be true situation. He didn’t want to be walking around out here with ten grand and have this guy try something. Steve’s not in the best physical health so he had me come along.
“So, this guy Raymond pulls up in that piece of shit Caddy he’s lying in front of and Steve goes over to talk to him. They talk for a minute or two but I could tell Steve wasn’t impressed with what Raymond had to show him. Raymond got mad, pulled out a screwdriver, and yells at Steve to give him the money. Steve throws his hands up and starts backing way and Raymond stabs him. By this time I realized what was going down and was drawing my gun. Steve tripped and fell back over the curb trying to get away and Raymond kept coming at him like he was going to stab him again. I shot Raymond a couple of times in the chest and he didn’t stop so I shot him in the head. He stopped then. I told the lady in green to call 911 to tell them what happened and get an ambulance for my friend.”
Detective Wilson ha been nodding his head as I talked and when I finished, spoke.
“Yeah, that’s what your friend told my partner at the hospital. The lady told me pretty much the same thing.”
He waved over one of the patrol officers.
“This officer will take those cuffs off of you.” The officer did so while Detective Wilson continued, “Hand tight for a little while longer. I’m going to go take a look at this surveillance video, but if it shows what I think it will you should be free to go tonight. We might have some more questions later, and it will ultimately be up to the DA whether to charge you or not.”
I sat in the back of the BPD Ford and rubbed my wrists where the cuffs had been. I was feeling a lot of relief, especially if there was video. All I had to do was keep my cool and wait to be released.
Detective Wilson returned a short time later and opened the door.
“Well, Mr. Devereux,” he said, “I don’t think you have anything to worry about. The video pretty clearly shows the deceased attacking your friend in a manner that to me appears to justify lethal force. I can’t speak for the DA, but I think you’ll be fine. I’d like to get a written statement from you if you feel up to it, or you can come downtown tomorrow for that.”
“Thanks, I can do that now,” I said, eager to get it out of the way.
“We’ll have to keep your gun as evidence, of course, but you’re free to take the rest of your personal items.”
“I understand,” I said.
Wilson waved over the officer who had removed my cuffs.
“Take his statement, please.”
He walked off toward where the crime scene techs where photographing Raymond’s body and the surrounding area and I heard him mutter almost under his breath, “Another day in the Tragic City.”
I followed the officer over to the picnic tables where Steve and I had eaten. Ms. Green Dress was there writing out her own statement. I sat and the officer handed me a paper form and a pen. I wrote what I had told Detective Wilson, and when I finished I signed and dated it then handed it to the officer. He took it away and came back a few minutes later with a plastic evidence bag containing the contents of my pockets. I took out my phone and saw I had a couple of missed calls, the most recent from Steve.
I called Steve back and he answered on the first ring.
“Hey, Man,” he said, “I just wanted to check up on you and let you know Bobbi just picked me up from the hospital.”
“That’s good to hear, Steve,” I said.
“Yeah, they cleaned me up, re-bandaged me, and gave me a prescription for antibiotics and another for good painkillers. They say I should heal up fine. We’re about to pick up the ‘scripts and then I’m going to pop one of the painkillers with a glass of Scotch. I think my ass hurts more from falling on it than the arm does. You okay? The cops cut you loose yet?”
“Just now,” I said. “They just took my statement and let me go. The detective says I shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”
“That’s awesome, Man,” Steve said. “I told them you saved my life. You really did. Me and Bobbi can’t thank you enough. Well, she’s a little disappointed she doesn’t get to collect the life insurance on my sorry ass, but other than that she’s thankful.”
I chuckled as I heard his wife scolding him in the background.
“I’m glad I could do it, and glad you’re okay. I was a little slow realizing what was going down. Sorry about that.”
“Nah, Man,” Steve said. “You did just fine. Got to go, Man. Later.”
“Later,” I said and hung up.
I stuck my phone in my pocket and looked up to see Ms. Green Dress staring at me.
“Thanks,” I said to her.
She crinkled her eyebrows. “For what?”
“For telling the cops what you saw,” I said.
“It was the truth,” she said with a shrug.
“I know, but most people would not have wanted to get involved even to tell what they saw,” I said. “I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome,” she said.
Her voice was a nice contralto, and I liked hearing it.
“I need a drink,” I said, looking into her eyes. “Buy you one?”
“You going to introduce yourself first?”
I laughed. “Roger Devereux.”
She held out her hand, and I took it. “Laura Pike,” she said. “And yes, you can buy me a drink.”
After about fifteens minutes they let the medics in to check out Raymond and Steve. Raymond was dead right there, but they loaded Steve onto a stretcher and put him into an ambulance that left for a nearby emergency room. One of the cops helped me up off the ground and escorted me over to one of the police Fords and put me in the back seat. I watched as they released the woman in the green dress from her handcuffs. They must have realized she was just a witness.
An unmarked police car pulled up and a detective with a stocky build and black hair in a crew cut stepped out. I recognized him from his visits to the cigar shop. He was an old friend of Walt’s, and a veteran homicide detective. He walked over to the two patrol cops who had first arrived on the scene and talked with them for a minute. Then he walked over to the woman in the green dress. He talked to her longer, asking a lot of questions and taking notes. I watched, wondering what was being said.
I tried to keep my imagination from going out of control with worry by focusing on the woman in the loud green dress. She was attractive enough to be a decent distraction from the growing sick feeling in my gut as I wondered what was going to happen to me, if I’d be arrested or charged with murder. Logically that would be nuts, but you hear horror stories if you’ve been in the self defense training community for any time.
Ms. Green Dress was about five-six, maybe one hundred thirty pounds. Long, athletic legs with some well defined curves in the bust and ass. She had that golden shade of skin the old timers called “high yaller,” shoulder length dark hair, and light green eyes. She was a gorgeous woman, I decided, with lips that a lazy novelist would describe as pouty. The dress she was wearing, on the other hand, was fucking hideous. I liked a woman in a sun dress and she clearly had the body for it, but that color did her no justice.
She crossed her arms over her chest as she talked to the detective and glanced my way. I noticed a glint of metal in one nostril and realized she had a hoop piercing there. It was cute and made me smile. She made eye contact with me and smiled back for an instant before dropping it and returning her gaze to the detective as he asked another question. It was the most uncanny thing, having a beautiful woman smile at me after seeing me turn some guy’s head into a canoe like I was Wyatt Earp at the O.K. Carrol.
That last though sent my mind spinning in a new direction. I had killed a man. Now I was sitting in the back of a cop car, maybe under arrest, maybe not, but definitely under a lot of scrutiny. I knew, without a doubt, that I had done what I had too. Had I not acted when I did Steve might be dead right now, and the thought of letting someone innocent die when I could stop it made me feel sick inside. I wasn’t ashamed of what I’d done. In fact I was starting to get a little pissed off. I’d done what any cop worth his badge would have done in a similar situation, but here I was sitting in the back of a patrol vehicle in cuffs.
The detective finished with Ms. Green Dress and gestured her over to the bench seats by one of the picnic tables. He looked over at me then and stared for a a while before narrowing his eyes and then quirking one eyebrow. He walked over to where I sat and opened the door so he could get a better look at me.
“Mr. Devereux?” he asked.
I nodded.
“I’m Detective Darren Wilson, Birmingham PD homicide,” he introduced himself. “I’ve seen you before somewhere, haven’t I?”
“Yes, Sir,” I answered. “At the cigar shop. Walt’s place.”
“That’s right,” he said, nodding. “So what happened here?”
“The man that was stabbed, Steve,” I said.
He nodded.
“I gave him a ride to meet the dead guy. He said his name was Raymond.” I looked him in the eyes as I spoke, holding his gaze and trying to keep my voice even. “Raymond was supposed to have a collectible Rolex that Steve was interested in buying. I came along as backup because it was going to be a cash transaction and Steve was worried it was a too good to be true situation. He didn’t want to be walking around out here with ten grand and have this guy try something. Steve’s not in the best physical health so he had me come along.
“So, this guy Raymond pulls up in that piece of shit Caddy he’s lying in front of and Steve goes over to talk to him. They talk for a minute or two but I could tell Steve wasn’t impressed with what Raymond had to show him. Raymond got mad, pulled out a screwdriver, and yells at Steve to give him the money. Steve throws his hands up and starts backing way and Raymond stabs him. By this time I realized what was going down and was drawing my gun. Steve tripped and fell back over the curb trying to get away and Raymond kept coming at him like he was going to stab him again. I shot Raymond a couple of times in the chest and he didn’t stop so I shot him in the head. He stopped then. I told the lady in green to call 911 to tell them what happened and get an ambulance for my friend.”
Detective Wilson ha been nodding his head as I talked and when I finished, spoke.
“Yeah, that’s what your friend told my partner at the hospital. The lady told me pretty much the same thing.”
He waved over one of the patrol officers.
“This officer will take those cuffs off of you.” The officer did so while Detective Wilson continued, “Hand tight for a little while longer. I’m going to go take a look at this surveillance video, but if it shows what I think it will you should be free to go tonight. We might have some more questions later, and it will ultimately be up to the DA whether to charge you or not.”
I sat in the back of the BPD Ford and rubbed my wrists where the cuffs had been. I was feeling a lot of relief, especially if there was video. All I had to do was keep my cool and wait to be released.
Detective Wilson returned a short time later and opened the door.
“Well, Mr. Devereux,” he said, “I don’t think you have anything to worry about. The video pretty clearly shows the deceased attacking your friend in a manner that to me appears to justify lethal force. I can’t speak for the DA, but I think you’ll be fine. I’d like to get a written statement from you if you feel up to it, or you can come downtown tomorrow for that.”
“Thanks, I can do that now,” I said, eager to get it out of the way.
“We’ll have to keep your gun as evidence, of course, but you’re free to take the rest of your personal items.”
“I understand,” I said.
Wilson waved over the officer who had removed my cuffs.
“Take his statement, please.”
He walked off toward where the crime scene techs where photographing Raymond’s body and the surrounding area and I heard him mutter almost under his breath, “Another day in the Tragic City.”
I followed the officer over to the picnic tables where Steve and I had eaten. Ms. Green Dress was there writing out her own statement. I sat and the officer handed me a paper form and a pen. I wrote what I had told Detective Wilson, and when I finished I signed and dated it then handed it to the officer. He took it away and came back a few minutes later with a plastic evidence bag containing the contents of my pockets. I took out my phone and saw I had a couple of missed calls, the most recent from Steve.
I called Steve back and he answered on the first ring.
“Hey, Man,” he said, “I just wanted to check up on you and let you know Bobbi just picked me up from the hospital.”
“That’s good to hear, Steve,” I said.
“Yeah, they cleaned me up, re-bandaged me, and gave me a prescription for antibiotics and another for good painkillers. They say I should heal up fine. We’re about to pick up the ‘scripts and then I’m going to pop one of the painkillers with a glass of Scotch. I think my ass hurts more from falling on it than the arm does. You okay? The cops cut you loose yet?”
“Just now,” I said. “They just took my statement and let me go. The detective says I shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”
“That’s awesome, Man,” Steve said. “I told them you saved my life. You really did. Me and Bobbi can’t thank you enough. Well, she’s a little disappointed she doesn’t get to collect the life insurance on my sorry ass, but other than that she’s thankful.”
I chuckled as I heard his wife scolding him in the background.
“I’m glad I could do it, and glad you’re okay. I was a little slow realizing what was going down. Sorry about that.”
“Nah, Man,” Steve said. “You did just fine. Got to go, Man. Later.”
“Later,” I said and hung up.
I stuck my phone in my pocket and looked up to see Ms. Green Dress staring at me.
“Thanks,” I said to her.
She crinkled her eyebrows. “For what?”
“For telling the cops what you saw,” I said.
“It was the truth,” she said with a shrug.
“I know, but most people would not have wanted to get involved even to tell what they saw,” I said. “I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome,” she said.
Her voice was a nice contralto, and I liked hearing it.
“I need a drink,” I said, looking into her eyes. “Buy you one?”
“You going to introduce yourself first?”
I laughed. “Roger Devereux.”
She held out her hand, and I took it. “Laura Pike,” she said. “And yes, you can buy me a drink.”
Tragic City, Chapter 4, Copyright 2016 Robert McDonald All Rights Reserved
At a quarter to five Steve came into the poker room and asked what I thought about cutting out early and getting some food at Saw’s while we waited for the meet up. I was twenty-five dollars in the hole in a five dollar buy-in game so that seemed like a good idea. The Opus X I was smoking was down to the nub so I tossed it into an ash tray and cashed out the couple of dollars in chips I had left in front of me.
There was a little traffic on the way to Avondale but nothing major. When we hit 41st Street South I parked in the alley between Saw’s and Post Office Pies. We were lucky, there wasn’t much of a line at Saw’s and when we got our food we took it to one of the picnic tables on the alley side of the building and dug in. Steve had gone for a Saw’s classic, pork and greens over cheese grits. I had never developed a taste for greens and had opted for a pork sandwich and fries. The food was great and the only disappointing thing about the meal was that I was not washing it down with Vanillaphant Porter from the Brewery down the street.
We sat around shooting the shit while we waited for the meet up. This consisted of Steve giving me shit for driving the car from Bullitt, living in an Art Deco building, but wearing a piece of shit Timex watch instead of something like his Daytona.
“I just never saw the need to spend a lot of money on something I only want to tell the time,” I said. “I guess it would be nice to have something fancier, but why spend five grand on a watch when I can spend it on a gun?”
Steve just rolled his eyes.
I was sitting with my back to the entrance to the alley with Steve right across from me. Over his shoulder I watched an early eighties model Cadillac that had probably been candy apple red at some point in the past pull up to the curb and park just on the other side of Saw’s in front of a used car dealership. The thing looked like it was held together by rust and duct tape.
“Guy said he’d be in a red Caddy, right?” I asked.
Steve looked over his shoulder just as the driver’s door screeched open and a tall, slim black guy with a full beard stepped out with a small box in one hand. He kicked the door shut and walked around to stand in front of the car.
“Damn,” Steve said. “He does need money if he’s driving that piece of shit.”
The man saw us watching him and smiled.
“One of you Steve?” he called out.
“Yeah,” Steve called back. “You Raymond?”
“Yeah, man!” Raymond said, and sat the box he was holding on the hood of the wreck. “Come check out this sweet Rolex!”
“I’ll be right over,” Steve replied and turned back to me and rolled his eyes. “This guy seems okay. Hang out here but keep your eyes open.”
“Okay,” I said. “I can come over with you if you want.”
“Nah,” Steve said as he pried himself up from his seat. “This’ll be quick one way or the other.”
As Steve walked the twenty feet over to Raymond’s car I got up and moved around to the other side of the table so there was nothing to slow me down if I needed to get over there in a hurry. I kept my eyes on Raymond and his smile slipped when he glanced my way but it was back as his gaze returned to Steve.
Raymond didn’t seem like the type to own a house worth twenty thousand, let alone a watch. He was wearing a plain gray t-shirt and black jeans. On his feet were a pair of dirty sneakers that might have been white in a past life. If this guy had ever owned a watch he’d found it in a box of Cracker Jack.
Steve stepped off the curb into the street with Raymond, and they talked. Raymond seemed antsy as Steve gestured at the watch, but he finally reached out and opened the box, standing back to let Steve lean down to take a look.
Steve didn’t even attempt to pick it up. After a glance he straightened back up and shook his head. Raymond tensed up at this and I stood up and walked a couple of steps closer. Raymond was getting agitated and gesturing at the watch as he mumbled something to Steve, but Steve just kept shaking his head.
“It’s not even a Rolex, Man,” I heard Steve say as I got closer.
I could feel the adrenaline start to hit my system as things heated up between them.
“I’m not buying that,” Steve scoffed.
“Fuck you!” Raymond yelled and his hands went towards his waist. I was startled and hesitated for an instant but I started my draw as Raymond’s hand came up holding a screwdriver in a reverse grip. He pulled his arm back ready to stab down yelling, “Gimme the money, Motherfucker!”
Steve dropped his cane and threw his hands ups in front of him in a placating motion while backing away from the snarling Raymond. My left hand had my shirt pulled up and out of the way as my right hand found the grip and started drawing the Glock out of it’s holster.
Everything felt like it was going in slow motion as I watched Raymond stab down into Steve’s arm. Steve cried out in pain and shock as Raymond pulled the screw driver out of Steve’s arm and back to stab again. Steve backpedaled trying to get away but tripped over the curb and fell back on his ass.
My eyes were locked on Raymond as he stepped towards Steve ready to continue his attack and then my eyes shifted to the Trijicon HD front site on my Glock as my support hand wrapped around my strong on the grip and brought it into my field of view. I pressed the trigger twice just as I completed the press out and I saw the two rounds impact on Raymond’s chest. He continued forward not seeming to notice. My eyes and front site moved to his face and I pressed the trigger again. The shot impacted on the outside of Raymond’s left eye socket and there was a splatter of blood and brain matter from the exit wound on the other side of his head. Raymond collapsed to the ground like his switch had been flipped.
I took quick steps toward Steve while keeping my gun on Raymond. I was pretty sure he was done, but I wasn’t about to take any more chances than I already had. When I reached Steve I got a good look at the exit wound on the back side of Raymond’s skull and knew I didn’t have to worry about him any more. Bits of white skull and gray brain matter were sprayed with blood onto the hood of his piece of shit car. A large clump of hair and skull was hung up in the grill.
I looked around. There were a few people standing around looking frozen in place and as I made eye contact most of them looked away and followed that up with quickly walking out of the area. A few ran. One, a light skinned black woman just looked back while taking deep breaths. She was wearing a lime green sun dress and matching heels. Her hands were up at her sides in the surrender position. She was holding a cell one in one hand.
I holstered my pistol and yelled, “Call 911, my friend needs an ambulance.”
I pointed at Raymond’s body.
“Tell them that man was stabbing him and someone shot the guy doing the stabbing.”
She nodded and got on the phone. I could hear her tell the operator where she was and what I had told her as I knelt down next to Steve to see how badly he was hurt. He had a hand pressed to his forearm and I could see blood seeping out from around it. He was rocking back and forth muttering, “Fuck, fuck, motherfuck…” over and over.
I touched his shoulder so he would look at me.
“Just keep pressure on it,” I said. “Help is on the way. I’ll be right back.”
He nodded and I stood and ran over to my car. I pulled open the door and snatched my messenger bag from the back seat. I unzipped one of the front compartments and pulled an Israeli compression bandage and ran back to Steve. I could already hear sirens in the distance.
There was a little traffic on the way to Avondale but nothing major. When we hit 41st Street South I parked in the alley between Saw’s and Post Office Pies. We were lucky, there wasn’t much of a line at Saw’s and when we got our food we took it to one of the picnic tables on the alley side of the building and dug in. Steve had gone for a Saw’s classic, pork and greens over cheese grits. I had never developed a taste for greens and had opted for a pork sandwich and fries. The food was great and the only disappointing thing about the meal was that I was not washing it down with Vanillaphant Porter from the Brewery down the street.
We sat around shooting the shit while we waited for the meet up. This consisted of Steve giving me shit for driving the car from Bullitt, living in an Art Deco building, but wearing a piece of shit Timex watch instead of something like his Daytona.
“I just never saw the need to spend a lot of money on something I only want to tell the time,” I said. “I guess it would be nice to have something fancier, but why spend five grand on a watch when I can spend it on a gun?”
Steve just rolled his eyes.
I was sitting with my back to the entrance to the alley with Steve right across from me. Over his shoulder I watched an early eighties model Cadillac that had probably been candy apple red at some point in the past pull up to the curb and park just on the other side of Saw’s in front of a used car dealership. The thing looked like it was held together by rust and duct tape.
“Guy said he’d be in a red Caddy, right?” I asked.
Steve looked over his shoulder just as the driver’s door screeched open and a tall, slim black guy with a full beard stepped out with a small box in one hand. He kicked the door shut and walked around to stand in front of the car.
“Damn,” Steve said. “He does need money if he’s driving that piece of shit.”
The man saw us watching him and smiled.
“One of you Steve?” he called out.
“Yeah,” Steve called back. “You Raymond?”
“Yeah, man!” Raymond said, and sat the box he was holding on the hood of the wreck. “Come check out this sweet Rolex!”
“I’ll be right over,” Steve replied and turned back to me and rolled his eyes. “This guy seems okay. Hang out here but keep your eyes open.”
“Okay,” I said. “I can come over with you if you want.”
“Nah,” Steve said as he pried himself up from his seat. “This’ll be quick one way or the other.”
As Steve walked the twenty feet over to Raymond’s car I got up and moved around to the other side of the table so there was nothing to slow me down if I needed to get over there in a hurry. I kept my eyes on Raymond and his smile slipped when he glanced my way but it was back as his gaze returned to Steve.
Raymond didn’t seem like the type to own a house worth twenty thousand, let alone a watch. He was wearing a plain gray t-shirt and black jeans. On his feet were a pair of dirty sneakers that might have been white in a past life. If this guy had ever owned a watch he’d found it in a box of Cracker Jack.
Steve stepped off the curb into the street with Raymond, and they talked. Raymond seemed antsy as Steve gestured at the watch, but he finally reached out and opened the box, standing back to let Steve lean down to take a look.
Steve didn’t even attempt to pick it up. After a glance he straightened back up and shook his head. Raymond tensed up at this and I stood up and walked a couple of steps closer. Raymond was getting agitated and gesturing at the watch as he mumbled something to Steve, but Steve just kept shaking his head.
“It’s not even a Rolex, Man,” I heard Steve say as I got closer.
I could feel the adrenaline start to hit my system as things heated up between them.
“I’m not buying that,” Steve scoffed.
“Fuck you!” Raymond yelled and his hands went towards his waist. I was startled and hesitated for an instant but I started my draw as Raymond’s hand came up holding a screwdriver in a reverse grip. He pulled his arm back ready to stab down yelling, “Gimme the money, Motherfucker!”
Steve dropped his cane and threw his hands ups in front of him in a placating motion while backing away from the snarling Raymond. My left hand had my shirt pulled up and out of the way as my right hand found the grip and started drawing the Glock out of it’s holster.
Everything felt like it was going in slow motion as I watched Raymond stab down into Steve’s arm. Steve cried out in pain and shock as Raymond pulled the screw driver out of Steve’s arm and back to stab again. Steve backpedaled trying to get away but tripped over the curb and fell back on his ass.
My eyes were locked on Raymond as he stepped towards Steve ready to continue his attack and then my eyes shifted to the Trijicon HD front site on my Glock as my support hand wrapped around my strong on the grip and brought it into my field of view. I pressed the trigger twice just as I completed the press out and I saw the two rounds impact on Raymond’s chest. He continued forward not seeming to notice. My eyes and front site moved to his face and I pressed the trigger again. The shot impacted on the outside of Raymond’s left eye socket and there was a splatter of blood and brain matter from the exit wound on the other side of his head. Raymond collapsed to the ground like his switch had been flipped.
I took quick steps toward Steve while keeping my gun on Raymond. I was pretty sure he was done, but I wasn’t about to take any more chances than I already had. When I reached Steve I got a good look at the exit wound on the back side of Raymond’s skull and knew I didn’t have to worry about him any more. Bits of white skull and gray brain matter were sprayed with blood onto the hood of his piece of shit car. A large clump of hair and skull was hung up in the grill.
I looked around. There were a few people standing around looking frozen in place and as I made eye contact most of them looked away and followed that up with quickly walking out of the area. A few ran. One, a light skinned black woman just looked back while taking deep breaths. She was wearing a lime green sun dress and matching heels. Her hands were up at her sides in the surrender position. She was holding a cell one in one hand.
I holstered my pistol and yelled, “Call 911, my friend needs an ambulance.”
I pointed at Raymond’s body.
“Tell them that man was stabbing him and someone shot the guy doing the stabbing.”
She nodded and got on the phone. I could hear her tell the operator where she was and what I had told her as I knelt down next to Steve to see how badly he was hurt. He had a hand pressed to his forearm and I could see blood seeping out from around it. He was rocking back and forth muttering, “Fuck, fuck, motherfuck…” over and over.
I touched his shoulder so he would look at me.
“Just keep pressure on it,” I said. “Help is on the way. I’ll be right back.”
He nodded and I stood and ran over to my car. I pulled open the door and snatched my messenger bag from the back seat. I unzipped one of the front compartments and pulled an Israeli compression bandage and ran back to Steve. I could already hear sirens in the distance.
Tragic City, Chapter 3, Copyright 2016 Robert McDonald All Right Reserved
Blueline Cigar Company sits on Glade Avenue just off Highway 11 in Trussville. Out front was a concrete parking lot where decades ago there had probably been a well manicured lawn. I pulled in and parked behind Steve’s minivan. Walt Bryant, the owner, was sitting in one of the chairs on the front porch wearing a faded blue BPD t-shirt with a cigar in one hand and a steaming cup of coffee in the other. A couple of regulars were sitting in other chairs lining the porch in front of the store’s picture window.
“Gentlemen,” I said as I walked up the steps.
“Hey, Roger,” Walt said. “What are you up to this morning?”
“Oh, the usual,” I said with a smile.
“Not shit then,” Walt said with a grin.
“Chase, Fred,” I nodded to the other two men sitting on the porch.
“Morning,” said Chase.
“How’s it going, young man?” asked Fred.
“Not bad, not bad at all,” I answered.
Fred was in his 60s, short, pot bellied, with ice blue eyes and white hair combed over a balding spot. He had a white goatee to match the hair on his head. He came off as a jolly old Saint Nick type in his good moods, and in his bad moods he was like an angry dwarf looking for a skull to split with his battle ax. He’d spent most of his late teens and early twenties in Southeast Asia as the crew chief and door gunner on a helicopter gunship during the Vietnam War. Not many men are left today who can write that on their resumes.
Chase was in his 70s and had also spent some time in Vietnam as an army officer, though his experience was pre-1965 and strictly as an adviser and military observer. He was tall and thin with a full head of white hair and a thin white mustache. It was rare to find him dressed any more casually than khakis and a polo with a pair of cowboy boots that cost more than some of my nicer guns. Get enough Irish whiskey in him and he’d tell you how he looked forward to one day visiting LBJ’s grave and taking a long piss on it for turning Vietnam into the cluster fuck it was rather than doing what was necessary to end it early on.
I made my way inside and swung into the humidor to grab a stick. It was early so I picked a Drew Estate Nirvana with a Cameroon wrapper. I walked into the kitchen to grab a can of Coke, and then I went to find Steve.
He was sitting in his favorite chair watching highlights from the previous nights Stanley Cup play off game. I took a seat next to him.
“Roger,” he said as I cut and lit my cigar.
“Steve,” I said after rolling some smoke around in my mouth and blowing it away. “What’s up?”
Steve had salt and pepper hair, was overweight, and walked with a cane most days.
“So, you know I kind of collect watches, right?”
I nodded.
“So, this guy I know calls me and tells me he ran into a guy looking for someone who wants a Tiffany Rolex 1680 Submariner. It’s the first model with a date feature, really hard to come by. So I call this guy. He says it’s mint, he even has the original receipt from when his Dad bought it new at Bromberg’s downtown. He says he needs cash quick and he only wants ten K for it. One of these went for twenty-two thousand at auction not long back.” He gives me this look that says you gotta be kidding me. “It could be a total scam, but I have to check this out. I mean, the guy could be full of shit but I could also double my money.”
“So you want me to come along just in case things aren’t on the up and up?” I asked.
“Yeah, Man,” Steve said. “I think that would be a good idea. This whole thing just seems a little shady and I’ll have ten grand in cash on me. Plus he wants to meet in Avondale.”
Avondale was desperately trying to get itself gentrified, but it wasn’t there yet. It had some great attractions, like Avondale Brewery and Saw’s Soul Kitchen. Saw’s had some of the best barbecue in the South, but both it and the Brewery were in walking distance of a run down motel filled with crack heads and worn down old prostitutes. The whole area was surrounded by dilapidated housing, though a few streets were beginning to look up since the yuppies had begun to move in.
Just a week before a young woman was kidnapped getting into her car after leaving the Brewery and forced to make a bunch of ATM withdrawals before her kidnapper kicked her loose, though not before asking her out and making her give him her phone number. A real Casanova, that one.
“What do you charge for something like that?” Steve asked.
I thought for a minute. “Normally a hundred bucks an hour with a minimum of two hours, but for you?” I pursed my lips. “Buy me three or four Opus Xs and we’ll call it a deal.”
“That’ll work,” he said. “You free this evening?”
“I can be,” I said. “No plans except to sit around here and maybe play some cards.”
“Guy wants to meet in front of Saw’s at six. That work for you?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll pass on the booze until after.”
“One other thing,” Steve said. “Can we go in your car?”
I laughed. The only thing Steve liked better than expensive watches were fast cars.
“Sure,” I said.
Steve was nodding his head with a smile. “Cool. I’ll go get your sticks.” He struggled upright, using his cane to lever himself out of his seat and made his way toward the humidor.
“Gentlemen,” I said as I walked up the steps.
“Hey, Roger,” Walt said. “What are you up to this morning?”
“Oh, the usual,” I said with a smile.
“Not shit then,” Walt said with a grin.
“Chase, Fred,” I nodded to the other two men sitting on the porch.
“Morning,” said Chase.
“How’s it going, young man?” asked Fred.
“Not bad, not bad at all,” I answered.
Fred was in his 60s, short, pot bellied, with ice blue eyes and white hair combed over a balding spot. He had a white goatee to match the hair on his head. He came off as a jolly old Saint Nick type in his good moods, and in his bad moods he was like an angry dwarf looking for a skull to split with his battle ax. He’d spent most of his late teens and early twenties in Southeast Asia as the crew chief and door gunner on a helicopter gunship during the Vietnam War. Not many men are left today who can write that on their resumes.
Chase was in his 70s and had also spent some time in Vietnam as an army officer, though his experience was pre-1965 and strictly as an adviser and military observer. He was tall and thin with a full head of white hair and a thin white mustache. It was rare to find him dressed any more casually than khakis and a polo with a pair of cowboy boots that cost more than some of my nicer guns. Get enough Irish whiskey in him and he’d tell you how he looked forward to one day visiting LBJ’s grave and taking a long piss on it for turning Vietnam into the cluster fuck it was rather than doing what was necessary to end it early on.
I made my way inside and swung into the humidor to grab a stick. It was early so I picked a Drew Estate Nirvana with a Cameroon wrapper. I walked into the kitchen to grab a can of Coke, and then I went to find Steve.
He was sitting in his favorite chair watching highlights from the previous nights Stanley Cup play off game. I took a seat next to him.
“Roger,” he said as I cut and lit my cigar.
“Steve,” I said after rolling some smoke around in my mouth and blowing it away. “What’s up?”
Steve had salt and pepper hair, was overweight, and walked with a cane most days.
“So, you know I kind of collect watches, right?”
I nodded.
“So, this guy I know calls me and tells me he ran into a guy looking for someone who wants a Tiffany Rolex 1680 Submariner. It’s the first model with a date feature, really hard to come by. So I call this guy. He says it’s mint, he even has the original receipt from when his Dad bought it new at Bromberg’s downtown. He says he needs cash quick and he only wants ten K for it. One of these went for twenty-two thousand at auction not long back.” He gives me this look that says you gotta be kidding me. “It could be a total scam, but I have to check this out. I mean, the guy could be full of shit but I could also double my money.”
“So you want me to come along just in case things aren’t on the up and up?” I asked.
“Yeah, Man,” Steve said. “I think that would be a good idea. This whole thing just seems a little shady and I’ll have ten grand in cash on me. Plus he wants to meet in Avondale.”
Avondale was desperately trying to get itself gentrified, but it wasn’t there yet. It had some great attractions, like Avondale Brewery and Saw’s Soul Kitchen. Saw’s had some of the best barbecue in the South, but both it and the Brewery were in walking distance of a run down motel filled with crack heads and worn down old prostitutes. The whole area was surrounded by dilapidated housing, though a few streets were beginning to look up since the yuppies had begun to move in.
Just a week before a young woman was kidnapped getting into her car after leaving the Brewery and forced to make a bunch of ATM withdrawals before her kidnapper kicked her loose, though not before asking her out and making her give him her phone number. A real Casanova, that one.
“What do you charge for something like that?” Steve asked.
I thought for a minute. “Normally a hundred bucks an hour with a minimum of two hours, but for you?” I pursed my lips. “Buy me three or four Opus Xs and we’ll call it a deal.”
“That’ll work,” he said. “You free this evening?”
“I can be,” I said. “No plans except to sit around here and maybe play some cards.”
“Guy wants to meet in front of Saw’s at six. That work for you?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll pass on the booze until after.”
“One other thing,” Steve said. “Can we go in your car?”
I laughed. The only thing Steve liked better than expensive watches were fast cars.
“Sure,” I said.
Steve was nodding his head with a smile. “Cool. I’ll go get your sticks.” He struggled upright, using his cane to lever himself out of his seat and made his way toward the humidor.
Tragic City, Chapter 2, Copyright 2016 Robert McDonald All Right Reserved
I took the ramp that skirts the Expessway and then exited onto I-20E/I-59N. On either side of the interstate I had a view of the urban sprawl of industrial sites mingled with rundown residential neighborhoods and the ever present green of Birmingham’s trees. Birmingham calls itself Tree City USA as well as the Magic City. A satellite view of the city will show you why the former came about, as Birmingham seems to always be on the verge of being swallowed up by looming foliage outside of downtown.
I continued up the combined interstates until they split just past the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport, continuing north on I-59 towards Trussville and Clay as I-20 curved away towards the east and Atlanta. Another few miles and I exited the interstate and turned right onto North Chalkville Road headed toward downtown Trussville. I took the very next right and pulled into the parking lot of the Waffle House on the corner.
I ate at this particular Waffle House so often that the waitresses and short order cooks knew me by name. I locked up the Mustang and walked inside. I pushed my sunglasses up on my head as I walked through the door and headed for my usual seat at the far end of the counter where I could keep an eye on the entrance and most of the diner.
“Hi, Darlin’,” said Allie, a wrinkle faced grandmother with Coke bottle bottom glasses. “The usual?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” I said. I looked around the diner as Allie called my order out to the cook. There was another man at the opposite end of the counter nursing a cup of coffee while perusing a newspaper and chewing on the end of a straw like he missed the days of smoking inside. A family of four, Mom, Dad and two little girls, where devouring waffles in a booth off to my left. It was just before ten in the morning and the place was kind of dead.
“Here you are, Hon,” Allie said as she sat a glass of Coke down in front of me. “Food will be up in a minute.”
“Thanks, Allie,” I said and took a sip.
My phone vibrated in my pocket and pulled it out and glanced at the caller ID. It was a guy I knew, not exactly a friend, but more than an acquaintance.
“Hello,” I answered.
“Hey, Man. It’s Steve,” the caller said.
Steve had lived in the South forever, but he still has a trace of New York in the accent.
“What’s up, Steve?”
“Not much,” he said, making small talk. Steve was never quick to get the point. “What’s up with you?”
“About to eat some breakfast,” I said as Allie sat two plates in front of me, one holding a large order of hashbrowns and two eggs over medium with toast. A smaller plate held strips of bacon. I moved the toast over to the sausage plate and coated the hashbrowns and eggs with salt, pepper, and ketchup.
“Well, I won’t keep you from your breakfast,” Steve drawled. “I just wanted to see if you’d be in the shop today?”
The “shop,” as its patrons call it, is the Blueline Cigar Company. The owner was a retired Birmingham cop and the place had become a sort of clubhouse for local cigar smokers. At least, it had for the ones with any taste. The shop was in an old house converted to retail space with one room converted into a walk in humidor, two large rooms with wall mounted tvs and an assortment of leather chairs, a full kitchen, and a dining room converted into a card room. On any given day there was a group of salty old men at the card table playing ten cent a chip Limit Hold’em. Bigger games could be had, and these were the men to help you find them, but this was a fun and profitable little game for the skilled player looking for a low stress game.
“Yeah, I’ll be in a little later,” I told Steve.
“Cool,” Steve said. “I got a little work you might be interested in. We’ll talk about it when you get here.”
“Sounds good,” I said.
“Later, Man.”
I ended the call and returned the phone to my pocket, then I dug into my food as I wondered what Steve might need. My stock in trade was usually damsels in distress and elderly folks wanting the meth labs and crack dealers out of their decaying neighborhoods.
Before some dip shit in an Atlanta city works truck T-boned me I had been making a good living in the telecom industry. Sounds like a weak sauce job which is why it is so high paying if you’re willing to travel a bit and put in some real effort. In truth it was hard work and I fucking hated it but the money was so damn good that you couldn’t walk away.
After the accident and the city’s settlement I could support my lifestyle without the job so I told the boss I was hanging it up. I was all set to settle down to a life of good cigars and good bourbon while pissing away the hours at the poker table when my Doc reminded me that I should probably stay active if I wanted to stay out of a wheel chair. I decided to fulfill a life long dream and spent two years traveling around the country to all the big gun and self defense schools and training with the big name trainers. Gunsite, Thunder Rance, Massad Ayoob Group, SouthNarc, Larry Vickers, Ken Hackathorn, Michael Janich. If they had a name in the gun or self defense world, I was there. Between training courses I started shooting a lot of pistol competition, mostly IDPA, and a little two and three gun.
I even spent a little time in Mexico with an ex-Federale who taught counter kidnapping and other skills along the border. The Mexican government likes to pretend there are no guns in Mexico outside of official hands. I can attest to the fact that this is bullshit. I didn’t take any with me, and I didn’t bring any back, but I had plenty of guns in Mexico and so did damned near everyone else.
When I came home I found that there wasn’t much to do but go to the range or sit at the shop. I shot a couple of matches every month but mostly sat on my butt for the first couple of months. After a while word got around among friends and acquaintances that I knew some stuff and I started getting asked for favors. I rode shotgun for a few friends repossessing cars and did some escort work for some business owners who carried a lot of cash but didn’t feel up to defending themselves.
This morphed into a kind of Have Gun, Will Travel career. I registered an LLC and got some insurance and put myself out there as a consultant and trouble shooter for average people. Unlike Paladin, my prices were a lot more reasonable, but I tried to be just as selective about my clientele. A lot of my work was just riding along when someone was going to buy or sell something for a lot of cash. People get set up all the time for robberies through online classifieds, so a concerned person can spend a few bucks and have someone with them to look out for a potential set up.
My favorite jobs were those where I made abusive ex’s realize they were not, after all, tough guys. I loved to come in and show a lady how to look out for herself and give her a little defensive training. I’d also sleep on the couch for a while if there is a strong chance of the ex showing up. The look of absolute fear on the faces of some of these cowards when I opened the ex’s door and reminded them that they were in violation of a restraining order while holding a shotgun under their noses almost made me want to do the work gratis.
I’ve never thought of myself as a gunfighter. Point in fact, I hate that term. It makes me think of pussies walking around with a grudge looking for some sucker to prove how tough they are. Besides Mexico I haven’t done much with guns except shoot them in competition and emphasize the occasional point.
I pepper sprayed a young lady’s ex once outside her work when he thought he’d show her that I was no protection from some MMA wanna-be. She did more damage when she kicked him in the balls while he rolled on the ground trying to rub the burning from his eyes, and he was crying like a little bitch when the cops picked him up.
I finished my breakfast and paid with a twenty, telling Allie to keep the change. She beamed and told me to come back soon. I smiled and waved as I made my way out the door, and a couple of minutes later I was rumbling down North Chalkville Road toward Highway 11.
I continued up the combined interstates until they split just past the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport, continuing north on I-59 towards Trussville and Clay as I-20 curved away towards the east and Atlanta. Another few miles and I exited the interstate and turned right onto North Chalkville Road headed toward downtown Trussville. I took the very next right and pulled into the parking lot of the Waffle House on the corner.
I ate at this particular Waffle House so often that the waitresses and short order cooks knew me by name. I locked up the Mustang and walked inside. I pushed my sunglasses up on my head as I walked through the door and headed for my usual seat at the far end of the counter where I could keep an eye on the entrance and most of the diner.
“Hi, Darlin’,” said Allie, a wrinkle faced grandmother with Coke bottle bottom glasses. “The usual?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” I said. I looked around the diner as Allie called my order out to the cook. There was another man at the opposite end of the counter nursing a cup of coffee while perusing a newspaper and chewing on the end of a straw like he missed the days of smoking inside. A family of four, Mom, Dad and two little girls, where devouring waffles in a booth off to my left. It was just before ten in the morning and the place was kind of dead.
“Here you are, Hon,” Allie said as she sat a glass of Coke down in front of me. “Food will be up in a minute.”
“Thanks, Allie,” I said and took a sip.
My phone vibrated in my pocket and pulled it out and glanced at the caller ID. It was a guy I knew, not exactly a friend, but more than an acquaintance.
“Hello,” I answered.
“Hey, Man. It’s Steve,” the caller said.
Steve had lived in the South forever, but he still has a trace of New York in the accent.
“What’s up, Steve?”
“Not much,” he said, making small talk. Steve was never quick to get the point. “What’s up with you?”
“About to eat some breakfast,” I said as Allie sat two plates in front of me, one holding a large order of hashbrowns and two eggs over medium with toast. A smaller plate held strips of bacon. I moved the toast over to the sausage plate and coated the hashbrowns and eggs with salt, pepper, and ketchup.
“Well, I won’t keep you from your breakfast,” Steve drawled. “I just wanted to see if you’d be in the shop today?”
The “shop,” as its patrons call it, is the Blueline Cigar Company. The owner was a retired Birmingham cop and the place had become a sort of clubhouse for local cigar smokers. At least, it had for the ones with any taste. The shop was in an old house converted to retail space with one room converted into a walk in humidor, two large rooms with wall mounted tvs and an assortment of leather chairs, a full kitchen, and a dining room converted into a card room. On any given day there was a group of salty old men at the card table playing ten cent a chip Limit Hold’em. Bigger games could be had, and these were the men to help you find them, but this was a fun and profitable little game for the skilled player looking for a low stress game.
“Yeah, I’ll be in a little later,” I told Steve.
“Cool,” Steve said. “I got a little work you might be interested in. We’ll talk about it when you get here.”
“Sounds good,” I said.
“Later, Man.”
I ended the call and returned the phone to my pocket, then I dug into my food as I wondered what Steve might need. My stock in trade was usually damsels in distress and elderly folks wanting the meth labs and crack dealers out of their decaying neighborhoods.
Before some dip shit in an Atlanta city works truck T-boned me I had been making a good living in the telecom industry. Sounds like a weak sauce job which is why it is so high paying if you’re willing to travel a bit and put in some real effort. In truth it was hard work and I fucking hated it but the money was so damn good that you couldn’t walk away.
After the accident and the city’s settlement I could support my lifestyle without the job so I told the boss I was hanging it up. I was all set to settle down to a life of good cigars and good bourbon while pissing away the hours at the poker table when my Doc reminded me that I should probably stay active if I wanted to stay out of a wheel chair. I decided to fulfill a life long dream and spent two years traveling around the country to all the big gun and self defense schools and training with the big name trainers. Gunsite, Thunder Rance, Massad Ayoob Group, SouthNarc, Larry Vickers, Ken Hackathorn, Michael Janich. If they had a name in the gun or self defense world, I was there. Between training courses I started shooting a lot of pistol competition, mostly IDPA, and a little two and three gun.
I even spent a little time in Mexico with an ex-Federale who taught counter kidnapping and other skills along the border. The Mexican government likes to pretend there are no guns in Mexico outside of official hands. I can attest to the fact that this is bullshit. I didn’t take any with me, and I didn’t bring any back, but I had plenty of guns in Mexico and so did damned near everyone else.
When I came home I found that there wasn’t much to do but go to the range or sit at the shop. I shot a couple of matches every month but mostly sat on my butt for the first couple of months. After a while word got around among friends and acquaintances that I knew some stuff and I started getting asked for favors. I rode shotgun for a few friends repossessing cars and did some escort work for some business owners who carried a lot of cash but didn’t feel up to defending themselves.
This morphed into a kind of Have Gun, Will Travel career. I registered an LLC and got some insurance and put myself out there as a consultant and trouble shooter for average people. Unlike Paladin, my prices were a lot more reasonable, but I tried to be just as selective about my clientele. A lot of my work was just riding along when someone was going to buy or sell something for a lot of cash. People get set up all the time for robberies through online classifieds, so a concerned person can spend a few bucks and have someone with them to look out for a potential set up.
My favorite jobs were those where I made abusive ex’s realize they were not, after all, tough guys. I loved to come in and show a lady how to look out for herself and give her a little defensive training. I’d also sleep on the couch for a while if there is a strong chance of the ex showing up. The look of absolute fear on the faces of some of these cowards when I opened the ex’s door and reminded them that they were in violation of a restraining order while holding a shotgun under their noses almost made me want to do the work gratis.
I’ve never thought of myself as a gunfighter. Point in fact, I hate that term. It makes me think of pussies walking around with a grudge looking for some sucker to prove how tough they are. Besides Mexico I haven’t done much with guns except shoot them in competition and emphasize the occasional point.
I pepper sprayed a young lady’s ex once outside her work when he thought he’d show her that I was no protection from some MMA wanna-be. She did more damage when she kicked him in the balls while he rolled on the ground trying to rub the burning from his eyes, and he was crying like a little bitch when the cops picked him up.
I finished my breakfast and paid with a twenty, telling Allie to keep the change. She beamed and told me to come back soon. I smiled and waved as I made my way out the door, and a couple of minutes later I was rumbling down North Chalkville Road toward Highway 11.
Tragic City, Chapter 1 by Robert McDonald Copyright 2016 by Robert McDonald, All Rights Reserved
In order to give my beta readers a couple of extra weeks to finish up I'm pushing back publishing Tragic City until at least mid-August, but I know a lot of people have been anxious to get there hands on it so I decided on a little compromise. I'll be publishing Chapters 1-5 here on my blog. The post will remain up until I publish the ebook on Amazon. Enjoy
Chapter 1
Compression fractures to three vertebrae will teach a person a whole new definition of morning stiffness. I managed to struggle into a sitting position and swung my legs off the edge of the bed. With a grimace I pushed myself up and onto my feet. I shuffled the short distance into the bathroom, opened the shower stall door, and turned the hot water tap to full. I adjusted the temperature to just under blistering and stepped into the steam and hot streams of water. I learned forward resting my head against the wall and let the hot water course over my back.
My back loosened enough that I could stand upright without flinching about the time the water started to cool. I soaped up and rinsed off before the water went cold, then stepped out of the stall and toweled off. I did a few stretches, mostly yoga poses to get things as loose as they were going to get. I ran a hand over my face and decided I could go another day without the razor, then walked back into my bedroom and over hardwood floors to the walk in closet.
I dressed in jeans, a linen Hawaiian shirt, and hiking shoes. Underneath the shirt I had a Glock 17 in an inside the waistband holster on my right and mag pouch holding a spare magazine on my left. On the centerline of my belt I had a small fixed blade last ditch knife, something for sticking in any motherfucker who decided to get too close for gun work.
I filled my pockets with my usual accoutrements, including a Zero Tolerance folding knife clipped into my right front pocket. I put on a pair of tan Oakley sunglasses with bronze polarized ballistic lenses, and headed toward the door.
I own a condo on the fifth floor of the Watts Building on the corner of 20th Street North and 3rd Avenue North in downtown Birmingham. The building is an Art Deco that went up in 1927. Not as ritzy and less well known than the City Federal Building on 2nd Avenue, Watts had a subtle class all its own. The downside was that it was prime hipster real estate. The scraggly bearded faux-hemians and their pasty pale girlfriends with colorful disks in their stretched earlobes infested the place like cockroaches in cheap motel. They at least made for good camouflage, and I kind of liked the hipster girls with their overabundance of piercings and ink.
I took the rattling elevator down to the ground floor and made my way outside to the gated parking lot. My car, a pristine 1968 Mustang GT that I had repainted Highland Green, was all original except for the modern sound system and A/C. The summers in Alabama are no joke, if less intense than those on the Yucatan Peninsula and good A/C was a must.
I lowered myself into the leather bucket seat, slid all the way back on its rails to fit my six foot frame, slipped the key into the ignition, and smiled as the engine rumbled to life. I synced the bluetooth in my smart phone to the sound system and started a playlist before pulling out onto 3rd Avenue North and heading toward the Red Mountain Express Way.
Chapter 1
Compression fractures to three vertebrae will teach a person a whole new definition of morning stiffness. I managed to struggle into a sitting position and swung my legs off the edge of the bed. With a grimace I pushed myself up and onto my feet. I shuffled the short distance into the bathroom, opened the shower stall door, and turned the hot water tap to full. I adjusted the temperature to just under blistering and stepped into the steam and hot streams of water. I learned forward resting my head against the wall and let the hot water course over my back.
My back loosened enough that I could stand upright without flinching about the time the water started to cool. I soaped up and rinsed off before the water went cold, then stepped out of the stall and toweled off. I did a few stretches, mostly yoga poses to get things as loose as they were going to get. I ran a hand over my face and decided I could go another day without the razor, then walked back into my bedroom and over hardwood floors to the walk in closet.
I dressed in jeans, a linen Hawaiian shirt, and hiking shoes. Underneath the shirt I had a Glock 17 in an inside the waistband holster on my right and mag pouch holding a spare magazine on my left. On the centerline of my belt I had a small fixed blade last ditch knife, something for sticking in any motherfucker who decided to get too close for gun work.
I filled my pockets with my usual accoutrements, including a Zero Tolerance folding knife clipped into my right front pocket. I put on a pair of tan Oakley sunglasses with bronze polarized ballistic lenses, and headed toward the door.
I own a condo on the fifth floor of the Watts Building on the corner of 20th Street North and 3rd Avenue North in downtown Birmingham. The building is an Art Deco that went up in 1927. Not as ritzy and less well known than the City Federal Building on 2nd Avenue, Watts had a subtle class all its own. The downside was that it was prime hipster real estate. The scraggly bearded faux-hemians and their pasty pale girlfriends with colorful disks in their stretched earlobes infested the place like cockroaches in cheap motel. They at least made for good camouflage, and I kind of liked the hipster girls with their overabundance of piercings and ink.
I took the rattling elevator down to the ground floor and made my way outside to the gated parking lot. My car, a pristine 1968 Mustang GT that I had repainted Highland Green, was all original except for the modern sound system and A/C. The summers in Alabama are no joke, if less intense than those on the Yucatan Peninsula and good A/C was a must.
I lowered myself into the leather bucket seat, slid all the way back on its rails to fit my six foot frame, slipped the key into the ignition, and smiled as the engine rumbled to life. I synced the bluetooth in my smart phone to the sound system and started a playlist before pulling out onto 3rd Avenue North and heading toward the Red Mountain Express Way.
Sunday, May 22, 2016
So, I wrote a book.
I mentioned before that I'd had an idea for a book and was running with it. Well, a year later I finished the first draft. It shouldn't have taken that long, but it did. I would go a month or longer without touching it at times, and that really kills your speed. But I finished it.
I was determined to get it done and for the last half I made sure I was devoting at least one day a week to writing, and this turned into me spending even more time working on it than I had scheduled.
I settled on the title Tragic City. Here's a look at the cover I think I'll be going with:
It's a crime novel set in present day Birmingham, Alabama. I had a lot of fun writing the first draft, and I'm about a third of the way into my first revision/rewrite. My plan is to have that done by early June, and then get it off to some Beta Readers by mid to late June.
If you'd be interested in being a Beta Reader, let me know. Bear in mind, I wrote this with the intention of writing the kind of book that I enjoy, so both the sex and the violence are graphic. If those two things bother you in a story, then don't waste your time or mine. While I am interested in honest, critical review, know what you're getting into. This is a story about bad things being done by bad people, and good people doing "bad" things for what they believe are the right reasons.
My hope is to have reports from my Beta Readers by mid to late July, and then to do my final revisions and rewrites. As of right now, the plan is to publish via Kindle Direct and I am thinking of offering it for free for 24 hours. Final price will probably be $1.99.
A big part of getting noticed when publishing this way is reviews. To help there, I am going to give any person who writes a verified purchase review on Amazon a free copy of my as yet untitled short story that will bridge the gap between Tragic City and Book 2.
Yes, there will be a Book 2. I had a lot of fun writing this, and I think I'll have just as much if not more writing a sequel.
I was determined to get it done and for the last half I made sure I was devoting at least one day a week to writing, and this turned into me spending even more time working on it than I had scheduled.
I settled on the title Tragic City. Here's a look at the cover I think I'll be going with:
It's a crime novel set in present day Birmingham, Alabama. I had a lot of fun writing the first draft, and I'm about a third of the way into my first revision/rewrite. My plan is to have that done by early June, and then get it off to some Beta Readers by mid to late June.
If you'd be interested in being a Beta Reader, let me know. Bear in mind, I wrote this with the intention of writing the kind of book that I enjoy, so both the sex and the violence are graphic. If those two things bother you in a story, then don't waste your time or mine. While I am interested in honest, critical review, know what you're getting into. This is a story about bad things being done by bad people, and good people doing "bad" things for what they believe are the right reasons.
My hope is to have reports from my Beta Readers by mid to late July, and then to do my final revisions and rewrites. As of right now, the plan is to publish via Kindle Direct and I am thinking of offering it for free for 24 hours. Final price will probably be $1.99.
A big part of getting noticed when publishing this way is reviews. To help there, I am going to give any person who writes a verified purchase review on Amazon a free copy of my as yet untitled short story that will bridge the gap between Tragic City and Book 2.
Yes, there will be a Book 2. I had a lot of fun writing this, and I think I'll have just as much if not more writing a sequel.
Thursday, July 9, 2015
22,000 words and counting.
I've always dabbled in writing. Recently, I got an idea that I couldn't shake. It's turned into an itch that won't go away. There will be graphic sex, violence, and just all around fun. Some parts are going to piss people off. That almost caused me to put the breaks on. Then I thought about all the authors I enjoy reading and thought, "Fuck it."
It's first person PI/Men'sAdventure/Thriller/etc. influenced by Mickey Spillane, Mark Greaney, John Ringo, Robert Crais, Michael Connelly...you get the idea.
I don't know when the rough will be finished, but I am having a lot of fun writing it. Here is a sample (tentatively rough Chapter 2) of Tragic City:
I took the ramp that skirts the Expessway and then exited onto I-20E/I-59N. On either side of the interstate is the urban sprawl of industrial sites mixed with rundown residential neighborhoods and the ever present green of Birmingham’s trees. Birmingham calls itself Tree City USA as well as the Magic City. A satellite view of the city will show you why the former came about, as Birmingham seems to always be on the verge of being swallowed up by looming foliage outside of downtown.
I continued up the combined interstates until they split just past the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport, continuing north on I-59 towards Trussville and Clay as I-20 curved away towards the east and Atlanta. Another few miles and I exited the interstate and turned right onto North Chalkville Road headed toward downtown Trussville. I took the very next right and pulled into the parking lot Waffle House on the corner.
I eat at this particular Waffle House so often that the waitresses and short order cooks know me by name. I locked up the Mustang and walked inside. I pushed my sunglasses up on my head as I walked through the door and headed for my usual seat at the far end of the counter where I could keep an eye on the entrance and most of the diner.
“Hi, Darlin’,” greets Allie, a wrinkle faced grandmotherly woman with Coke bottle bottom glasses. “The usual?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” I said. I looked around the diner as Allie called my order out to the cook. There was another man at the opposite end of the counter nursing a cup of coffee while perusing a newspaper and chewing on the end of a straw like he missed the days when one could smoke inside. A family of four, Mom, Dad and two little girls, where devouring waffles in a booth off to my left. It was a Tuesday and the place was kind of dead just before ten in the morning.
“Here you are, Hon,” Allie said as she sat a glass of Coke down in front of me. “Food will up in a minute.”
“Thanks, Allie,” I said and took a sip. My phone vibrated in my pocket and pulled it out and glanced at the caller ID. It was a guy I knew, not exactly a friend, but more than an acquaintance.
“Hello,” I answered.
“Hey, Man, it’s Steve,” the caller said. Steve had lived in the South forever, but he’s still got a trace of New York in the accent.
“What’s up, Steve?”
“Not much,” he said, making small talk. Steve was never quick to get the point. “What’s up with you?”
“About to eat some breakfast,” I said as Allie sat two plates in front of me, one holding a larger order of hashbrowns and two eggs over medium with toast. A smaller plate held two sausage patties. I moved the toast over to the sausage plate and liberally coat the hashbrowns and eggs with salt, pepper, and ketchup.
“Well, I won’t keep you from your breakfast,” Steve drawled. “I just wanted to see if you’d be in the shop today?”
The “shop” as everyone calls it is the Blueline Cigar Company. The owner was a medically retired Birmingham cop and the place had become a sort of clubhouse for local cigar smokers. At least the ones with any taste. The shop was in an old house converted to retail space with one room converted into a walk in humidor, two large rooms with wall mounted tvs and an assortment of leather chairs, a full kitchen, and a dining room converted into a card room. On any given day there was a group of salty old men at the card table playing ten cent a chip Limit Hold’em. Bigger games could be had, and these were the men to help you find them, but this was a fun and profitable little game for the skilled player looking for a low stress game.
“Yeah, I’ll be in a little later,” I told Steve.
“Cool,” Steve said. “I got a little work you might be interested in. We’ll talk about it when you get here.”
“Sounds good,” I said.
“Later, Man.”
I ended the call and returned the phone to my pocket, then I dug into my food as I wondered what Steve might need. My stock in trade was usually damsels in distress and elderly folks wanting the meth labs and crack dealers out of their decaying neighborhoods.
Before that dip shit in Atlanta T-boned me I had been making a good living as a cable guy. Yeah, sounds like a weak sauce job which is why it is so high paying if you’re willing to travel a bit and put in some real effort. In truth it was hard work and I fucking hated it but the money was so damn good that you couldn’t just walk away.
After the accident and the city’s settlement I could support my lifestyle without that fucking job so I told the boss I was hanging it up. I was all set to settle down to a life of good cigars and good bourbon while pissing away the hours at the poker table when my Doc reminded me that I should probably stay active if I wanted to stay out of a wheel chair. I decided to fulfill a life long dream and spent two years on the road going to all the big gun and self defense schools around the country and training with all the big name trainers. Gunsite, Thunder Rance, Massad Ayoob Group, SouthNarc, Larry Vickers, Ken Hackathorn, Michael Janich. If they had a name in the gun or self defense world, I was there. Between training courses I started shooting a lot of pistol competition, mostly IDPA, and a little two and three gun.
When I came home I found that there wasn’t much to do but go to the range or sit at the shop. I shot a couple of matches every month but mostly sat on my but for the first couple of months. After a while word got around among friends and acquaintances that I knew some stuff and I started getting asked for favors. I rode shotgun for a few friends repossessing cars and did some escort work for some business owners who carried a lot of cash but didn’t feel up to defending themselves.
This morphed into a kind of Have Gun, Will Travel kind of career. I registered an LLC and got some insurance and put myself out there as a consultant and trouble shooter for average people. Unlike Paladin, my prices are a lot more reasonable, but I am just as selective about my clientele. I don’t work for criminals or non-criminal scumbags. A lot of what I do is just riding along when someone is going to buy or sell something for a lot of cash. People get set up all the time for robberies through online classifieds, so a concerned person can spend a few bucks and have someone with them to look out for a potential set up.
My favorite jobs are those where I make abusive ex’s realize the error of their ways. I’m only for hire in that situation when a court issued restraining order is in place, but when it is I love to come in and show a lady how to look out for herself and give her a little defensive training. I’ll also sleep on the couch for a while if there is a strong chance of the ex showing up early on. The look of absolute fear on the faces of some of these cowards when I open the girlfriend or ex-wife’s door and remind them that they are in violation of a restraining order while holding a shotgun under their noses almost makes me want to do the work gratis. Almost.
That said, I don’t consider myself a gunfighter or anything like that. After all, I’ve never been in a gunfight. I pepper sprayed a young lady’s ex once outside her work when he thought he’d show her that I was no protection from some MMA wanna-be. She did more damage when she kicked him in the balls while he rolled on the ground trying to rub the burning from his eyes, and he was crying like a little bitch when the cops picked him up.
I finished my breakfast and paid with a twenty, telling Allie to keep the change. She beamed and told me to come back soon. I smiled and waved as I made my way out the door, and a couple of minutes later I was rumbling down North Chalkville Road toward Highway 11.
It's first person PI/Men'sAdventure/Thriller/etc. influenced by Mickey Spillane, Mark Greaney, John Ringo, Robert Crais, Michael Connelly...you get the idea.
I don't know when the rough will be finished, but I am having a lot of fun writing it. Here is a sample (tentatively rough Chapter 2) of Tragic City:
I took the ramp that skirts the Expessway and then exited onto I-20E/I-59N. On either side of the interstate is the urban sprawl of industrial sites mixed with rundown residential neighborhoods and the ever present green of Birmingham’s trees. Birmingham calls itself Tree City USA as well as the Magic City. A satellite view of the city will show you why the former came about, as Birmingham seems to always be on the verge of being swallowed up by looming foliage outside of downtown.
I continued up the combined interstates until they split just past the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport, continuing north on I-59 towards Trussville and Clay as I-20 curved away towards the east and Atlanta. Another few miles and I exited the interstate and turned right onto North Chalkville Road headed toward downtown Trussville. I took the very next right and pulled into the parking lot Waffle House on the corner.
I eat at this particular Waffle House so often that the waitresses and short order cooks know me by name. I locked up the Mustang and walked inside. I pushed my sunglasses up on my head as I walked through the door and headed for my usual seat at the far end of the counter where I could keep an eye on the entrance and most of the diner.
“Hi, Darlin’,” greets Allie, a wrinkle faced grandmotherly woman with Coke bottle bottom glasses. “The usual?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” I said. I looked around the diner as Allie called my order out to the cook. There was another man at the opposite end of the counter nursing a cup of coffee while perusing a newspaper and chewing on the end of a straw like he missed the days when one could smoke inside. A family of four, Mom, Dad and two little girls, where devouring waffles in a booth off to my left. It was a Tuesday and the place was kind of dead just before ten in the morning.
“Here you are, Hon,” Allie said as she sat a glass of Coke down in front of me. “Food will up in a minute.”
“Thanks, Allie,” I said and took a sip. My phone vibrated in my pocket and pulled it out and glanced at the caller ID. It was a guy I knew, not exactly a friend, but more than an acquaintance.
“Hello,” I answered.
“Hey, Man, it’s Steve,” the caller said. Steve had lived in the South forever, but he’s still got a trace of New York in the accent.
“What’s up, Steve?”
“Not much,” he said, making small talk. Steve was never quick to get the point. “What’s up with you?”
“About to eat some breakfast,” I said as Allie sat two plates in front of me, one holding a larger order of hashbrowns and two eggs over medium with toast. A smaller plate held two sausage patties. I moved the toast over to the sausage plate and liberally coat the hashbrowns and eggs with salt, pepper, and ketchup.
“Well, I won’t keep you from your breakfast,” Steve drawled. “I just wanted to see if you’d be in the shop today?”
The “shop” as everyone calls it is the Blueline Cigar Company. The owner was a medically retired Birmingham cop and the place had become a sort of clubhouse for local cigar smokers. At least the ones with any taste. The shop was in an old house converted to retail space with one room converted into a walk in humidor, two large rooms with wall mounted tvs and an assortment of leather chairs, a full kitchen, and a dining room converted into a card room. On any given day there was a group of salty old men at the card table playing ten cent a chip Limit Hold’em. Bigger games could be had, and these were the men to help you find them, but this was a fun and profitable little game for the skilled player looking for a low stress game.
“Yeah, I’ll be in a little later,” I told Steve.
“Cool,” Steve said. “I got a little work you might be interested in. We’ll talk about it when you get here.”
“Sounds good,” I said.
“Later, Man.”
I ended the call and returned the phone to my pocket, then I dug into my food as I wondered what Steve might need. My stock in trade was usually damsels in distress and elderly folks wanting the meth labs and crack dealers out of their decaying neighborhoods.
Before that dip shit in Atlanta T-boned me I had been making a good living as a cable guy. Yeah, sounds like a weak sauce job which is why it is so high paying if you’re willing to travel a bit and put in some real effort. In truth it was hard work and I fucking hated it but the money was so damn good that you couldn’t just walk away.
After the accident and the city’s settlement I could support my lifestyle without that fucking job so I told the boss I was hanging it up. I was all set to settle down to a life of good cigars and good bourbon while pissing away the hours at the poker table when my Doc reminded me that I should probably stay active if I wanted to stay out of a wheel chair. I decided to fulfill a life long dream and spent two years on the road going to all the big gun and self defense schools around the country and training with all the big name trainers. Gunsite, Thunder Rance, Massad Ayoob Group, SouthNarc, Larry Vickers, Ken Hackathorn, Michael Janich. If they had a name in the gun or self defense world, I was there. Between training courses I started shooting a lot of pistol competition, mostly IDPA, and a little two and three gun.
When I came home I found that there wasn’t much to do but go to the range or sit at the shop. I shot a couple of matches every month but mostly sat on my but for the first couple of months. After a while word got around among friends and acquaintances that I knew some stuff and I started getting asked for favors. I rode shotgun for a few friends repossessing cars and did some escort work for some business owners who carried a lot of cash but didn’t feel up to defending themselves.
This morphed into a kind of Have Gun, Will Travel kind of career. I registered an LLC and got some insurance and put myself out there as a consultant and trouble shooter for average people. Unlike Paladin, my prices are a lot more reasonable, but I am just as selective about my clientele. I don’t work for criminals or non-criminal scumbags. A lot of what I do is just riding along when someone is going to buy or sell something for a lot of cash. People get set up all the time for robberies through online classifieds, so a concerned person can spend a few bucks and have someone with them to look out for a potential set up.
My favorite jobs are those where I make abusive ex’s realize the error of their ways. I’m only for hire in that situation when a court issued restraining order is in place, but when it is I love to come in and show a lady how to look out for herself and give her a little defensive training. I’ll also sleep on the couch for a while if there is a strong chance of the ex showing up early on. The look of absolute fear on the faces of some of these cowards when I open the girlfriend or ex-wife’s door and remind them that they are in violation of a restraining order while holding a shotgun under their noses almost makes me want to do the work gratis. Almost.
That said, I don’t consider myself a gunfighter or anything like that. After all, I’ve never been in a gunfight. I pepper sprayed a young lady’s ex once outside her work when he thought he’d show her that I was no protection from some MMA wanna-be. She did more damage when she kicked him in the balls while he rolled on the ground trying to rub the burning from his eyes, and he was crying like a little bitch when the cops picked him up.
I finished my breakfast and paid with a twenty, telling Allie to keep the change. She beamed and told me to come back soon. I smiled and waved as I made my way out the door, and a couple of minutes later I was rumbling down North Chalkville Road toward Highway 11.
Monday, April 6, 2015
On The Range #100: Shooting the FN SCAR 5.56 and the Smith&Wessson M&P15 300AAC Blackout
I was given the opportunity to take a trip to one of the local shooting ranges and put some rounds down range through a couple of rifles I had no prior experience with, but which I had wanted to shoot for a while.
First up was the FN SCAR chambered in 5.56x45. This is a rifle that was created as an alternative to the popular AR type rifles. The goal was to create a more reliable, more ergonomic rifle to the replace the venerable M16/M4 rifles commonly found in US and NATO armories.
I'm cross eye dominate, meaning that I am right handed but left eye dominate. I shoot pistols right handed but long guns I shoot left handed. The SCAR is perfect for someone like me because of the ambidextrous controls. The charging handle can be be set up on either the right or the left, and you've got ambidextrous safety and magazine release.
If you can shoot an AR type rifle, you can shoot a SCAR. The biggest thing to be mindful of is to keep your hand out of the way of the charging handle while shooting as it's a moving part you don't have on the AR.
The SCAR I shot had an aftermarket Eotech red dot sight installed. This was my first time with the Eotech sight (I am an Aimpoint fan boy) but I had not issues or complaints.
My ammo options were limited because I had to use range ammo as this was a rental gun, so I ended up using cheap steel cased Tula ammunition. I put 60 rounds through the rifle without any hiccups, so this gun will eat even the dirty stuff (a benefit of the SCAR's piston system vs. the standard AR's direct impingement).
Bear in mind I was shooting cheap ammo so grouping was looser than I would like (and I'm not the best shot anyway). The indoor range I was shooting at had a 50 yard rifle range with a minimum of 25 yards. My first 3 shots are on the lower left pelvic area taken at 25 yards. I was holding on the white dot and the sight was zeroed at 50 yards. Not a great group, but not bad for first time shooting that rifle, offhand, with cheap ammo.
Most of my shooting was done at 25 yards but I did some at 50 as well. I was able to keep all of my shots on the scoring area and most in the vital hit zones. The trigger had a noticeable reset and I found double and triple taps were no problem. Trigger was about the same as you'd get on any milspec AR type rifle or carbine.
The SCAR was a fun gun to shoot, and if I had the disposable income I would pick one up in heartbeat. In the market for a SCAR? Check out GRAB A GUN. They've got a HUGE online inventory and can ship to your local FFL. Oh, and one of the best parts? They finance. So maybe that SCAR isn't so far out of my reach....
But it will have to get behind the Smith&Wesson M&P15 in 300 AAC Blackout! Wow, did I love shooting 300 Blackout! I've already bookmarked the M&P15 upper on GRAB A GUN.
The 300 AAC Blackout was created by Advanced Armament Corporation to be a dedicated suppressor round. Now, that doesn't mean you can't shoot it unsuppressed because that is all I did today. But if you're interested in adding a suppressor to your long gun at some point in the future, this is a round designed to excel from the ground up in that role.
Looking at the target above that one large hole is the first group I shot at 25 yards from the bench. Sure, someone out there can easily do that at 100, but for me that is great. The rest of the shots are from off hand shooting.
First up was the FN SCAR chambered in 5.56x45. This is a rifle that was created as an alternative to the popular AR type rifles. The goal was to create a more reliable, more ergonomic rifle to the replace the venerable M16/M4 rifles commonly found in US and NATO armories.
I'm cross eye dominate, meaning that I am right handed but left eye dominate. I shoot pistols right handed but long guns I shoot left handed. The SCAR is perfect for someone like me because of the ambidextrous controls. The charging handle can be be set up on either the right or the left, and you've got ambidextrous safety and magazine release.
If you can shoot an AR type rifle, you can shoot a SCAR. The biggest thing to be mindful of is to keep your hand out of the way of the charging handle while shooting as it's a moving part you don't have on the AR.
The SCAR I shot had an aftermarket Eotech red dot sight installed. This was my first time with the Eotech sight (I am an Aimpoint fan boy) but I had not issues or complaints.
My ammo options were limited because I had to use range ammo as this was a rental gun, so I ended up using cheap steel cased Tula ammunition. I put 60 rounds through the rifle without any hiccups, so this gun will eat even the dirty stuff (a benefit of the SCAR's piston system vs. the standard AR's direct impingement).
Bear in mind I was shooting cheap ammo so grouping was looser than I would like (and I'm not the best shot anyway). The indoor range I was shooting at had a 50 yard rifle range with a minimum of 25 yards. My first 3 shots are on the lower left pelvic area taken at 25 yards. I was holding on the white dot and the sight was zeroed at 50 yards. Not a great group, but not bad for first time shooting that rifle, offhand, with cheap ammo.
Most of my shooting was done at 25 yards but I did some at 50 as well. I was able to keep all of my shots on the scoring area and most in the vital hit zones. The trigger had a noticeable reset and I found double and triple taps were no problem. Trigger was about the same as you'd get on any milspec AR type rifle or carbine.
The SCAR was a fun gun to shoot, and if I had the disposable income I would pick one up in heartbeat. In the market for a SCAR? Check out GRAB A GUN. They've got a HUGE online inventory and can ship to your local FFL. Oh, and one of the best parts? They finance. So maybe that SCAR isn't so far out of my reach....
But it will have to get behind the Smith&Wesson M&P15 in 300 AAC Blackout! Wow, did I love shooting 300 Blackout! I've already bookmarked the M&P15 upper on GRAB A GUN.
Wicked looking round!
Shooting an AR in 300 Blackout is a pure treat. The recoil is similar to a pistol caliber carbine and accuracy is excellent. My only regret about shooting the 300 Blackout is that I couldn't afford to take it home with me.
Two groups shot at 50 yards.
So, this gun is going on my "BUY SOON" list. It was fun to shoot, and I shoot it better than I would have thought. I think 300 Blackout has the potential to be a great all purpose round. I have friends that swear buy it for hog hunting and I have no doubt it would put a white tail in the bed of your truck. And lets face it, if it'll do that it'll work great as a self defense tool. Not too mention it's great a round to be shooting if you're running a suppressor which is something I am seriously going to be looking into in the future especially since Alabama, like a lot of states, allows suppressor hunting.
If 300 AAC Blackout is a something you've been considering I say go for it. Check out GRAB A GUN. Not only do they have the gun I shot today in stock, but they've a ton of other rifles and uppers chambered in 300 AAC Blackout.
As you may have guessed by now this post was sponsored by GRAB A GUN. They gave me the opportunity to shoot some guns I have not touched before and all they asked from me was to blog about it and mention them as a source to fill your firearms needs. Go check out their website. They've a huge selection of firearms, both handguns and long guns, and they even offer financing for your next purchase.
Monday, March 30, 2015
A contrast in quotes.
"The blade itself incites to deeds of violence." -Homer, Poet
"I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend." -J.R.R. Tolkien, Author and veteran of the Battle of the Somme
Humans need no weapon to act violently, but a weapon certainly helps to defend against violent attack better than bare hands, feet, and teeth.
"I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend." -J.R.R. Tolkien, Author and veteran of the Battle of the Somme
Humans need no weapon to act violently, but a weapon certainly helps to defend against violent attack better than bare hands, feet, and teeth.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
On The Range #97: Shootrite Firearms Academy Defensive Handgun, Day 2
Day 2 of Shootrite's Defensive Handgun course began at 8;30AM on the Shootrite range.
We started out with a discussion of the importance of practice, and specifically dry practice. Practice does not have to be shooting. You can practice draws, dry reloads, sight alignment, and trigger control without ever sending a round down range. You can learn more from dry practice because you will focus on the details and performing every action as close to perfect as you are capable of doing it. As Tiger McKee said, "You'll never be perfect, but you can strive to be excellent."
On the firing line Tiger had us do a mental exercise with the goal being to come up with an instant response. First he asked us to answer a difficult math problem. When no one answered but instead started to think about it he told us we didn't need a perfect answer, but an immediate one. He then started asking us individually a rapid fire list of questions with the goal of getting an instant appropriate response. For example, if asked your favorite color, movie, or food he was expecting an instant response in the correct category. Blue should not be your favorite food, nor pizza your favorite color.
The idea here is that when presented with a threat you want to act in such a way as to force that threat to react to you, instead of reacting to the threat yourself. This was a recurring theme of the course.
We picked up where we had left off on Day 1 with movement. Starting dry we practiced moving to the right and left on the firing line. When moving right or left, the right leg leads right and the left leg leads left.
After we had moving dry down we added in the draw. As we moved either right or left we would draw our pistols out to either low ready or on target to the threat. We were encouraged to do this very slowly, focusing on doing everything consistently and correctly.
Next we moved into live fire. On command we would step left or right while completing a draw, give commands to the threat, and if not obeyed (cardboard just won't listen!) we would 'gain compliance with accurate shots.' We would then scan our surrounding for additional threats while slowing working our pistols back into our holsters.
While scanning it was very important to actually see, not just glance around. The details matter. The instructors would ask us questions about things they had been doing with their hands or objects they had been holding to make sure we were actually paying attention as we scanned around.
We continued live fire for a while, taking breaks to reload. We worked on transitioning our fire to places other than center mass like the pelvic zone or head.
We took a morning break and afterwards moved into a discussion of malfunctions and malfunction clearances.
Malfunction clearances are a part of functional (combative) manipulations. They need to be performed immediately. It is important to practice them slowly and consistently, so that you will do them correctly in a fight.
Tiger likes to put malfunction clearances in simple terms. To handle them you either need to load the gun or unload then load the gun. "If I press the trigger and it doesn't go bang I need to load the pistol. If that doesn't work I need to unload it and then load it." This makes sense if you remember his method for both loading and unloading a pistol.
He explained clearing the three common malfunctions:
Type 1 Malfunction:
You press the trigger and the gun does not fire, you get a click
1. Finger off the trigger
2. Tap the magazine to ensure it is properly seated
3. Aggressively cycle the slide to load
Type 2 Malfunction/Stovepipe:
You press the trigger and the gun does not fire, trigger may or may not be reset, you'll generally see the brass or round that failed to eject.
1. Finger off the trigger
2. Tap the magazine
3. Cycle slide aggressively to clear the brass and load a round
Type 3 Malfunction/Double Feed
You press the trigger and get a dead trigger
1. Finger off the trigger
2. Tap the magazine
3. Cycle the slide aggressively AND IT WILL NOT CYCLE
4. Strip the magazine and retain it in the pinky finger of the strong hand
5. Cycle the slide three times very aggressively
6. Load the magazine and cycle the slide to load a round
We practiced clearing all three types of malfunctions live. For Type 1 malfunctions we used dummy rounds. We broke up into pairs for Type 2 and 3 malfunctions and had the non-shooter either place spent brass in the ejection port or drop a live round into the chamber to set up a double feed.
I've never practiced malfunctions clearances much so this was fairly new to me. I think it was well worth the time and I plan on working on it in my own practice.
After this we took a lunch break, again at the South Sauty Cafe. Again, the bacon cheeseburger. Because it IS that good.
After lunch Tiger told us that things had gone very well so far and as a result we were going to get into some things that normally aren't covered in this particular course.
We broke up into two groups. Half of us (my group) went with Tiger to another part of the range set up with a long wall of different types of cover and some steel torso targets. The other half went with Tiger's co-instructor to the area where we had been doing our shooting so far.
With Tiger we worked on using cover while shooting. The big thing here for me was learning to slow down. Everything in IDPA is done using cover but also in a rush. The idea here was to shoot the threat, scan the environment, then move looking for other threats along the wall we were using. This was where I had the most fun in the course because it was very similar to the run and gun games I like.
Early on when we started on the live fire I asked if I should shoot on the move, or move and then shoot. Tiger said that if cover is just a few steps away that it would, in his opinion, generally be better to get behind cover and shoot from a stable stance than to potentially have a miss just to get a shot off quickly.
One thing that Tiger teaches that I had been told to do in IDPA but ignored was to reload while keeping your gun and eyes on your target rather than to get back behind cover. I had figured that the IDPA way was a good way to catch a bullet. Tiger pointed out that keeping your eyes on the target was a good idea because then they could not move without you knowing where they were going. There was a caveat, "Incoming rounds always have the right of way."
When using cover we were taught to expose the least amount of our body as possible to locate, identify, and if necessary engage the threat. Tiger recommended using mirrors to practice this in the home.
Next the two groups switched and my group went with Tiger's co-instructor, Matt. With Matt we worked on two things, moving backwards and blind malfunctions clearances.
First we worked on moving back dry. We started with a step, and then two to three steps at a time. Matt had us move over a lot of different terrain, even into brush and up a slope just so we could see out obstacles that you can't see can be very difficult to handle and tend to seem larger than they actually are when you have only your feet to sense them. We also worked on moving while keeping our sights on target. This is probably one of the more difficult things to do. I've actually got a lot of practice shooting while moving back thanks to IDPA and Frank Proctor's Performance Handgun course.
We culminated our live fire by starting close and then shooting while moving back about 15-20 yards. The goal here was to show us that our shooting would start fast, but that as we moved further back we would have to slow down to keep getting good hits and eventually we would reach a point where we would have to stop shooting. The stop point would be different for everyone but it's a good thing to know about yourself.
After finishing up with moving back we took a short break for a drink and ammo, then moved back to the firing line for blind malfunction clearances. Matt had us draw and deck our pistols. Then we would take a few steps and turn our backs while he set up a malfunction on each of our guns. He asked that even if it were obvious to treat it as if we didn't know what the issue was.
On command we turned, retrieved our gun from the ground, and then engaged a threat target with 2-3 rounds. I had to clear every type of malfunction, and even a new one. One time when I picked up my pistol everything seemed fine, but when I fired the magazine fell out. This required a reload and was to simulate not seating a magazine correctly and it getting jarred out when firing. Good times.
Finally, we wrapped up our range time and headed back to the classroom for a discussion on tactics and the legality of armed self defense.
Tiger told us it is important to pay attention to what is going on around us and that if faced with a threat we should first try to get away, second maximize our distance between ourselves and the threat, and third minimize ourselves as targets and use cover. He again emphasized making our threat respond to us by taking immediate action.
Then he got into the legalities. In general, in order to defend yourself with lethal force the threat you are faced with must display the intent, have the ability, means, and opportunity to cause grave bodily harm or death to you or anyone you have the right to defend.
For instance, a person with a bat threatening your life at 50 yards probably is not an immediate threat justifying lethal force. The same person at 20 feet, however, is because they can close that distance in less than 2 seconds.
Normally, for a person to be considered a lethal threat they must be armed. However, disparity of force comes into play if a person or person's can bring enough force to be a lethal threat even if they are unarmed. Large, muscular man vs. smaller man or woman, group vs. a single person, etc.
Again, Tiger said what we had to do was problem solving at high speed. He recommended that we ask ourselves, "If I don't use my gun now is myself, my family, or my friends facing serious bodily harm or death?"
We moved from here into a discussion of the aftermath of using lethal force in self defense. He encouraged us to be able to articulate that we were attacked and defended ourselves and that when LEOs arrived we should immediately identify ourselves if possible and comply with all of their orders.
He recommended that when asked what happened to say "I was in fear for my life(or another's)." Don't get into a detailed discussion right after because the details can be fuzzy because of the stress of the situation. You might experience Critical Incident Amnesia and you usually won't have complete, or as complete as possible, recall until you've gone through at least two sleep cycles.
Keep conversations with any and all authorities simple. "That person attacked me. I want him arrested. I will fully cooperate but I need to speak with my attorney first." You may get questioned by multiple officers. Always, and only, reiterate the above until you speak with your attorney.
He also said we should seriously consider consulting with an attorney and having one picked out now before any kind of incident happens.
After this discussion and some question and answer Tiger thanked us all for attending and said it was a really great class and that that was not something every class heard. He presented us with our certificates for the course and that was that.
I really enjoyed the course. It's a great course for anyone who wants to learn how to defend themselves with a handgun. This is a basic defensive course, but it is not for the new shooter. An NRA First Steps Pistol course is the minimum requirement for attending but I would definitely recommend Basic Pistol. You really need to know how to safely handle your pistol on the range with some confidence.
I plan on taking more of Shootrite's handgun courses and I hope to take some carbine courses there as well. I will definitely be heading back!
Monday, September 8, 2014
On The Range #96: Shootrite Firearms Academy Defensive Handgun, Day 1
Shootrite Firearms Academy's Defensive Handgun course started at 8:30AM in the classroom. Tiger McKee, the director and founder of Shootrite, started out by introducing himself and his co-instructors to the seven course attendees. Attending were myself, three other men and three women. I was the youngest attendee, something that kind of surprised me. I thought the fact that almost half of the course attendees were women was interesting. Most of the attendees (at a guess) were 50+.
Tiger started out by explaining that the overarching theme of this course was consistency. Fast is his least favorite word. This was a basic handgun self defense course and he wanted everyone focused on doing everything correctly every time in order to get as many good repetitions in as possible.
Next he went into a discussion of safety. Tiger gave an in depth discussion of the Four Rules of Firearm Safety, not just simply stating the rules but explaining why each one is important in detail. He made the point of saying, "Good guys are responsible for everything they do, and must be responsible for where every bullet goes."
One thing that I think was very important that was brought up was that you have to not only be conscious of being safe yourself, but also of the habits of others around you. You can be doing everything right and someone can walk right in front of you. This could be your spouse in a self defense situation or someone shooting on the range next to you. Being aware of the other people around you and what they are doing is very important.
We were told that if we saw something unsafe happening that we should point it out and try to correct it.
After the safety discussion, we moved on to a discussion of The Fight. "Call it what you want," Tiger told us, "but self defense is a fight." Fights, he went on to say, are 90% mental. A fight is problem solving at high speed.
Tiger asked us when a fight starts. For Tiger, a fight starts when he wakes up that day and acknowledges that, "Today may be the day I have to defend myself or my family from a violent attack." The idea is to be ahead of the game so that if something happens you're not in complete denial about what is happening.
The next topic was, when does the fight end? We were taught that the fight ends when legal authorities arrive and secure the scene and there is no chance of anything else happening. Something that I had not considered was that it could be minutes, hours, or days before things are secured. A natural disaster or civil unrest can mean that it can take a long time before authorities can get to you.
Tiger is a big believer in avoidance and escape. If you can avoid a fight or escape from a situation that should always be the choice you take. Fights are like car accidents. They can come out of nowhere. But if you pay attention to what is going on around you most times you can avoid a bad situation before it turns into an accident or a fight.
Next we discussed what happens to us in a fight. We were told to be aware of stress effects such as tunnel vision, auditory exclusion, and loss of dexterity. Tiger recommended with research this thoroughly on our own time.
Tiger explained that most confrontations happen at conversation distance. About 50% of violent encounters involve two or more attackers. Around 70% of violent encounters happen in low light. Another key point was that self defense confrontations happen fast, usually 3-5 seconds. In a violent encounter people are usually familiar with each other in 80% of conflicts (the numbers are slightly higher for women, and slightly lower for men).
In a fight, the only thing you can control is yourself and it is better to act than to react. You should be attempting to make your attacker react to your actions rather than react to theirs. This is why doing something immediately is usually better than waiting. An imperfect immediate response is better than a late perfect response.
Next we discussed the elements of marksmanship. We shoot to stop the threat. Shooting them in the best manner to stop them may mean that they die as a result, but killing them is not the goal. Stopping our attacker is the goal.
Accuracy in a defensive encounter is defined by distance to and size of the target. You need to be sure you are doing what you need to do in order for your bullets to go where you want them too. This is why consistency is so important. You need to know exactly where your bullet is going every time you press the trigger and doing things consistently is how that happens.
We discussed the steps of taking the shot: Aim, hold, press, follow though. Follow through is probably one of the most important steps because you may need to take multiple shots and follow through sets you up to be able to do so correctly.
Tiger explained that we shouldn't get too caught up in "shooting the bullet." That's the guns job. Our job is to point the gun in the right direction and smoothly press the trigger He also pointed out that speed is going to be dictated by the accuracy necessary to make good hits. The closer you are to the target the faster you will be able to shoot.
We were taught three zones on the the body we should be aiming for in a defensive encounter. Our primary target is center mass of the chest. This is the largest part of the body available where we can put rounds that will stop an attack. However, people can and do sustain damage here and keep coming. Body armor can also be a concern. Therefore, the secondary zone on the body Tiger advocates shooting is the pelvic area. A lot of blood flows through this part of the body and it is a key structure needed to keep a person on their feet. A good hit to the pelvis can put a person on the ground so that they can not stand back up.
The third zone is the central nervous system, or head shot. Because the human skull has evolved to protect the brain this is a very difficult part of the body to attack. Shots typically need to go into the head via the ocular canal between the eyebrows and the base of the nose. This is why it is typically the last of the three zones to shoot at.
When shooting to stop a threat it is important to put good, accurate hits on the threat until we get the results we want. Consistently operating the handgun is going to be extremely helpful with this.
It's also important to remember that you are shooting at a 3D target and may need to adjust your angle of fire to get those shots where you need them.
After marksmanship we discussed firearm manipulations. There are two types of manipulations, administrative actions and functional actions. Administrative actions are those that can be done at your discretion such as loading, unloading, and chamber or press checks. Functional actions are those that must be performed immediately such as empty reloads and malfunction clearances.
Any gun can and will malfunction under the right circumstances so it is important to know how to handle them and to train to handle them in action. This was covered extensively in Day 2 of the course.
The final topic covered in the classroom was tactics. Situational and environmental awareness are the key aspects to defending oneself. Being aware of where you are and what is going on around you gives you the chance to see something that you don't like and act instead of being on the opposite end and just reacting to something that is happening to you.
You're first goal should be to avoid and/or escape the situation. This is the best response if it is available to you. If not you should be trying to move (distance is your friend in a self defense scenario), communicate (force the adversary to rethink what they are doing with verbal commands), use cover, and if necessary shoot. Any of the steps up to shooting may resolve the situation. If they don't, you'll need to put accurate hits on the threat until they stop.
After our discussion of tactics we took a short morning break and then headed to the range.
The number of participants in each course at Shootrite is limited to 8. This means each individual can get plenty of one on one coaching from the instructors. It also means that a huge range isn't necessary. The range could have probably accommodated twice as many shooters, but with just 7 of us there was plenty of room for everyone to be on the firing line at the same time without crowding each other.
Tiger breaks up the range time with frequent short breaks. This allows the instructors to give short lectures on what we will be doing and allows participants to load mags, re-hydrate, or grab a quick snack between time on the firing line.
We started our time on the range with a lot of dry practice. Since the overall theme of the course is consistency we were told to focus on proper technique. We were encouraged to go as slow as necessary to do everything correctly every time. At no time during the two days were we rushed to finish performing a drill.
First we discussed shooting stances. Tiger is a believer in using what works best for you so he does not advocate once particular shooting stance over another, but rather acknowledges that you may have to shift from one to another as a fight progresses. What he did ask we do is to maintain a good fighting stance with our foot placement and weight forward over our feet.
Next we worked on the draw stroke and holstering. Shootrite teaches the draw in a familiar four step process of: 1. Strong hand grips holstered pistol in preparation to draw while support hand slaps the center chest. 2. Bring pistol up into the retention position, tucked into the body but canted out so that the slide can operate without getting caught in clothing or hitting the body if extremely close quarters shooting is necessary. Support hand remains against the chest. 3. Attain a two handed grip and begin to press out. 4. Press out to low ready if a threat is present or if you have decided you must shoot press out towards the threat until your sights come to your eyes at which point your finger should be on the trigger and taking up slack until the shot breaks.
One thing that I should mention is that Tiger also took the time to demonstrate drawing from concealment. He offers a version of Defensive Handgun where everything is done from concealment, but in this particular course we had the option of using a cover garment or not. For Day 1 I did not use a cover garment but used my Glock 17 in a Galco Royal Guard IWB holster. For Day 2 I concealed my Glock 17 under a polo shirt and used a kydex DSG Alpha OWB that I typically use in IDPA matches.
Along with the draw we also practiced working our pistols back into the holster in a slow, and safe manner. There is no rush to get the gun back in the holster. Tiger teaches that when a threat is gone one should return to low ready (or remain in low ready if taking aim at the threat and firing was not necessary) and scan the area for any other threats. From low ready we were coached to slowly work the draw stroke in reverse while constantly doing a slow scan of our surrounds until we had our gun back in the holster. It was emphasized over and over that there is never any reason to rush this process as a new threat can pop up at any time or the original threat may return.
We next worked on loading and unloading. Loading began from low ready. Keeping the gun in low ready and our eyes up we retrieved a magazine with our support hand and with it properly indexed (base in the palm, index finger touching the first round in the mag) we fit the flat back of the magazine to the flat back of the magazine well on the pistol. The magazine was then firmly seated and the support hand came up to aggressively run the slide to load a round. This is all done with the eyes up. The only time the eyes go to the gun is to perform a visual check that a round is loaded.
Unloading was a more involved process than I have used before. The magazine is removed and retained in the pinky of the strong hand. The support hand aggressively runs the slide at least three times in order to clear any loaded round, and then a visual check is performed. The only time the eyes should come down to the pistol is when doing the visual chamber check.
Confirming clear was done by using the fingers to confirm no magazine is inserted, running the slide three times to remove any round in the chamber, and then doing a final visual check to confirm the chamber is empty. At this point to pistol was worked back to the holster while scanning our surroundings.
As you can probably see the idea is to be able to do all of these manipulations blind so that you can keep your head up and eyes on the move looking for any potential threats. Doing it the same way every time maintains consistency. If you do it that way every time, you'll keep your eyes up and on the threat/s if you are performing an empty/speed reload while in a fight.
At this point we broke for lunch at a very nice local diner called the South Sauty Creek Cafe. They make a great bacon cheeseburger. I highly recommend it if you are taking a course or just in the Langston, AL area.
After lunch we went back to the range for some live fire practice. Before we got into the actual live fire we did an exercise to familiarize everyone with the reset of their trigger. This was done buy breaking up into pairs, dry firing the pistol and holding the trigger all the way to the rear, and having the other person run the slide for you. At that point you would let out the trigger until it resets in preparation for another shot. We did this a few times until everyone got a good feel for their pistol's reset.
We moved on to shooting from the low ready. On the command we would come up from low ready, issue verbal commands to the threat, and then assuming that failed fire the required number of rounds, being sure to take our time and work on reset. We started with a singe shot, and then resetting the trigger. We moved up to multiple shots.
Live fire continued with us working under the assumption our threats were not going down and transitioning to the pelvic region or a head shot as we were instructed. We also did some drills shooting all three zones in various order.
As the day came to a close we were working from the holster, completing a draw, engaging our target, and then scanning our surroundings while working our pistols back to the holster. Everything was done deliberately and slowly with the goal of performing every action consistently every time.
Something new to me was the exercise in which we performed our draw stroke as if we needed to shoot the threat, but with our eyes closed to see what our body felt like when the pistol was pointed correctly. We did this a few times, opening our eyes after the press out to check our sights and make adjustments if necessary. We eventually moved to live fire blind. It was impressive to me how easy it was to get good, accurate hits at close distances. The goal here was to show us that you don't need much in the way of sight alignment, just a flash of the front sight, to confirm you are going to make a good hit when you press the trigger. This was the only time we actually did anything at speed because at such close distance speed really becomes important, but you have to know you can make good hits.
We closed out the day getting the basics of moving left and right (dry) before wrapping things up with a final discussion of what we had covered and why it was important. Every repitition needs to be done correctly every time so that it becomes second nature. In this way you are training your subconscious to do what you want it to do under stress. You communicate with the threat. Many times just making them aware that you are not a passive victim will cause them to back off. If verbal commands don't work you gain compliance by getting good, accurate hits with your handgun. Finally, using movement you get the threat to respond to your actions rather than the other way around.
And that was Day 1. It was largely stuff that I was already familiar with from literature and other training course I've attended but there was definitely some new material and even repeating things I had done before made for a great refresher.
Stay tuned for Day 2.
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