Which story is better?
A woman answered the door. “Oh hi. You came.”
“What’s the problem?”
“It’s my husband. He’s been drinking. He didn’t go to work this morning.”
I get her name, her age, the name of her husband. “Has he got any guns in the house?”
“No.”
“Knives of any sort? Swords?”
“No.”
“Where’s he at?”
She says, “Oh, take it easy on him. He obeys the law. It’s just when he’s drinking.”
“OK. Sounds good. You wait here.” Now I start walking down this long hallway. And as I’m walking down the hallway, my gun’s unsnapped, still in the holster. I see an alcove built into the wall. I remember looking into this room, then to the alcove. He’s standing there with a gun.
Mid-step it was, bonk! I said, “Oh, how you doing, man?” We are within a foot or two of each other. I remember looking at him and thinking, “Oh fuck!” Everything is slowed down. I remember looking at the gun barrel, thinking, I don’t know how he’s able to hold that with one hand. That’s a huge gun. The bullet is going to smash me. I felt every breath I took I could feel every molecule of air. I started to perspire. It felt like every drop was an ice cube.
I said, “Man, why don’t you put the gun down. You haven’t got problems now. Why don’t you just put the gun down?”
He said, “Fuck you! I’ll kill you and her.”
“Oh boy,” I says. “Buddy, you don’t want to do that. Put the gun down, and let’s end it right here. Because if you don’t, you’re going to die.”
He says, “I’ll kill you!”
Suddenly the gun went down in size and I remember calculating, “That’s a .22 or a .25. If he doesn’t get me in the head, it’s going to take some time for me to die. Well, I’ll be able to kill him because I carry a .38 special.” My gun was half way up, still in the holster.
I says, “I’ll tell you what buddy. You’ve got your chance. Put it down, because I’m going to count to four. When I reach four, you may as well goddam shoot, because I drawing and I’m killing you. I’m not going to die right way. OK? One… .”
And he put the gun down. I was going to draw on two.
He goes, “Aw fuck!” All I remember is his arm reaching all the way to the floor. He must have bent over, but I didn’t notice.
“OK,” I says, “let’s grab the wall.” I put the gun in the waste can, handcuffed him.
The wife said, “Oh, my god! I didn’t know he had that!”
Jimmy Murphy, the guy who hit the door, jammed her into a closet with the fucking ram in her stomach. The towel wrapped around the ram. Now she’s got no clothes on. The cup is in mid air. There’s two guys coming off the bed with guns.
Jimmy couldn’t get his gun out; he had this 300 pound ram in his hands. He was screaming, “Gun, gun, gun, gun, gun!”
People are screaming and yelling. She’s fucking crying because she’s just lost her whole life here, right. One guy was coming up off the bed with a 44 magnum revolver. I pulled the triggers on the double barrel shotgun, and i had it on safety. I ended up hitting him over the head with the fucking shotgun.
When we do the search, that brings us down.
After it’s all over and everybody’s locked up and you end up in a bar. It’s narcotics, so everybody’s hard drinkers. And sitting around drinking, all of a sudden you remember what you saw. That was the funniest and the scariest at the same time, just hysterical.