“Lew, he would have to kill me!” With eyes wide opening and flaring nostrils, that is what the gentleman told me by the supermarket Sunday morning.
Now if you recall, in my column last week when I voiced concern about the daily shootings we were having ’bout here, I advised that if anybody pushed a gun in your face and asked you to hand over your money, give them it. Simply because I am of the belief you could always get back money but not another life.
Anyhow, this man who is in his early sixties, told me he read the column last week, but he ain’t giving up his money or nothing he worked hard for without a fight.
The man who is a mason and carpenter by trade, said he does got to work too hard for his money and right now things real hard and money ain’t flowing. He revealed to me that some weeks does go by and he don’t get any work.
He said, “Lew, I now get pay $1 500, this is money I had to work in hot sun and rain for. I got my bills to pay, and I got to eat like everybody else. So don’t feel that a fella gine sit down on the block all day and after I work so hard for my money, he gine get up like he gine to the ATM and put a gun to my face and expect me to give my money to him. Lew, I telling you, he would got to so and so kill me!”
And while peeping over his shoulder to see if anyone was looking, he whispered, “you see this?” and like magic, I don’t know where he pulled it from, one minute the man’s hands were empty, next minute he was holding a knife as long as a mop stick. I ain’t telling no lie, I catch cold bumps when I see it. And he continued, “I does keep this for them.”
I real serious, the knife looked so sharp, that I believe if he had to pass it through the wind, the wind would bleed.
“Yeah Lew, I does keep this for all them who feel them bad.” And sudden so, again like magic, the knife disappeared and his hand was once again empty.
Anyhow, we talked a lil while longer, he wasn’t married but he lived with a woman and all his children were big. He even boasted that if anybody did him any wrong, he had a son who would come looking for whoever that person was.
And don’t talk about the boy’s mother, he said, “Lew you see how men does beat women ’bout here, if any man had to beat that boy’s mother, I telling you that boy would hurt them serious.”
With time slipping away, he shook my hand and thanked me for the Friday laughs. But I gine tell you this, personally if I was a robber, I would think twice about robbing him, his hands were big like backhoes, and rough like the economy.
Anyhow, he insisted in my column this week, that I also warn the robbers. Let them, know that them got people out there like him, who ain’t frighten for them, some even got guns and willing to fight and even kill for their hard earned money.
If this applies to you, well be warned,
See ya.
