He shut the car off and walked back into his apartment, only to see Otis standing expectantly at the door.
“Gotta go out and do your business?”
Ten minutes later, the dog had done what he had to do, and he walked back inside, hardly able to stand up by the time he shut the door and removed the leash from Otis. He plopped down hard in his recliner and was out before he even got his feet up.
He woke at 11:00 pm, Otis standing patiently by his recliner, the burger and moldy cheese gone. He took the dog out to relieve himself, brought him back in, and decided he would venture out again for beer. It was a decent evening, so he opted to walk to the Shell station again.
“Hi, Walter,” the girl behind the counter said when he walked in the door, “What brings you in tonight?”
“Same thing that brought me in last night. Some punk stole that one.”
“Bummer.”
“Yeah…hey, you wanna give me the bathroom key? I gotta pee like a racehorse.”
“Sure thing, here you go.”
Walter unlocked the restroom and upon entering, realized he had an urge to do more than pee, and sat down. While he was sitting there, he heard some commotion in the store, but didn’t think much of it. This station sometimes attracted some unsavory characters. Things could get somewhat entertaining at times.
At the counter, a man was holding a pistol on the clerk.
“Come on girl, just put the cash in the bag. I ain’t got all night.”
Walter was using the hand dryer and didn’t hear that part, so he exited the restroom, not knowing what was going on, and walked right up to the end of the counter to hang the restroom key on the hook that was kept there for that reason. The key was attached to a twelve inch long dark piece of PVC tubing and Walter was holding it pointed away from his body as he reached to hang it on the hook. The gunman, seeing someone approaching the counter, whirled around and pointed his pistol in Walter’s direction. Mistaking the nature of the PVC tube he saw aimed in his direction, he pulled the trigger twice, and then in a panic, dropped the cash and darted out the door.
The sound of the gunshots had the predictable effect. The clerk screamed, the manager came from the back room, and the two college students who were in the store screamed and then stood there frozen, not sure what to do. Walter stood surprised for a couple seconds, looking down at himself and seeing no wounds. ‘How did he miss me from that close?’ he thought.
“Walter, you okay?” the clerk asked.
“Yeah, think so. Must have been a pretty bad shot.”
“Bullets didn’t hit anything else,” she said, “Maybe he was shootin’ blanks.”
A young man who had been by the soft drink cooler approached Walter and asked, “Hey Mister, can I have that key? I gotta pee.”
“Sure thing, kid. Here ya go.”
The kid dropped the key, bent down to pick it up, and picked up two smashed bullets from the ground, slipping them into his pocket. He let himself into the restroom, took the bullets out of his pocket and took a look at them, washed his hands and dried them, then exited the restroom in time to see Walter walking out. He followed Walter at a discreet distance, not sure if he saw what he thought he saw. Maybe those bullets could have hit a shelf or something, but the only thing around there was the man and a display of vaping pods. The bullets would have gone right through that display.
The man was walking down Ohio, and the young man’s curiosity got the better of him. He darted across McMillan and followed the man until he got closer. He caught up to him past Lyon when he heard a woman scream, and a moment later saw someone running up Lyon.
“He’s got my purse,” the woman screamed as the thief got closer to Walter. The kid recognized him as the gunman from the Shell station. He must have fled this way, looking for an easier mark. The gunman hit the sidewalk on Ohio and ran right into Walter.
Walter heard the female scream, saw the purse in the man’s hands, and then recognized him.
“Out of my way, old man,” the thief yelled, shoving Walter in the chest.
Walter reacted from pure instinct more than anything else, with speed he didn’t know he had, and grabbed the purse with his left hand while following up with a right uppercut that sent the thief flying. The thief bounced off the roof of a car traveling down McMillan and landed in the parking lot of the Shell station, right next to the cop who was there to take a report on the attempted robbery.
The store clerk was outside talking to the officer when the thief landed there, took one look at him, and said, “That’s him officer.”
“Did anyone see what happened?”
“Dude just came flyin’ from across the street and bounced off my car,” a man said.
“Come again?”
“Yeah, I was slowing down for the red light. Then I see this dude flying through the air. He hit my roof and bounced over here. See my car?”
The officer took one look across the lot at the car and took another look at the thief on the ground.
“How in the hell?”
“Yeah, that’s him, officer. I’m sure of it,” the clerk said again, “You need anything else from me? Can I go back in?”
“You’re free to go, ma’am. You won’t be needing to press any charges. Only place this
