The wrong gun.
Another event took place for me in Florida.
It didn’t end well for my taxi driver, he shot himself.
-
What?
Yes, he did. I had left my daughter’s house
very early to go to the Tampa airport, some 45-minute drive away. Near the end
of the route, the driver, a very heavy man, moved in the seat of this, large
and comfortable, Lincoln car. I, being a friendly man, had chosen to sit
up-front with the driver so we could talk.
-
A gun went off.
I know what a gun sounds like and I certainly
recognize the smell of cordite, the common gunpowder.
“What was that? A gun?”
The driver immediately opened all the windows
to vent the gun-smoke.
“Do you have a gun?” I asked.
“Yes, right here.” Said the driver and pulled a huge pistol out from
under his unbuttoned shirt.
“That one hasn’t been fired.”
“No, the night driver must have left his gun between the front seats.
That gun must have gone off when I moved.”
I never saw that gun but then – the driver
started to move around. He drove faster and faster. We entered the airport
drop-off area on squealing tires and came to a very sudden stop. I paid. Hew
grabbed my money, gave me no change, jumped out of the car, grabbed my suitcase
from the trunk and threw it on the pavement.
Now I was suspicious of the series of events
and put my hand on the driver’s seat as he stepped out. Sure enough, there was
a good size puddle of blood that wetted my hand. The unseen gun had shot
upwards from between the seats. I put my finger in the bullet hole. The
trajectory was angled at the driver, not me, and he had been shot through the
padded seat. The bullet was in his buttock and he was bleeding down his right
leg. He said,
“I have to go home to mother to see what she can do, I have no health insurance
to pay for this,”
…and jumped back into the car and took off in a cloud of burnt rubber.
It took me several hours before the series of
events sunk in. I got cold chills as I sat in my aeroplane seat on the way
home. What if the bullet had gone the other way? I certainly don’t have any
extra 50 kg of fat to absorb a wayward bullet.
A little side note here: Home again, I
summarized this unfortunate event in an email that I sent to many of my
friends, including a number of Americans. The replies?
From all, except the Americans. “Lucky you.”
From the Americans: “He had his right to have
his gun and you should be lucky he didn’t shoot you.” No compassion from that
side…
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