Wrong Place, Right Time - Elle Casey Page 0,137
choice but to obey.
In the back of my mind, I’m thinking that if I were watching this happen to someone on a television show, I would know the right thing to do. I would probably be yelling at the girl in the car, telling her, “Don’t open the door, dumbass! He’s going to kill you!”
But I’m not watching television. I’m sitting right here, the star of the show, and it’s a really bad scene. I find that there’s a certain amount of paralysis involved in being terrified. My body does not want to listen to my brain right now. Maybe it’s the gun. Maybe that’s the real problem here. When there’s a gun pointed in my face, I find I’m very motivated to do exactly what I’m being ordered to do. It’s so much easier to ignore an armed criminal from the comfort of my family room. How very inconvenient.
The locks go up. I expect him to tell me to get out, but he walks around the front of the car, pointing the gun at me the entire way. Next thing I know, he’s climbing into the passenger seat.
He shoves my computer onto the floor to make room for his fat ass.
I find this very offensive. So offensive, in fact, that I momentarily forget to be terrified. “Could you not break my computer, please?”
He settles himself in the seat, turning partway to look at me, his girth making it difficult for him to do so comfortably.
“You don’t seem to understand what’s happening here, girly. You don’t need to be worried about your laptop; what you need to be worried about is not getting shot.”
Tears well up in my eyes. All I can think right now is how sad my babies would be if I never came home again. “Please don’t shoot me. I have three kids. And my ex is a total asshole, so if I die, they’re going to grow up with him as their only parent, and they’re going to be seriously messed up from it, I can promise you that. He tried to steal a watch from me. A gift he gave me for my birthday. What kind of guy does that?”
“Cry me a river. I don’t give a shit about your kids or your ex.”
The man is obviously a criminal and is either already a murderer or is possibly about to become one. His answer is not surprising at all, but I find it unacceptable. It pisses me off. Do I expect him to have party manners? Apparently, yes. I do. Clearly, I’m nuts. Being threatened at gunpoint does not bring out the hero in me. It brings out the crazy. I can’t seem to let his bad manners slide. They eat away at me until I can’t stay quiet any longer.
“Don’t say that about my children.”
His mouth falls open a little. “Lady . . . are you nuts?”
I squeeze the steering wheel with both hands and stare out the windshield. My brain is buzzing. I can hardly think straight. All I can remember is that this guy does not give a shit about anything, and he’s threatening my life and thereby threatening to leave my kids mom-less.
“Yeah, I might be nuts. Just keep saying mean things about my kids and see what happens.”
I have no idea where this foolish courage or recklessness is coming from. I realize that it’s highly possible I will piss this guy off so much that he’ll shoot me just to shut me up. But I can’t seem to stop myself. It’s like this weird adrenaline is coursing through my veins, controlling my brain, controlling my mouth, controlling everything that’s happening around me. And the only way to get rid of this nervous energy seems to be through talking. So talking is what I do.
“I’ve had enough of people shitting on my kids, okay? My son got kicked out of daycare because the stupid director has a problem with kids who have speech impediments. I mean, how fucked up is that?”
I look at the guy, but he’s just staring at me, so I keep going. “That’s wrong. You should never be rude to a child just because he has a disability. You should try to understand where he’s coming from, put yourself in his shoes. And if you have something to say about it, you don’t say it to the kid. You can scar him for life doing that. You say it to the parent. Alone. Handicaps are not a choice.