The TBI Chatroom |
I was working for a tropical fish wholesaler in Phoenix, Az. on the night of Oct 5th, 1995. My job was to maintain 250 tropical fish tanks in a warehouse on the east side of Phoenix. Every Wed. I would come in to work at 3 am to make a delivery run up to the Wal-Mart in Page,Az., about 2 1/2 hours north of Flagstaff. I would load up my delivery van with the boxes of fish, go to the corner gas station to gas up for the 5 hour trip, and then head out.
After loading the van and getting the invoice, I headed the 4 blocks to the Texico gas station on the corner of 48th street & Broadway. I gassed up the van and went to the window and paid for the gas and a pack of smokes. I walked back to the van and got in and started it. It was a fairly nice evening so I had rolled down the window. As I turned to fasten my safty belt, I heard a voice outside the drivers window ask me if I could spare a dollar. As I turned towards the window I said that I didn't have any money, having only brought $5 for smokes and lunch. As I turned and said this, I saw a 14 or 15 year old black kid outside my door, looking at the ground. Curious as to what he was looking at, I also looked down. Doing so, I caught something out of the left corner of my eye and turned my head to see what it was. What it was, was a .22 caliber Mark IV semi-automatic Ruger handgun, being held at the waist of a 14 or 15 year old Mexican kid. I looked the Mexican kid dead in the eyes, and he just smiled. The smile never touched his eyes. He had lizard eyes. I mean stone cold, Mafia pop-you-in-the-back-of-the-head 'scuse me-nothin-personal eyes. When I saw that smile, all I could think of was; "I'm a dead man." My last words were; "Aw shit!" Then he smiled a little more. Having enlisted in the Marine Corps during the last 2 years of the Vietnam war and spending 15 months there during the US pull-out, I had run into that set of eyes before. All my brain could do was scream at me to lean back, shift, and straight-leg it to get away from the kid. I leaned back and started to reach for the shifter, when the world went white. A white like I'd never seen before. A white like you'd think Gods robe would be like. And I was moving up and away at an incredible speed, accompanied by a feeling of incredible peace. A part of my brain knew what had happened, but a voice just said it was alright, I was safe now. The feeling I can only compare, to how a baby feels in it's mothers arms, a feelng of never having to be afraid again. A feeling I had never gotten, but constantly searched for all my life in drugs, drink, sex, and living dangerously. A feeling of such well-being, that only if you've been through it, could you know what I'm talking about. And I know,a lot of you out there know what I'm talking about. As this feeling of well-being came over me and soothed me, I was suddenly thrust back to the reality of the here and now. I could hear the engine of the van racing, and feel myself upside down. Apparently I had driven away and missed two other sets of gas pumps, only to hit a sign in the median of 48th street. I opened my eyes only to find that I was blind. My first thought was that they had gotten into the van, so I said with surprizing calm, "Don't shoot me, I'm blind, just kick me out." When nothing happened, the sound of the engine came back to the forefront of my awareness, and the thought that the van might be on fire sprang into my mind. I tried to move my leg, and the sound of the engine faded away, telling me I could still move. I figured if I could move my leg, I could find the door release, blind or not. The next memory I have is standing outside the van and my sight returning. Next thing I know, there is a little Mexican lady telling me I've been shot and that I need to lie down. She was a nurse who was having her husband drive her to work. As soon as I layed down in the street, I told her that I was sleepy, at which point she started yelling at me to fight the sleepy feeling and to stay awake. Somehow, with the Lords help, I did. And I remained concious right up to surgery.
That part of the story is only half of the tale. It took me 90 days to finally see a detective, and I had to go to them. When I asked when I could do a composit drawing of my assailents, I was told; "Don't you know that's only done on TV?" This stunned me so strongly, all I could think of next was; "What did forensics say about the bullet?" The detective looked me right in the eye and asked; "What bullet, I don't know about any bullet!" I just sat there stunned. Finally, unable to hold my anger in any longer, I told him; "The bullet they spent 4 hours digging out of my brain!!" That said, I threw the visitors pass on his desk and stormed out of his office before loosing it entirely. The Phoenix homicide dept not being the place to loose one's temper! No follow-up was ever done, and the copy of the police report that I received from a reporter friend a year later, stated the police took an "eye witness" report from a black man two blocks from the scene, who said he saw 2, 6' 230lbs black men running from the scene. Quite a difference from what I remember!
After the surgery, I was discharged from the hospital the afternoon of the secound day! My sister, who lives in Mesa, took me in for the next 2 weeks. Thank God for family! Don't know what I'd have done if it wasn't for her and her husband. Two days after she took me in I had a bout of dysphasia, where when asked a question, the only thing that came out of my mouth was; "OK". My sister could tell by the look of frustration on my face that something was amiss. So she asked me if my hair was green, and "ok", was all that came out. Back to the hospital I went for more MRI's, but the dysphasia passed within the space of a couple of hours, so it was back to her house and bed.
The next four years were very hard. No aftercare or follow-up, short of removing the 42 staples in my head. I was an insurance risk, so there was no job to go back to. I received 2 months of workmans comp $, less than half of the wage I was making before I got shot. The Dr. told me they only got out 80% of the bullet, as they don't like to go rooting around in the brain as it tends to do all sorts of further damage. This past July, some of the peices apparently have worked themselves out of the tissue and are moving around and causing problems. Problems like, getting lost a block and a half from my house; reading, and the words going from words to just a string of unintelligable letters, or dissapearing entirely. Outbursts of anger at people over nothing at all or the tone in their voice. Headaches, fatigue, sever damage to my short term and long term memory. Occationally my legs or hands don't respond without conciously thinking the commands at them. But just in the past two weeks, after fighting with the industrial commission since last July, the money has been approved to go back in and try and remove some of the schrapnel that's floating around. Course, the industrial comm. wouldn't approve the funding for the medical reasons mentioned, but they would approve it to fill in the crater the bullet left in my forehead! In other words, for cosmetic reasons!
Well, that's my story so far. I guess there will be more to add after the upcoming surgery, provided the good Lord lets me stay as functional as I am now. Check back in a couple of months for the next installment of the adventures of Cactus Bob........
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