Author’s note: This story was originally written in 1974. At that time the idea of a kid with a gun seeking revenge on a bunch of bullies was completely ludicrous, sadly it’s not so far fetched these days. I never posted this one before because there were other stories with the same theme at KMG 365

“There they are,” the second grader said as he nervously eyed the bigger boys on the next street corner.

“I know,” his friend said confidently. “But this time it will be different.”

“How’s it gonna be different? They beat you up every day this week and they’ll do it again unless you run away like I do.”

“I told you, Stevie, my dad says only cowards run. Besides,” the boy said slyly as he crawled under a bush to retrieve something he’d stashed there on the way to school this morning, “today I have this,” he concluded proudly, holding up a small paper bag.

“What is it?” Stevie asked sparing the bag only a quick glance. His attention was still on the bullies down the street.

“My dad calls it the Great Equalizer,” the boy said dramatically as he pulled something out of the bag. That something was still wrapped in the dishtowel he’d used to smuggle it out of the house. It was heavy but just the feel of it filled him with new confidence. In his mind he was the lone sheriff standing up to a gang of outlaws to make the streets safe again. He was a hero. He slowly unwrapped it so Stevie would see that he was a hero too.

“Is that a real gun?!” Stevie gasped nervously.

“Yep. I took it from my dad’s collection. We’ll teach those guys a lesson today. Come on.”

“Nuh-uh,” Stevie said, staring at the gun wide-eyed. This wasn’t playing cowboys and Indians with toy guns in his back yard. This was something different. Something scary. “I’m running!” he declared and went back the way they’d come. He’d go the long way home. He didn’t want any part of this.

“Chicken,” his friend called after him but he didn’t care.

The boy with the gun held it behind his back and boldly crossed the street to where his three tormentors waited by an empty lot. This time things were going to be different!


Squad 51 was driving down this street on their way back to quarters after a canceled run. Johnny spotted the four boys scuffling on the corner. “Hey, Roy, look at that. Three against one. Pull over. I’m gonna put a stop to this!”

“Johnny,” Roy objected, rolling his eyes at the ceiling.

“Come on, Roy,” Johnny said impatiently. “I know what this is like. I was always the little guy getting beat up on. Now I’m big enough to break things up and save the little guy.”

“Go to it, Hero,” Roy sighed as he pulled the squad over near the fight. He might as well let Johnny do what he wanted or he’d be hearing about nothing else for the rest of the shift.

The three larger boys stood in a circle around the smaller boy playfully shoving him around as Johnny approached them.

“I mean it! I’ll shoot you guys!” the smaller boy screamed angrily.

Johnny pulled one of the bigger boys back and stepped into their circle. “All right, break it up. What’s going on here?” he demanded.

“A cop!” one of the 5th graders yelped.

“I’m not a cop. I’m a fireman but what’s all this? Three against one, that’s not very fair.”

“It is when he has that big, bad gun,” the leader of the bullies scoffed. He acted like he found it funny but he was really insulted that this kid was trying to scare them off with a toy gun. As soon as this stupid fireman left, he was going to teach the little creep a lesson.

“A what?!” Johnny was shocked. He looked at the smaller boy who held the gun in his shaking hand. Johnny realized that the colt 45 revolver the boy held was not a toy but he was sure that the kid thought it was. He couldn’t imagine where the kid had gotten the thing and the fact that he had made Johnny furious. “Gimme that,” he snapped and grabbed the gun away from the boy.

Somehow the gun went off. There was a loud bang and Johnny felt a burning sensation in the left side of his head. Suddenly something wet and warm covered his face. It flowed down his chin to his neck, shoulder and arm. Everything seemed to be in slow motion. The blast had spun him halfway around. He put his hand to his head. Something felt sticky. Then the whole world began to spin and tilt crazily. He felt himself falling. Soon he saw and smelled the grass that rubbed against his face but he could make no sense of anything. He was too tired. He just closed his eyes and went to sleep.

Roy impatiently tapped on the steering wheel as the drama unfolded. Johnny always wants to cure all the ills of the world, he mused as he watched his partner attempt to break up the fight. He shook his head and suppressed a smile figuring that the kids could probably take Johnny. Suddenly his light thoughts disappeared as he heard a sound that made him quake with fear. He was vaguely aware that the front tire on the passenger side of the squad blew. His stomach was in his mouth as he tore out of the squad. It couldn’t be true. This didn’t happen, he tried to tell himself even though he saw Johnny fall.

Then he saw the gun in the startled kid’s hand. “Oh my God,” he gasped sliding on his knees next to Johnny. He gently rolled him over and checked for a pulse. JOHNNY!

“Is he dead?” one of the older kids asked nervously.

They were all pale and shaky now but Roy couldn’t worry about them. “No. No, he’s not,” he said in a monotone. It sickened him to see the blood gushing from Johnny’s wound. He applied pressure to it with his hands. Within seconds his hands were covered with blood. He needed his equipment. Hang on, Johnny, he silently prayed as he ran to the squad, yanked the things he needed out of the bays and ran back to his partner.

He grabbed some bandages and once more applied pressure to the wound. Finally the flow began to ebb a little and he could examine Johnny and assess his condition more fully. He was unconscious. Roy forced himself to gather the vitals just as he would have done for any other gunshot victim he’d been called upon to treat. He tried to operate as if this was just another victim. Johnny deserved the best level of care he could give. Just as he reached for the bio-phone he heard a loud siren. He looked around.

It was a police car. Vince Howard jumped out. “We got a report of a gunshot. What happened?” Vince asked Roy as he arrived on the scene. He didn’t really expect Roy to answer under the circumstances. He’d been a cop long enough to put two and two together. He didn’t like the answer he came up with in this case. He began looking around and taking in the whole scene.

“He did it!” one of the older boys swore, pointing at the seven year old who still held the gun although the recoil had knocked him off his feet. The boy sat on the grass but he was in a stuporous state with his eyes fixed on Johnny.

“What are you doing with that gun?” Vince demanded as he disarmed him the correct way. Vince doubted he’d get any answers from him. He looked at the older boys, one of whom was bent over throwing up at the sight of the blood.

“Rampart, this is squad 51. How do you read?” Roy’s voice was shaky but he fought to keep himself calm.

Drs Brackett and Early were standing by radio at the base station, as was Dixie McCall. Dr Brackett responded to Roy. “Read you fine, 51. Go ahead.”

“Rampart, we have a shooting victim with a head wound. The wound starts at the left temple and extends over the ear. There was excessive bleeding but that is now under control. Victim is comatose and grey in pallor. Pupils are not responsive. Respiration is ten and shallow. Pulse is sluggish and weak. Stand by for BP,” Roy said as he struggled with to get the cuff around Johnny’s arm while using the bio-phone.

“51, is there evidence of the bullet exiting the skull?” Dr. Brackett asked seriously.

“Affirmative, Rampart,” Roy reported stiffly, remembering that something had caused the tire to blow out in the squad and he was sure that it had been the bullet. He knew there had only been one shot.

“Is transportation available, 51?” Joe Early asked him, wanting to begin a full neurological work up on the patient ASAP.

“Negative, Rampart.”

“Ambulance is on the way, Roy,” Vince told him sympathetically. He’d made a report to his sergeant on his radio and had them dispatch one.

“Thanks, Vince,” Roy acknowledged, fighting to keep his voice from cracking. He then turned his full attention back to the patient and his communications with Rampart. He forced himself to work mechanically following their orders, trying to remain detached for Johnny’s sake.

“Continue to monitor vitals and transport as soon as possible,” Brackett concluded.

“10-4, Rampart,” Roy replied wondering how they could sound so calm under the circumstances.

Vince squatted on the other side of Johnny hoping to lend Roy a hand or at least some moral support. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

Roy nodded. He was angry. “Senseless,” he muttered. “So senseless.”
“Yeah,” Vince was equally disgusted. “That kid is seven years old and he already has the idea that a gun is the answer to all his troubles.”

The ambulance arrived and Vince helped Roy get Johnny onto the gurney and into the ambulance. “Can you bring the squad in?” Roy asked him.

“Sure thing,” Vince said taking the keys that Roy offered him.

“It’s got a flat,” Roy apologized.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it and get it to you. I gotta get your statement anyway,” Vince assured him.

It seemed like hours before they got to the hospital. Johnny’s wound began to bleed again as he was lifted onto the exam table.

“CAREFUL,” Roy yelled urgently.

Dixie’s eyes widened when she saw who the patient was. She could see that Roy was about to go to pieces. “Come on, Roy,” she said firmly. She slipped her hand under his arm and led him out of the treatment room and into the lounge. He was moving like a zombie as she sat him in a chair and fixed him a cup of coffee. “What happened?” she asked kindly as she set the cup down in front of him.

“He got shot.” Roy was still stunned.

“How?” Dix coaxed. She thought it would be better for him if he talked about what had happened instead of bottling it up inside.

“He was trying to break up a fight. A bunch of kids.”

“Teenagers with guns,” Dixie said with disgust.

“Teenagers?! Dix, the kid that shot him was seven years old. Seven! My son is seven.” It was really starting to hit him now. A myriad of emotions were vying for his attention. Fear, Anger, Disgust, Regret. He was assaulted by one after the other so fast that he hardly had time to react. He fought to remain in control as he sipped his coffee. “I never should have stopped,” he finally said. “He saw some kids roughing up a smaller kid. He just had to get involved. You know Johnny. But if I hadn’t stopped... he’d be all right now,” Roy admitted miserably.

“And maybe one of those kids would be in that treatment room right now. Or somewhere even worse,” Dixie reminded him.

“I didn’t know about the gun. If I had I would have never let him go barreling into it.”

“Of course you wouldn’t but, Roy, this isn’t you fault,” Dix told him firmly.

“Hey, look at the time,” he suddenly said after glancing at his watch. “I’d better call the station. They won’t know where we are. I’ve got to tell the cap...about Johnny. About what happened,” he stammered.

“Are you all right?” Dix worried. He nodded and she could tell he was forcing himself to be as professional as possible. “Use the phone in here,” she told him as she unlocked the door to a small office across from the lounge where he could have some privacy.

Roy took a deep breath and tried to collect his wits and calm down before calling the number for the station that would ring on the cap’s desk. He wasn’t exactly sure what to say. He still couldn’t believe what had happened. All he knew was that the cap had to be told and he had to do it. In spite of his best efforts at remaining calm, his finger shook as he dialed the phone.

“Station 51, Captain Stanley speaking.”

“Cap, it’s Roy.”

“Where have you guys been. L A is looking all over for you. Is something wrong with your radio?”

“Not that I know of---” Roy’s planned explanation was interrupted by his agitated captain.

“It’s like you guys just disappeared. You should have ---”

Roy interrupted the cap this time. “CAP!”

“Is something wrong, Pal?” The nervous shake to Roy’s voice had not gone unnoticed. In spite of the cap’s dislike of the failure in protocol of the squad to alert L A to their location, he was getting a sense of dread he liked even less.

“Yes, Cap. It’s Johnny. He’s been shot,” Roy’s voice cracked with emotion.

“SHOT?! How serious is it?” A thousand questions occurred to him all at once but he tried to remain as calm and professional as he could and let Roy tell him what happened.

“It’s... it’s pretty bad. Head wound,” Roy was starting to lose his cool. “I’m at Rampart. I’ll call you back when I know more.”

“Okay, okay, Roy. Stay where you are. I’ll notify L A. You’re not hurt, are you?”

“I’m fine, Cap,” Roy assured him as he hung up. He was far from fine but he hadn’t been shot which was what he knew the cap meant. Why had he stopped the squad and let Johnny play hero? Why had that kid had a gun to begin with? He had no answers only more questions. What he really wanted to do was to slug the wall but he’d tried to punch out walls before and he’d always gotten the worst of it so he resisted and went back to wait for some word on Johnny’s condition.

The cap was stunned when he hung up the phone. He sat there at his desk for a few minutes but then he felt the dire need for coffee so he headed for the kitchen to get a cup before contacting HQ about the situation. Since they’d been unable to locate the squad, it had been stood down anyway.

In the kitchen, Chet was preparing dinner while Mike and Marco read the newspaper in search of places to take dates on their upcoming Friday night off. Chet was still trying to convince them that the health department shut down was not a true reflection of his favorite restaurant but the look on the cap’s face caused him to interrupt himself. “What’s wrong, Cap?”

“Gage has been shot.”

“What?!” “How’d it happen?” “Is he okay?”

He held up his hands to stem any more questions he couldn’t really answer. “I don’t know any of the details. Only that it’s a head wound and it’s serious,” he said glumly, as he poured himself the needed cup of coffee.

“Who’d want to shoot Johnny?” Marco wanted to know.

The cap shrugged. “You know all I know. I’d better call it in. Damn!” he muttered as he went back to his office.

“A head wound,” Chet said with a shudder. “Even if he lives he could have brain damage.”

“Poor Johnny,” Marco muttered.

“Damn guns!” Mike slammed his fist down on the table in frustration, displaying more emotion than Chet or Marco had ever witnessed from him but they were too numb to really notice.

When Roy was able to pull himself together he walked back to the lounge. Vince was there waiting for him. Together they were able to put together a statement. As Roy was the only adult eyewitness to what happened, Vince was hoping he could make some kind of sense of the incident for the police. Roy told him all he knew and all he’d seen but he’d been away from the action in the squad and didn’t really see that much. They both knew it was Johnny that Vince really needed to talk to, to get to the bottom of this and that was impossible at the moment. They made small talk for a few minutes and then settled into a companionable silence to wait for any word on Johnny’s condition.

Roy was lost in his own thoughts so Vince went over the statements he had taken from the older kids. He considered them worthless. They each seemed to be covering their own tails and laying all the blame on the younger kid. He was the one with the gun but Vince wasn’t buying the fact that he was threatening them with it out of the blue for no reason. He’d seen bullies before and was sure that the three fifth graders had provoked the attack. The younger boy was still catatonic. Vince couldn’t even get his name out of him and the older boys swore they didn’t know it. He’d taken him into protective custody and taken him along to Rampart with him. Someone was examining him now but they still had no ID on him. He’d also confiscated the gun. It was now at the station. If it was registered they’d soon know whose gun it was and they might be able to find out who the kid was that way. If not, he’d probably match up with some report that a frantic mother made about her son not coming home from school before long. Maybe the kid’s parents could shed some light on how he’d gotten hold of a gun. He figured the kid would eventually be okay. It was Johnny he was concerned with. What if he didn’t make it? That could make a really stupid idea into a homicide. He’d love to see the gun’s owner charged with accessory at the very least but that was up to people much farther up the chain of command than he was.

Johnny had the feeling that he was spinning crazily even though it was dark. He struggled to make some sense of his situation. Where was he? What had happened? He forced himself to remember. He’d made Roy stop the squad. Why? Oh yeah, the fight. Three big kids against one little one. That wasn’t fair. But the little kid had a gun. He could now see it in front of his eyes as clear as a bell and the sight of it filled him with rage. He angrily slapped at it sending it flying out of the kid’s hand. “What are you doing with that, you little idiot. Are you trying to kill somebody?!” he screamed.
Suddenly the darkness lifted and was replaced by blinding light. He blinked as the room slowly came into focus. The first thing he recognized was the startled face of Dr. Joe Early.

“Doc? I...what happened?”

“Hello, Johnny. What happened was you knocked a very expensive piece of equipment out of my hand and it shattered against the wall but I’m glad you’re awake anyway,” Dr. Early said pleasantly.

“Don’t you believe him, Johnny. It was only a pen light. He’s been needing a new one anyway. How are you feeling?” Dr Brackett asked.

“Ugghh. I’ve been better. What am I doing here?”

“You skull was grazed by a bullet.”

“It was?!”

“Don’t you remember what happened?” Dr. Early asked him trying to make the question sound more casual than he felt it was.

“I remember there was a fight. Some kids were ganging up on another one. Tried to stop it. Three against one.” Johnny was forcing himself to remember.

“Is that all you remember?” Dr. Brackett wanted to know.

It all came back to him right up to the point that he was when the bright light chased his thoughts away. “The little kid -- he had a gun. I tried to take it away but it must have gone off. Owww.”

“Does your head hurt?” Dr. Early asked as he once again tried to lean in to examine him.

“Like 1000 hangovers,” Johnny sighed wearily. “And I’m so dizzy.”

“We’ll give you something for that,” Brackett promised. “As soon as Joe finishes his exam. You’d better bring Dr. Early a new light, Nurse,” he commanded the nurse who was in the room. “Looks like his old one finally bit the dust.”

“I’m sorry, Doc. I was seeing that gun in my mind and I guess I thought it was that I was swatting away.”

“Don’t worry about it, Johnny. It’s perfectly understandable. I’m glad that Kel thinks so lightly of the broken pen light because the batteries in mine were low so I borrowed his,” Dr. Early said lightly.

“What?” Brackett’s hand automatically went to the pocket in his coat. Sure enough his pen light was gone.

“I’ll pay for it, Doc,” Johnny said weakly.

“No you won’t, Johnny. Joe borrowed it, he’ll pay for it,” Brackett assured him. “I didn’t realize that he was such an accomplished pickpocket.”

“Hey, a guy has to do something to pay his way through medical school, you know,” Dr Early quipped as he finished up his preliminary neurological exam. “I’d say you were pretty lucky, Johnny. Another half an inch ---”

“I got shot?” Johnny was still having trouble figuring out what happened and how he got to Rampart. He could only remember up to a point and that bothered him.

“Yes you did,” Kel told him calmly. People with head injuries, even minor ones tended to be a bit confused.

“Good thing I have a thick skull,” Johnny said with a half smile.

“That’s for sure,” Brackett agreed with a laugh. “Look, they’re gonna take you upstairs. I’m gonna go and find Roy and let him know you’re okay. Then Joe and I are going to go look through a medical supply catalog so I can pick out a nice, expensive new penlight for him to buy me.”

“Doc, I still feel kinda dizzy and nauseous.”

“Let me get you something for that,” Joe told him.

“Okay, Joe, but don’t you forget to stop by my office later,” Brackett said as he left. He was sure that Joe wouldn’t bother to stop by but he had to keep up appearances in front of Johnny. It was well worth the price of a penlight to have seen the expression on Joe’s face when Johnny called him a little idiot and slapped it out of Joe’s hand.

Kel walked into the lounge where Roy, Vince and Dixie were all looking very grim.

“How is he?” Roy demanded as Brackett went over to pour himself a cup of coffee.

“Well, like he says, it’s a good thing he as a thick skull.”

“He says?” Roy wasn’t sure he’d heard right.

“It’s not as bad as we first thought. It was really not much more than a crease but it was at close range so we are keeping him here for observation. All the tests look good though so I’d say that the prognosis was excellent.”

“When can I see him?” Roy demanded, forgetting for a minute that Brackett was not someone easily pushed.

“It’ll be a few minutes. They’re just getting him admitted.”

“I have to see him too, if that’s okay. I need to know what exactly went down for my report,” Vince told him.

“He said he tried to pull the gun away from the kid and it went off.”

“Well, that probably makes an accidental shooting. That’ll be a little easier on the kid but I’m betting he has nightmares about this for a long time to come. How is he, by the way?”

“You’ll have to check with Morton on that. Joe and I were with Johnny,” Brackett said, up until this point, he hadn’t given the kid a thought. “Where the hell did a kid get a gun to start with?”

“That’s what I want to know. This could have been a whole lot worse. This trend toward everybody wanting a gun is the worse thing that ever happened to this city,” Vince stated.

“It’s not just here. The whole county’s getting that way,” Dixie pointed out sadly. “It’s too easy to get a gun these days.”

“I wish it was a lot harder but even if we could put more restrictions on legal gun sales that still leaves all the punks selling Saturday Night Specials and the thugs that steal guns,” Vince told her.

“Those gun shops look like jails when their closed with all the bars on the doors and windows. They can’t be that easy to break into,” Kel said.

“They’re not but who needs to break into a gun store when houses are so easy. People who buy guns to protect themselves from robbers are high on the target list of burglars even if they might not have anything else worth stealing. Instead of keeping crime away from the house they might as well put out the welcome mat. To say nothing of the fact that it makes the odds for an accidental shooting of a family member go straight through the roof. I’m betting this kid got that gun right from his parent’s nightstand.” Vince did not cloak the disgust he felt at the situation at all.

“How’s that?” the nurse asked as she got Johnny settled into a bed on the 4th floor.

“Fine,” he said sleepily.

She entered the time and the vitals she’d just taken onto his chart and turned to go. She’d heard all kinds of stories about the infamous Johnny Gage but none of the antics that she’d been warned about seemed forthcoming. She wasn’t sure if she was happy about that or not. She stared at him a moment but he appeared to be sleeping. As she left another firemen came to the door. It wasn’t visiting hours but they seldom stopped other professionals from seeing patients. In this case, it was probably a friend of Johnny’s and it had probably been okayed by someone since Johnny’s name would not appear on any patient list yet. “Don’t stay long,” she cautioned the fireman from force of habit establishing that he was a visitor and this was the nurse’s turf.

Roy nodded as the nurse left. He stared at Johnny a minute wondering if he should wake him. “Johnny?” he whispered.

Johnny opened his eyes.

“How are you feeling?” Roy couldn’t help but smile. He’d nearly made up his mind to the fact that Johnny wouldn’t make it so it was great to see him.

“Kinda spacey,” Johnny admitted.

Roy figured that that might be due to the medication. He noticed the IV in the back of his hand but his bandaged head drove the idea home that it might not be something induced by medicine. Still, he sure looked better than he had last time Roy saw him. He knew that image would stay with him for a long time to come. “You comfortable enough?” Roy asked out of the need to say something. To do something for his friend.

“I guess so,” Johnny said quietly.

“Man, you really scared me to death,” Roy finally admitted.

“I don’t remember all that much. The whole thing doesn’t seem real.”

“It seemed real enough to me. I’m just glad you’re all right.” Roy shuddered at the memory of what had taken place but tried to drive the mental picture away.
“Me too,” Johnny sighed.

“What’s the matter?” Roy demanded. His nerves were all still on edge.

“I’m kinda tired.”

“You go ahead and get some rest. I’ll come back and see you later. Okay?”

“Uh-huh,” Johnny could barely say around a yawn. Then he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Roy quietly went left the room. Vince was waiting in the hallway. “He’s asleep.”

“I’ll catch him later then,” Vince said. “I guess there’s no real hurry since it looks like an accidental shooting and we know who the perp is.”

“Perp? It’s a seven year old kid,” Roy reminded him as they walked to the elevator. Again he thought about the fact that he had a seven year old. What if it had been his son that had done this?

Each man was lost in his own thoughts during the elevator ride back down to the E R. When the doors opened Vince was greeted by two cops who were waiting for him. One handed him the keys to his cruiser and Vince remembered to return the squad keys to Roy. “You’ll never guess what?” the younger of the two cops said.

“Suppose you tell me then,” Vince said. He was in no mood for games.

“The kid that had the gun is the son of Jed Ridgeway.”

“Who’s Jed Ridgeway?” Vince asked glancing at Roy who looked equally in the dark.

“The head of one of those gun clubs that do all those ads against gun control legislation. It was his gun. Looks like the kid took it to school because some kids had been picking on him. If the old man had taught him to throw a right hook instead of that he has the right to a gun, none of us would be standing here now,” the older cop commented.

“That’s him over there,” the younger cop told Vince. He nodded toward a short man with thinning sandy colored hair who nervously paced in front of the plastic seats in the waiting room. “He looks taller on TV, don’t he?”

Vince had to get a statement from him so he walked up to him. There was a woman sitting in one of the chairs. She was quietly weeping. She had a Kleenex bunched in her hand and she was constantly wiping her eyes with it. She looked up at him with fear-filled eyes.

“Mr. Ridgeway?”

“Yes yes,” the man answered spinning around. He was sweating profusely although it was not hot in the waiting room. “How’s the fireman?” he asked Vince.

“It looks like he’s going to be okay.”

“Oh thank God. This is my wife Nora.”

“How do you do? I’m Officer Howard. I’m afraid I do have some questions to ask you about how your son --”

“Todd,” Mrs Ridgeway told him. “His name is Todd. They won’t tell us how he’s doing,” she sobbed.

“I’m sure a doctor will be able to answer your questions soon. In the mean time, I do need to know how he got a hold of a gun.”

“He knew better than that,” Jed Ridgeway told Vince emphatically. “He knows he’s not to touch any of the guns unless I’m there with him. He’ll be punished for that, you can rest assured.”

“How can you talk about punishing him. We don’t even know if he’s all right. The nurse said he was catatonic. Do you know what that means, Jed?” his wife shrilled.

“It means he just needs to snap out of it and face things like a man. I always tell him--”

“He’s not a man, Jed. He’s just a little boy. He’s.....he’s...my God! you’re not going to arrest him are you?” she asked Vince. She was bordering on hysteria.

“It appears to have been an accidental shooting, ma’am.” Vince tried to comfort her. “But a man has been shot so we have to conduct an investigation.”

“He’s just doing his job, Nora,” Jed assured her but his tone of voice and manner suggested that he didn’t approve of Vince or his questions.

“Do you keep your guns locked up, Mr. Ridgeway?”

“That would be pretty foolish, wouldn’t it, Officer Howard. If someone breaks into the house I want a gun to be handy to deal with him. The time it takes to unlock a gun case could be all it takes for him to shoot first. The Second Amendment guarantees me that right!”

Roy hadn’t really intended to follow Vince over to the couple but somehow he found himself there and unable to stay out of it. “This could have turned out very differently, Mr. Ridgeway. Those older boys could have easily wrestled that gun away from your son. Suppose it had been him who had been injured in the struggle. Suppose instead of that treatment room he was in the O R or even the morgue. How much solace would the Second Amendment give you then?” Roy hadn’t meant to say it. It just came out.

Mrs. Ridgeway immediately became hysterical.

“I suggest you keep your mouth shut. Look at how he’s upset my wife. Can’t you do anything about him, Officer?” The man sounded very threatening.

“I’m afraid not, Mr. Ridgeway. Since you’re so familiar with the Constitution, you’ve undoubtably heard of the First Amendment which states that I can’t interfere with his right of free speech. Since it was his partner that was shot, he’s a little on the testy side today. We’ll talk later on,” Vince promised, gently guiding Roy away from there before the situation escalated.

“I don’t know what got into me,” Roy confessed when they were a safe distance away.

“It was something that asshole had to hear,” Vince assured him, “but I think maybe you ought to go back to the fire station now.”

“Good idea,” Roy agreed and he headed out to the parking lot to get away from Ridgeway before he did something that Vince would have to arrest him for.

There was no one at the station when Roy got there. He suddenly realized he was hungry and he felt like celebrating. He went to the fridge and heard Henry’s tail start to thump on the leather couch as he opened the door. Sometimes this was the only sign the Basset was even alive. Roy took out a plate of leftover meatloaf and walked over to the couch with it. “Johnny’s gonna be okay, Henry,” he told the dog and tried to tell himself that Henry’s now excited tailwagging was about the news not the meatloaf, which he shared with him.

By the time they’d polished it off, he heard the engine pull into the bay. At least he was sure the other guys would share his excitement at the good news. The engine crew came into the kitchen and hit him with questions all at the same time. He was so overwhelmed that he barely noticed that Johnny’s replacement was Enrique Diaz who was a paramedic that he and Johnny had trained. Enrique was also Marco’s cousin and the two had a running competition for the title of best cook in the family. No one but Marco or Enrique cooked the whole time that he was training at 51. Roy remembered all the wonderful meals they’d had during that time and the fact that he’d managed to gain 8 pounds. But he didn’t care about the pounds at the moment. He was in the mood to eat some good Mexican food.

“That’s enough!” the cap finally said forcefully. “Give Roy a chance to answer. Wanna tell us what happened, Pal?”

“Well, we were driving along minding our own business when he noticed some kids on a street corner fighting. It was three older kids ganging up on one little one so naturally, Sir Lancelot had to charge into it. What we didn’t know was that the little kid had a gun, when Johnny tried to take it away it went off. Took him right here,” Roy’s voice shook a little as he indicted the spot on his own head.

“But he’s gonna be okay, you said so earlier,” Marco insisted.

Roy didn’t really remember saying that but he must have amid the volley of questions they asked when they first saw him. “Like he says, it’s a good thing he has a thick skull.”

“He’s awake,” Chet said hopefully. He was afraid that Johnny might be in a coma or something even worse.

“How’s he feeling?” the cap asked.

“Kinda of groggy and out of it which might be the meds. They want him to rest and you know that’s not exactly his style. He does have a hell of a headache though.”

“I can imagine. He was damned lucky. How long is he gonna be laid up?”

“Can’t say, Cap. I know that they’ll want to keep him under observation for a good 48 hours but after that it’ll probably depend on how fast he heals.”

“What a rotten thing to have happened,” Chet said seriously. “But if it had to happen, I’m glad it happened today.”

“Why today?” Roy asked.

“Because it was Johnny’s turn to cook and now instead of Johnny’s hamburgers, we get to have whatever wonderful thing Diaz whips up.”

“You always only think of your stomach,” Marco complained. “No wonder you look like that.”

“Like what?” Chet demanded, sucking in his stomach. “I’ll have you know I weigh the same now as I did in high school.”

“So you were fat in high school too?”

“Who are you calling fat? You’re just jealous because I think your cousin’s a better cook than you are,” Chet retorted.

Roy just took it all in. He needed some normalcy after what had happened but he was only too aware that it would normally be Johnny and Chet who were having this spat. Still, he was glad he’d be working with Enrique during Johnny’s absence. It was good to work with someone you knew, who knew the way you did things. Both he and Johnny had enjoyed having Enrique as a trainee. He had taught them the Spanish for many of the phrases they used in their work and enough to understand most responses that they might encounter.

Enrique did manage to make a great meal out of the ingredients that were on hand. Other than the fact that he was a much more imaginative cook, Enrique was very much like Johnny. He was outgoing and talkative, he turned on the charm around the ladies, his hair was even just a tad bit longer than even the new, more relaxed regulations allowed. Roy found this both comforting and alarming at the same time. Enrique was regaling them with stories about a recent family get together as they ate, one in which Marco managed to find himself trapped up a tree after rescuing the ball the kids were playing with.

“Don’t think I don’t know who made off with that ladder,” Marco snarled at him although everyone knew it was feigned anger. Marco was really very proud of his younger cousin who had followed him to the fire department instead of going the way both his older brothers had gone and getting into trouble with the law.

“You were just lucky I was there to rescue you, El Primo, or you might be up that tree still,” Enrique laughed.

The men of station 51 needed to laugh and Marco and Enrique knew it. They continued their mock battle to keep everyone’s mind off of Johnny until the tones sounded sending the squad to the aid of a woman in labor at a grocery store.

Later on they were at the nurses’ station telling Dixie about the dramatic birth.

“So when that little lady grows up and tells her friends she is a born shopper, she’ll have documentation to back it up,” Enrique was explaining happily, “Besides the store is going to donate free diapers for a year so Mama and Papa will be glad of it too!”

Dixie was glad that they were cheering her up. It helped make being working a double shift more bearable. She was not too tired to notice that Roy was faking his good spirits.

Enrique noticed too. “Can Roy go up and see Johnny for a while? I’ll stock up,” Enrique volunteered.

“And if I asked the new nurse, Elena to come help you, you’d both be happy campers, right, Romeo?”

“Dixie, I’m crushed. You know my heart belongs only to you,” Enrique vowed.

“I didn’t think I’d ever find anyone who could shovel more bull than Johnny,” Dixie said rolling her eyes.

“Johnny did help train him,” Roy reminded her. “Is it okay if I go up and see him?”

“It’d probably do you both good. You and Johnny that is. Senior Diaz is beyond help, I’m afraid.”

“You cut me to the quick, Nurse McCall,” Enrique protested dramatically as Roy got on the elevator. “Say hi to Johnny for me. Tell him I’ll make him some decent food as soon as they’ll allow it,” his new partner called after him. Another thing that Enrique and Johnny agreed about was the quality of hospital food.

Roy quietly pushed Johnny’s partially opened door open the rest of the way. If Johnny was sleeping he didn’t plan on disturbing him. He drew closer to the bed. Johnny had a washcloth over his eyes so he didn’t know if he was awake or not. “Johnny?” he whispered.

“Roy?” Johnny asked weakly, lifting the cloth for a few seconds than pressing it back in place.

“Yeah it’s me? How are you doing?”

“Oh great, Roy, just great, can’t you tell?” he said sarcastically. “My head is killing me. I’m nauseous. The light hurts my eyes which doesn’t really matter since I can’t open them anyway because I’m seeing triple spinning images of everything in the room. Hell, I’ve never been better.”

All through Johnny’s tirade the main thing Roy noticed was how weak his voice sounded. Otherwise he might have thought his complaining was sort of a good sign.

“Do you want me to ring the nurse? Maybe they can give you something.”

“Already tried that. Can’t keep anything down. They claim to have added something to the IV but if they did, it’s not touching my symptoms. This whole thing just plain sucks, Roy. Maybe I’d have been better off if that bullet had been another half inch to the left.”

“JOHNNY! Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that!”

“Yeah I know, I know. I should be glad to be alive but at the moment the alternative looks better. At least I wouldn’t be in all this pain.”

“Look, partner, I know you feel bad and I’m really sorry but you have to hang in there. The pain will go away. You’ll start feeling better and before you know it, you’ll be out of here and back at work fighting with Chet, honest,” Roy promised.

“Sorry I’m being such a pain in the butt,” Johnny said with a heavy sigh.

“Don’t worry about it. I know you’re feeling really lousy at the moment. If you want to gripe about it go ahead and gripe at me. What are friends for?”

“I don’t want to gripe. It doesn’t do any good anyway but I’m tellin’ ya, Roy, if people knew how the hell much it hurts to be shot they wouldn’t think guns were so damn wonderful.”

“I agree with ya there. I know I’d gladly give up my Second Amendment rights if it got all the guns off the streets,” Roy said remembering his go-round with Jed Ridgeway.

“You know what they say if guns are outlawed only outlaws will have them.”

“Even if that was the case, we’d see a hell of a lot less gunshot wounds. How many accidental gunshot wounds could be avoided that way?”

“I don’t think I’d feel any better if someone had shot me on purpose,” Johnny pointed out.

“I’m just saying if Dad’s guns were illegal, he’d be hiding them and the kid might not have gotten a hold of one.”

“You’re flogging a dead horse, Roy. Guns are here to stay, I’m afraid but there should be some way to at least keep them out of the hands of kids. I don’t think that’s asking too much, do you?”

“I sure don’t,” Roy said vehemently.

“So what are you doing here at this time of night?” Johnny asked, changing the subject to get his mind off of his condition.

“We just brought in a women whose baby decided that the Ralph’s on 14th Street would be a good place to be born.”

“She delivered at the store?”

“Right in the frozen food isle.”

A smile touched Johnny’s lips in spite of his pain. “Who you working with?” he thought to ask, almost hoping that Roy would be suffering with Brice. Misery did love company.

“Enrique Diaz. Good thing too because no one in the store was bilingual and the engine wasn’t rolled on the call with us.”

“Like Marco would be any help. He’s fainted twice on ob calls hasn’t he?” Johnny remembered.

“Technically only once. That other time he claimed that the fainting father knocked him down and he hit his head,” Roy corrected. “But Enrique says to tell you that he’ll make you some decent food as soon as you feel up to eating it.”

“Why didn’t he come up with you?”

“Dixie thinks it has something to do with the new nurse working supply.”

“What?!” Johnny sat up, momentarily forgetting his pain. “He’d better stay away from her, I --ugh,”

“Take it easy, Pal,” Roy eased him back down. “If you’re interested in her, you’d better concentrate on getting better so he doesn’t horn it.”

“He’d better not even think about horning in. Don’t you let him, Roy, you gotta help me out here.”

“Okay I will. You just take it easy, okay?” Roy thought that Johnny’s interest in the nurse might be a good thing.

“It’s the damn vertigo that’s the hardest to take,” Johnny admitted.

“Maybe you’d better just lie still and keep your eyes covered. I’ll go down and get Enrique away from Elena.”

“Elena? I thought her name was Sally.”

“Maybe there’s more than one new nurse.”

“I haven’t met any Elena.”

“Well, you’d better just hurry up and get well then, you’re falling behind.”

“You just take that Enrique back to the station and away from all the nurses,” Johnny told him.

“Okay. You just concentrate on getting better, Pally.”

“Pally? I thought I was Junior.”

“Well, just this once you can be Pally,” Roy grinned.

“I don’t like that any better,” Johnny admitted with a sigh. He couldn’t believe how much this simple conversation had worn him out but he tried not to let that on to Roy.

“You just rest up and get your strength back. I know the other guys’ll want to stop by tomorrow and I’ll tell Joanne that you need some of her medicinal brownies.”

“Better hold off on those till I can keep them down,” Johnny advised. This time he couldn’t hide the yawn.

“Okay, whenever you feel up to them. I’d better hit the road.”

“Yeah. Keep Don Juan away....from....my... nurses.....”

Roy suspected that he’d fallen asleep so he left. On his way out he stopped at the nurse’s station on that floor. He was happy to see Carol Williams sitting there. She often worked in the E R so Roy knew her. He didn’t know nearly as many nurses as Johnny did.

Carol looked up from the chart she was working on. “Oh, hi Roy. How are you?”

“I’m fine. It’s just that..um I was wondering---”

“How Johnny was doing,” she guessed. “Well, he’s having a little problem with his middle ear. That’s why he’s experiencing vertigo. There was a lot of tissue damage and swelling and they hope that that is what the cause of the trouble is.”

“They hope?”

“They really won’t know until the swelling goes down which will take a little time.”

“In the meantime, he has to suffer?”

“They don’t want to overmedicate. That might mask some symptoms we really need to be aware of to keep on top of his condition,” she explained.

Roy didn’t like it. He could see that it made sense medically but he hated to see Johnny so uncomfortable. He didn’t even want to think about what permanent damage to Johnny’s middle ear would mean. It could affect his ability to do the job. To Johnny, losing this job would be worse than losing his life. He decided to keep this info to himself and hoped for the best.

He managed to keep himself in check until later that night when they were watching an old western on TV. On one of the commercial breaks there was an ad speaking out against a gun control law that the state legislature was considering. The spokesman on the commercial was none other than Jed Ridgeway. Roy realized he’d seen this commercial before but he’d never paid any attention to it. Now it infuriated him so much that he had to leave the room. He found himself in the cap’s office writing a letter to his representative asking him to vote in favor of the bill. It might not do a bit of good since the anti-gun control lobbies had so much money behind them but at least he felt like he was speaking out and letting his voice be heard.

The next morning he called Rampart and spoke to Dixie before he left the station. It was quieter there than the DeSoto household at breakfast with Joanne trying to get both kids on the bus with the right lunches, backpacks and all the vital paperwork and/or science projects that they required to make it through the day.

“Hi Dix, it’s Roy DeSoto, I was just wondering if you’ve had a chance to get an update on Johnny yet.”

“It’s the first thing I did when I got here. I’m afraid he had kind of a rough night. They’ve determined that he does have some damage to his middle ear so they’ll be doing surgery this afternoon.”

“They can fix it?”

“They’re pretty sure that they can, yes.”

“He agreed to the surgery?”

“Yes he did which speaks volumes to how much he was suffering since they will have to shave the rest of his head to do it. Why don’t you call the floor later on tonight and check with the nurse on duty. He’ll be pretty much out of it till then so there’s really no point in any of you coming by. But don’t worry, Roy, he’s in good hands. You know that.”

“Yeah, I know. Thanks, Dix,” Roy said as he hung up the phone. He felt disappointed that he couldn’t visit today but he was hopeful that the surgery would correct the problem. If it didn’t, he didn’t know what Johnny would do.

Roy didn’t get a chance to see Johnny until his next shift although he had called several times and talked to him twice. Both times he seemed pretty out of it but the floor nurse had assured him that he was heavily medicated to keep him still. Roy and Enrique went into his room about mid morning. Enrique gave him a covered bowl of something that smelled delicious and had driven Chet crazy at the station.

Johnny was even up for eating some of it but complained that his appetite had not yet returned. Enrique wished Johnny well and then excused himself to go see if he could locate Elena, whom he’d taken to the movies last night.

“I can’t believe he got a date with that fox,” Johnny complained.

“I thought you didn’t know her.”

“It was Elena Salazar. The other nurses call her Sally. I talked to Dwyer on the phone and he straightened the confusion for me.”

“Guess you trained him a little too well, Junior,” Roy laughed.

“I created a monster,” Johnny agreed sadly.

“You look a better.”

“Better?! How can you say that?! You know what’s underneath this turban?” Johnny asked with exaggerated distress as he pointed to his fully bandaged head.

“What?”

“Nothing. That’s what -- aw quite laughing. I mean no hair. I’m as bald as Yul Brenner.”

“Joanne and her friends consider him to be very sexy.”

“Yeah well, I bet they’re all married. I don’t care what married women consider sexy. I care what single women consider sexy!” Johnny began one of his classic rants. “To say nothing of what Chet and the other guys are gonna say. I can just hear all the stupid scalping jokes now.”

Johnny had just gotten up a head of steam when a woman neither of them knew came into the room. She was young and pretty but the rock on her left hand told Johnny that she was taken which ended his real interest in her.

“Mr. Gage, I’m Doctor Dillar,” she said.

“Doctor? Most of the doctors I’ve seen the last few days were wearing lab coats.” Johnny was sure he had been poked and prodded by every medical professional in LA County the last couple of days and he wasn’t eager to play guinea pig for one more no matter how pretty she was.

“I’m a psychologist,” she began but Johnny interrupted her.

“Oh come on, Doc, the last thing I need is a shrink. I might have said some stuff that was misinterpreted before when I was feeling so crappy but trust me I’m not about to do harm to myself or anyone else. Honest.”

“I’m glad to hear that, Mr. Gage,” she said with a very engaging smile. “But that is not the reason I’m here. I’m here on behalf of a patient I’m treating. Todd Ridgeway.”

“The name doesn’t mean anything to me,” Johnny said honestly.

It meant something to Roy. “The kid who shot you.”

Dr. Dillar looked at Roy suspiciously.

“This is my partner Roy DeSoto. He tends to be kind of a mother hen at times,” Johnny explained.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. DeSoto.”

“Was the boy injured? They never told me that and there’s a lot I don’t really remember.”

“He wasn’t physically harmed but I’m afraid what happened has sent him into a kind of shock and I was thinking that if he came and saw you it might help him to come to grips with what happened a bit.”

“Sure if you think it would help him,” Johnny told her. He didn’t have all the details but he could imagine it was a scene that would have scared a little kid.

Roy suddenly felt awkward. “Maybe I should go.”

“If Mr. Gage doesn’t mind, it might be better if you stayed. According to the police report, you were a witness.”

“I don’t mind,” Johnny said. “I have a few questions myself.”

“Well, I was in the squad. I didn’t really see that much but if it will help, and if I don’t get a call,” he said lifting the HT up so she could see it, “I don’t mind staying.”

Dr. Dillar went to the door and motioned someone into the room. Mrs. Ridgeway came in holding onto her son’s hand. He still appeared to be somewhat catatonic as she led him into the room.

“Todd,” the doctor said, “this is Mr. Gage. He’s the man you shot.”

Todd continued to stare straight ahead, seemingly unaware of his surroundings.

“Todd,” his mother said with unmasked frustration, “Mr. Gage is hurt because of what you did. You made a big mistake and you have to at least apologize. It won’t make this all right but it’s a start. Now what do you have to say for yourself?!”

“I--I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t gonna shoot anybody -- really. I just wanted to scare those guys so they’d quit b-beating me up.” Todd suddenly became more animated. The fear in his voice was plain to hear.

“If you were having trouble with some boys at school why didn’t you tell me?” his mother demanded.

“It wasn’t at school exactly it was on the way home but if I came running to you, it’d be babyish and cowardly. Dad says a man fights his own battles and I tried but they kept on winning,” the boy admitted shamefully.

“Well, there were three of them and they were bigger than you,” Johnny put it. “It’s not likely you’d have been able to win in such an unfair fight.”

“I know so that’s why I got the gun. Dad calls guns the great equalizer I just wanted the odds to be equal is all.”

“I don’t care what Dad says. Guns are dangerous and no way to solve anything. If you didn’t want to tell me or anyone else, why didn’t you just run the other way like Stevie told me he did?” Mrs. Ridgeway wanted to know.

“Only cowards run away,” Todd declared.

“That’s not entirely true,” Johnny said. “There are times when you should fight like if it’s something you believe in but when a fight is as unfair as that one was, there’s nothing cowardly about running away. They were the cowardly ones. There’s certainly nothing brave or manly about ganging up on someone smaller than you.”

“You’re a grown up. You don’t know what it’s like,” Todd complained.

“I was a kid once and, as it happens, I was on the small side and there was this kid named Sluggy Wilson. He was big for his age and he was also dumb. He was three years older than me and he was in the same grade. He seemed to think that he could make up for that by being the meanest kid in school. He wanted kids to be too scared to pick on him, I guess so he made it his business to pick on us first. I was one of the smallest so he made me his target. At first I tried to stand up to him and his cousins but it didn’t do any good. They always won. My friend Julie suggested I run away. Like you I figured that was the coward’s way out but Julie told me that you’re only a coward if you run away from fights about something you believe in. The more I thought about it the more I realized she was right. The only thing that a fight with Sluggy was about was him getting the pleasure of beating me up. I sure didn’t want to give Sluggy any pleasure so I started running away. At first he and his cousins chased me but I always got away. Finally they gave up but not before I became the best runner in school. When I got older I even got a chance to go to a much better high school because of my running ability. So learning to run paid off. Where would getting beat up by Sluggy have gotten me?”

Todd thought about what Johnny had said for a few minutes. “I thought having the gun would make them stop,” he said, “but it didn’t scare them at all. They thought it was a toy gun. That made me mad.”

“Mad enough to shoot one of them?” Johnny asked.

“Maybe. I don’t know but I sure never meant to shoot you.”

“I know you didn’t.”

“I- I wish I could take it back.”

“That’s the problem with bullets, Todd. There’s no taking them back,” Johnny told him seriously.

“I don’t care what my dad says. I’m never touching a gun again. I don’t even care if he says I’m not a real man!” Todd vowed.

“A real man makes his own decisions about what he believes in,” Johnny stated quietly.

“Don’t you worry, Todd, you don’t ever have to touch a gun again. I said so. I think I’ve been taking the coward’s way out too by letting Dad have all the say when it comes to guns but no more. I’m going to stand up for what I believe in and I believe guns cause more problems than they solve. If Dad doesn’t think it’s safe to live in California without guns, we can just move back to Ohio where they don’t have this stupid cowboy mentality!” Mrs. Ridgeway was angry at her husband and maybe men in general so she glared at the men in the room.

“I’m not a cowboy,” Roy assured her.

“Me either,” Johnny said. “I’m an Indian.”

“I know,” Todd said seriously. “I can tell by your hat. I’m really sorry I shot you, Mr. Gage.”

“Me too,” Johnny matched his tone and tried to ignore the hat remark. He was sure he’d hear far worse when Chet saw his bandage.

“I won’t ever shoot anybody again. I’m gonna start practicing running.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I bet you’ll be a great runner. If you work real hard you might even get into the Olympics someday.”

“The Olympics? Really?”

“Why not? All you have to do is work hard at it.”

“Come on, Mom, I wanna go home and start practicing!”

“Okay, Todd, okay. I want to thank Mr. Gage for his help.”

“My pleasure,” Johnny told her. He had been feeling pretty sorry for himself over the whole thing but somehow he now felt that there was a purpose behind it all. It might have been wrong for him to undermine what the boy’s father had been teaching him but the father was wrong. No matter what he thought about guns, he had no business pressuring a seven year old into thinking that guns were the answer to every situation.

With that the boy and his mother left. The doctor thanked him also and left. Johnny realized that Roy had been pretty quiet throughout this whole thing and a quiet Roy was generally a disapproving Roy.

“I know what you’re gonna say, Roy, I had no business saying anything that might come between a boy and his dad but---”

“That’s not what I was gonna say at all,” Roy interrupted. “Far from it. What I was gonna say was, when you’re feeling better could you come and tell that same story to Chris? If he’s ever bullied I want him to know there’s an alternative to fighting. I don’t think I could say it nearly as well as you did.”

“Really?!” Johnny was surprised.

“Really. You done good, Junior, real good,” Roy said quietly.

“You know, Roy, I think maybe I could eat some more of that stuff Enrique made after all.”

“Stuff?!” Enrique said returning to the room. “It’s not stuff it’s -- oh you gringos would never be able to pronounce it right. I may as well give up.”

“Speaking of giving up, no luck in finding Elena?” Johnny was hopeful.

“You wish, Johnny,” Enrique laughed. “She just went on her break with me.”

“That’s where you been all this time,” Roy commented, very much in senior partner mode.

“Not all of it. That child psychologist was looking to bring that kid in here to see if Johnny could get through to him so I waited till they left to come in. I guess it worked cuz the kid don’t look like a zombie no more.”

“Yes he seemed much better when he left. Still this whole thing shouldn’t have ever happened. I don’t even blame the kid as much as the father,” Roy said angrily.

“Elena told me that the father is that guy who’s on TV all the time talking against stronger gun laws. He’s a real jerk to do that. Every punk with a TV’s gonna figger he’s got a whole pile of guns in his house that are ripe for the taking,” Enrique commented.

“Who’s gonna be dumb enough to try and break into a house if they know the homeowner has guns?” Roy wondered.

“It don’t work like that, Roy. See, if that guy surrounds himself with guns instead of having just one it’s a sure bet that he’d never have the cajones to really use one. Street thugs could get those guns away from him or hit the place when he wasn’t home. No sweat.”

Roy had never thought of that and he knew that Enrique knew a lot more about the way street criminals would think since he had two brothers who were street criminals. He remembered that one of the cops had said something similar the other day. He hoped that Todd and his mother would convince Jed Ridgeway to get the guns out of the house or move back to Ohio before they could cause any more tragedy for the family. Guns didn’t equal the playing field they just made it a much more dangerous place, he decided. There had to be better answers and they’d better find them before things got even worse.

 

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