Transcript for the Seafood Joint version of Seafood Joint

"Seafood Joint" by Hans Anderson.

What it came down to was that I paused, turned to my family and friends, yelled "LOOK AWAY" and then pulled the trigger. If I'd have just done it, without pausing, without yelling, it would have been clear self defense or heat-of-passion type of a situation.

It would have been an easy, lawful way out. We were just sitting there, talking, not provoking anyone. We were done eating, the kids were playing at their end of the table and I was holding little Bo on my lap, he tickling me, me laughing even though I'm not ticklish. We were talking about the Matrix, which had just come out. I'd seen it, but Bo's dad hadn't, probably wouldn't. He didn't like movies like that. It was so loud in the restaurant I didn't hear the drunk man at first. He nudged me on the shoulder and I turned and looked up. He was standing over my chair and when he first spoke, it didn't register, I didn't hear him. The seafood joint wasn't crowded, but it was an open room
and boisterous, especially our kids at the end of the table. We had to talk loudly to hear each other across the table. I looked to Bo's dad, assuming he knew the man. Then the man repeated, slurring "White guys shouldn't be messing with colored kids." He stunk of alcohol, with oil stains on his overly tight bushwacker shirt and his small red jogging shorts on backwards. He continued, "Whites and blacks don't mix, I think you should git that ked offen your lap and get your kids away from dem black kids. You don't mix."

I searched for something to say, but my throat didn't cooperate. This happens whenever I have to confront someone. How do you respond to that, especially in front of your black friends? You say nothing, they feel embarassed to know you, you not being willing to back them up, call this guy out. I'd never even thought of this before. What does a black person do? I knew Bo's parents for a year, they were my friends, their children friends with my children. But I'd never asked them about racism, it seemed almost taboo. Do they get this so often from racists that they just blow it off? How common is it?
Do they have a prepared statement?

It wasn't until Bo's dad started to rise from his chair did I find my voice. Bo's mom pulled on Bo's dad's arm, clinging to him as if she'd been down this street all too often. I said to the drunk "Well, then I guess it's good I don't give a shit about what you think." The drunk stared at me for a moment, as if disbelieving I didn't immediately heed his advice. Then he toppled over, grabbed my wife to steady himself. I pushed him off, still with Bo on my lap. The man fell to the floor, then struggled to his feet and knocked over a chair as he stumbled out of the restaurant. Now I knew what they felt like. Bo's dad apologized to my wife and me. He actually apologized to me because a racist man came up to me and told me off. Like it was his fault. The waitress brought
our check, apologized to me under her breath and we prepared to leave.

What happened next took us all by surprise, and it happened so fast. The conversation was at a dead halt, Bo's mom and dad looking embarassed, the kids asking a bunch of questions and my heart pumping like I'd run a marathon. Bo began to cry, so I handed him to his father. Then the drunk came back in. He had a twin barrel 12 gauge shotgun and he shot the first barrel as he walked through the front doors, his raging fingers unable to wait another moment.

OLD VERSION ALERT!

I'd only just turned from handing Bo to his dad when Bo's mom gasped, looking toward the front door. By the time the drunk shot me in the shoulder, I was about fifty feet away, running toward him. I was still far enough that the shot wouldn't cut me in two, but not far enough otherwise. Not like that time I was
retrieving duck decoys for my father and he accidentally shot me in the back. Then I was about 100 feet away and my father's gun was only a 20 gauge. The lead shot didn't even break my skin, though it hurt like hell.

When the drunk fired that first shot, the he didn't have the shotgun on his shoulder and it bucked in his hands, firing wildly. Still, it was firey pain right from the second it happened. But it didn't register to my brain that I should fall down. The man was so drunk that it was easy to wrestle the gun from him, and I did. I was pretty pissed off, and bleeding, and wasn't thinking straight or else I most likely wouldn't have put the gun in his mouth. Most likely. The man had walked up to me unprovoked, issued a command, stalked off to his truck, stuffed two shells into a big shotgun, marched back into the restaurant, fired a shot in the vicinity of my family and good friends and
pelted me in the shoulder, neck and face with what turned out to be 137 stainless steel shotgun pellets. That's what the doctors pulled out.

I'm glad I turned to my wife and kids and yelled for them to look away. I didn't want them to see the man's head explode. But because it did -- explode I mean, all over the booth behind him -- the prosecutors, in all of their wisdom and desire for TV time to kickstart that run for City Council, felt that I had time to deliberate and therefore it was not an act of passion and since I held the gun in my right hand, not to mention parts of my left arm, I was no longer acting in self-defense. I was no longer the victim.

An hour ago my lawyer told me that the jury had reached a verdict. I'm blind in my left eye. My left arm, shattered by the shotgun blast, lays useless at my side. I've been on the news and in the papers for almost a year, public opinion heavily in my favor. I have an air-tight self-defense case, this my lawyer has told me a hundred times. I kissed my wife just this morning.

Wish me luck.