As long as I lived at the 25th St. commune there was only one near violent incident, but it was a doozie. Joanne had been fucking a really mentally fucked up Vietnam Vet named Dale the Male who was eaten up with guilt over all the real bad shit that he had done while across the pond. When he got high he'd want to confess all his crimes to us but we did not want to hear about that madness and told him so which would then piss him off. We all told Joanne to get rid of him, not only was he scary but he was a major bummer too. She told us that she was afraid of him too but since he was such a good lay that she would try to let him down easy. Well, whatever she said to him didn't work because we heard him ranting and raving in her room just before he burst out and flew into the living room. He screamed at us about being nothing but bunch of uncaring hippycrit motherfuckers. That he was going home but that he'd be back with his guns then he was going to kill us all. He then ran out the door still ranting about killing us.
I immediately called Kris and told him what had just happened. Kris knew Dale and told me that he'd be right over. Ten minutes later Kris walks in our front door, hands me a 12 gauge and says, "If Dale comes back over here we are going to have to kill him."
The girls and me are aghast. We ask him, "Don't you think that's a little extreme?"
He says, "No way. Dale’s crazy. He would think no more of killing you guys than swatting a fly. If he comes back through that door today, he'll be armed and out for blood. It'll either be him or us."
Lindsey says, "What if we just leave for the day?"
Kris says, "Maybe he'd leave if you guys weren’t here, but then again maybe not. Maybe he'd just wait until you came home then do you all in."
I told Kris that I did not think that I could shotgun Dale just like that.
Kris pulled a .45 out of his pants saying, "You're just my back up. If Dale comes through the door, I'll wait until he's in the middle of the hall then put him down with my .45. One shot should kill him, if it don't I'll just have to shoot him again. You and the shotgun are for just in case."
"Just in case of what?" I ask.
"Just in case he kills me first. If he does then you can kill him while he's busy killing me." he answers. Then he smiles at me saying, "Don't worry about it, it's no big thing. Just point at his belly and squeeze the trigger." then smiles bigger, "And repeat if necessary."
Pat says, "Yeah right! And what about the body?”
Kris says, "No biggie. Bodies are easy to get rid of. As long as no one hears the shots and calls the cops, we'll be all right."
Lindsey says, "Why don't we just call the cops right now and report him."
We all look at her like she's stupid.
I say, "Lindsey, the house is full of dope and the cops don't do anything to people until after they murder you."
Joanne says, “Let's all go down to Kerry's room to wait."
Pat says, "Okay, but I don't want to know about it until it' all over."
Lindsey says, "I think we all should just leave the house and come back tomorrow."
We all look at her again, then I say, "You girls go down to Kerry's and do not come back up here until I tell you to.”
Kris tells them, "Good idea." The girls leave and we wait.
As Kris and I sit there. I'm real scared, I'm sweating and I feel like I am going to puke then both shit and piss my pants.
I tell Kris, who says, "It's normal, don't worry about it."
I ask him how he can be so calm and he tells me, "I've been in a hundred firefights. You either live or you die, it's no big deal and it doesn't matter either way."
I tell him that it sure does matter to me.
He says, "That's why you're scared, if didn't matter to you then you wouldn't be afraid."
I ask if it matters to him if he lives or dies and he says, "Not in the slightest, and neither dose it to Dale. Hell drying’s easy, it's the living that's hard man."
We were silent for awhile then I ask him why he was helping us. After all, it wasn't his fight.
He smiles saying, "Shit man, this is the most fun I've had since Nam." Then he told me some of his war stories from the two tours he pulled over there as an army grunt sergeant. I sat listening. He talked in a normal voice showing no emotion at what he had done, some of which were really horrifying. When he finished he says, "So ya see, it don't matter even a little bit whether I live or die because I am already damned to Hell."
We sat there for the rest of the day, smoking joints but saying little more. When it starts getting dark Kris says, "Call up the girls. He's not coming or he'd have been here by now. Looks like he's cooled his jets and changed his mind. Oh well."
Just as he said that the front door opens and in walks Kerry just home from a hard days work. I really did about shit my pants I was so scared when that door opened. She takes one look at us and at the guns pointing her way and yells, "Jesus Christ! What the fucking hell is going on here! Have you guys gone totally fucking nuts!"
I tell her the story and she got really pissed saying, "Fuck! Can't you guys ever grow up!"
I tell her that it was all Joanne's fault for fucking that crazy asshole in the first place. She knew he was a psycho and she still brought him home to screw so go holler at her.
Kerry asks where she was and I told her so she headed for the basement to bitch at Joanne.
The girls came back up stairs and we made din-din. Kris tells us he’ll spend the night just in case and who does he spend it with, why who else but Joanne of course. Next day Kris says he was sure that Dan would not be back. But he leaves the shotgun with me for the next week, again just in case.
We never did, Thank God, see Dale the Male ever again but after that we did see Kris a lot. In fact, he and Kerry became an item for awhile, even living together. Kris got heavily into Bio-feed back and started going to school on the GI Bill and seemed really happy for a few years.
One day years later he came over to Kerry and Joanne’s place they were now living at on Mirapoas St. telling us that he had some really great news. He told us that he had been meditating 6 to 8 hours a day using his Bio-feed back machine and he had now realized enlightenment. He had now found true happiness, had come to terms with his past and had left all the guilt and shame behind him. He was now ready to start a new life.
We all told him how great that was to hear that, that he deserved to be happy and that we were all happy for him. He smiled and thanked us all for putting up with all of his bullshit for the last few years.
We told him, "No sweat" that he was always one of the good guys and hardly any trouble at all.
He told us, "See ya later." and left. We never saw him again.
That night he went home, locked himself in his room then ate approximately 30 Turinols and was dead by morning. We were all shocked when we found out the next day that he had gone to all of his friend’s homes and had even called his parents with his great news. Everyone had been happy for him and couldn't believe what he had done.
We also learned that right before he had gone home that day that he had stopped at a pharmacy, put his .45 to the pharmacist’s head and asked him if 50 Turinols was enough to kill himself with. The pharmacist told him that he'd never get that many down before he would be dead, so Kris told the guy to give him the 50 and not to bother calling the cops because he would be long dead before they would catch him. And he was.
His note said, "I am feeling better now than I have in a long time, so I am checking out before it gets bad again. It doesn't really matter anyway, so here goes nothing..."
But it did matter Kris, it mattered to us, your friends and your family. I hope you have found your Peace and Contentment. Good bye my friend.