Whatta Night

One night L and I were driving a coworker home. I can't remember his name, just that he was a kid, not quite as old as we were. We decided to drive through Whattaburger on the way.

Just as we pulled into the parking lot, a group of people came out of the restaurant. We slowed down to let them cross, but they were taking forever. Even from my vantage point atop the console of a Toyota Supra, I couldn't figure out what they were doing. All we could see was a bunch of college guys, right in the middle of the driveway. L eased the car up, hoping they would get the hint, when all of a sudden they scattered. A couple of them ran behind our car, but the way wasn't exactly clear - a young black guy had gotten up off the ground and now stood there swinging a gun around. He pointed it briefly at the windshield (me!), then very deliberately walked over to one of the guys who was cowering behind an older black man who had sidled around the group and was trying to get in his car like nothing was happening. He held the gun to the white guy's shoulder and pulled the trigger, then all hell broke loose.

We waited just long enough to observe the older guy getting in his car all calm-like, while the frat boys sort of regrouped. It appeared they were going to chase after the shooter (who had ran down the alley) in their cars, so we decided to get out of the way while could. We jumped the curb and took off down the street until we saw a cruiser in a parking lot.

We pulled in and asked the cop if anyone had reported a shooting. He said no, and didn't seem that interested in our story, so we went back to the restaurant. We talked to the manager, who said he hadn't seen anything to report. Since we seemed to be the only ones concerned with what had happened, we decided to let it go and went home.

Thing is, we just wanted to make sure that people understood that the black kid was justified, at least from our point of view.