When we last left our hero, he was entering a night club when suddenly his face was “smooshed”.  He turns around to face his assailant, and is grabbed by a rather large friend and escorted outside the “club”…..That’s where our story picks up.

Ok, I have machismo, and I like to think that I don’t get scared of much, but that night…THAT night was pretty scary.  I guess it showed on my face, because the next thing that I remember was a NEW guy suddenly standing right next  to me.  He had one of those hooded gray sweatshirts and his hands were hidden inside the pocket in the front .   His hood was pulled up; hanging loose around his face.  He spoke to me and said,  “Hey man, what’s your name?”  I answered, “Tyrone.”.  I was half expecting him to try to throw a punch, so  I worked my Vulcan/Jedi/David Blaine mind magic on him and mean mugged him with the meanest face I could muster… He didn’t swing.  Instead,he responded, “Don’t worry, man, from now on…you’re my cousin.”  He accented his resolve with a “click, click”  sound as he pulled one of those shiny little pistols out of his sweatshirt pocket and cocked it back.

By now, most of the people that had been  INSIDE the club were standing around outside; waiting for the show. I didn’t really care about many of the onlookers though.  It was another sound that had my interest.   I distinctly remember the sound of car trunks opening and closing all around the place.  Let me fill you in on another country town fact.  It’s  NEVER a good sign to hear trunks opening and closing  when a fight is about to start.  That usually signals guns.

Yep, right on the money!    Guns were coming out all around me….most of them were really fancy lil pistols, some not so fancy.  On the not so fancy side,  my friend had taken a few minutes to go to his truck and get out a 22 rifle that was belonged  to his Dad.  Amongst all those pretty, shiny pistols, the best he could do was a RIFLE?!??! A freaking  rifle?!?!?!  He was waving it around now, screaming “Who’s messing with my boy?” at the top of his lungs.  I’m not sure if you are a gun person or not, but I know HE wasn’t, or he wouldn’t have been advertising that he was defending us with what HAD to be his  Granddad’s old squirrel hunting rifle!!!

So now, you have this crowd of about 35-45  people, most with pistols drawn.  The crowd included one maniacal best friend waving around an old 22 rifle and shouting at the top of his lungs, one new found “family  member” with a criminal disposition, looking for a reason to start a shootout, and one teenager hoping that all those bladder control exercises wouldn’t let him down, and wishing that he had at LEAST bough his big brothers’ nun chucks with him. (Hey, I didn’t own a gun…..)  To make matters worse, it seemed like everyone out there was either threatening to do something to me or daring someone to do something to me.  ( I mean, maybe it was just me, but  if they were REALLY concerned about my welfare, wouldn’t they have dared someone to shoot THEM instead of me?!?!? I’m just sayin’…)   I remember doing the math in my head, and thinking that “the odds really aren’t looking too good for the home team tonight”.  (That’s the actual quote, b.t.w.)

Anyway, eventually cooler heads prevailed…sort of.  Once I was able to get my best friend calmed down we were able to sneak off in the confusion.  I had contemplated running across one of those big empty fields, jumping clumps of dirt and possibly running into some kind of feral animal, but that would’ve been embarrassing, and I couldn’t let THAT happen.  There WERE still girls there, after all. (Don’t think it didn’t cross my mind, though.)  Now, understand, there was no “one minute we were there and the next we were gone, David Copperfield”  moment…we just kind of slowly faded into the background and eeeeeeased our way to where his truck was, and left.  Discretion really was the better part of valor on THAT night.   Thus ended the second scariest night of my life.  And you know what?  All of this was over a book that I let my girlfriends’ sister borrow; a book that she subsequently lost and told her boyfriend, the “Fish Guy”,  that I wanted to fight him over.  I told you she was the evil twin.

Tune in next time for part 3