A Walk Down Memory Lane

I was just finishing my shower, when I heard a loud bang. I assumed it was my "pretty much ex-boyfriend". I figured he had his hands full so that when he unlocked the door all he could do was push it and it tended to bang against the wall when that happened.

I yelled out his name as I shut off the shower and reached for a towel.  I heard no answer, and as I wrapped the towel around my wet body, a man with a gun came into view at the doorway to the bathroom. My heart stopped.  He yelled out “Police! Where’s the drugs and money?”

I should probably go back and explain a bit about my “pretty much ex-boyfriend”.  I was living in Tucson, Arizona at the time in a house that I had bought and lived in with a man I had been in a relationship with for a couple of years.  He was a body-builder, sold drugs-cocaine mainly and occasionally steroids.  Being the fairly reckless person that I was when I was in my early twenties, this was the type of person I was attracted to at that time;  though he wasn’t dealing drugs when we first hooked up, he was tending bar at a club I was working at.  But, when he got involved in drug dealing, it just didn’t seem to bother me.

Well, at the time of this home invasion, we were actually in the midst of breaking up. It was really quite amicable; we had pretty much grown apart.  I wanted more from life than drugs and clubs and he had no vision for the future.  He was almost moved out, but still had a few belongings in the house and the key to the front door, hence my thinking it was him when they had entered.

I figured he was after cocaine; but there was none of that being stored in my house; there never was.  My ex fortunately had never kept that drug there; but he had met people at my house when purchasing the drugs while we were still “together”.

So, obviously, this guy had either been here while my ex was making a transaction, or he knew of someone that knew…oh you get the drift.

When the gunman yelled that he was the police, I yelled to the best of my ability “Where is your search warrant?” It wasn’t nearly as loud and confident as I would have liked, but I got my point across.  I knew this was no cop; no badge, no search warrant-duh!

But that scared me even more, after all, he had at least one gun, and it was pointed right at me.  I was the most scared I had ever been in my entire life.  I was dripping wet, practically naked with only a towel for protection and some crazy bastard had a gun pointing at me wanting drugs and money. Yes I was terrified! I absolutely feared for my life. I could feel my heart beat pounding in my head. 

He led me into the bedroom, for no other reason (thank God!) than it happened to be right next to the bathroom. There were at least two other guys that I saw when I glanced up, but when I did look up the gunman yelled at me not to look at him. So in fear, with nowhere else to look, I simply looked down.  All I could figure from that point was that while the gunman kept his gun pointed at me, the others were searching through the house, looking at and taking whatever they felt made their trip worthwhile.  Afterwards I realised they had stolen every bit of cash I had in the house, all of my jewellery and the little pistol I had for protection; allot of good that did me!

I thought for sure he was going to shoot me.  I was so scared, though, I don’t even think I cried; I was just too darn stunned.

Then they were gone.

It had seemed like an eternity, but I think the whole incident lasted less than ten minutes.  I called the ex then I called the police.

The rest of the day is pretty much a haze; police questioning, the ex questioning. Of course, I couldn’t tell the cops that the invaders were after drugs. So, basically it was just some random home invasion.

The thing is, what the robbers didn’t realize when they were in my house, and hadn’t occurred to me when they were there, was that they completely missed all of the packs of steroids in the closet that the ex had not bothered to move out yet.

Steroids are illegal, but not as illegal as cocaine; and frankly there wasn’t really that much there in the house.  That’s why I wasn’t even concerned about having it in the house. Regardless of that, they are worth a bit when sold; so it was surprising that the robbers didn’t bother stealing any.

Well, they may not have known what they were looking at the time of the robbery, but apparently they figured it out because three days later, they were back.

I was lying in the tanning bed this time, I even had the new gun the ex had helped me buy sitting on the floor next to me.  When I heard the loud bang, I hopped out of the bed, but when I reached for the gun, in popped a gunman (a different one than before), and I froze.  I don’t think I would have known what to do with that gun if I had been able to grab it anyway; have a shoot out? Probably not a good scenario, especially since I’d never shot a gun in my life.

The gunman grabbed that gun, and kept both pointed at me while the others grabbed what they came for and then they were gone.

Since the neighbours were still on alert from the first incident, they acted quickly and called the police straight away. I think whoever it was that called got a pretty good look at the assailants because the cops nabbed them. I don’t know if they got all of the guys from both robberies-but they definitely got both the first and second gunmen; I had to identify them.

A few months later, I heard about one of the guys that had been involved in the whole robbery. It turned out it was someone I had even met. Well, he did not come to the house with the robbers, but he was the one who had told them my house was an easy target. Turned out, one day he was out driving and got pulled over by police officers; probably for speeding, I imagine. He happened to have some small packets of cocaine in his possession so rather than get caught with the goods, he swallowed them; they exploded in his body and he died.

I heard about the guy that had been the gunman in the first robbery too. He managed to hire a super good lawyer and got out on bail. While he was enjoying his freedom, he got hit by a drunk driver with no insurance and the gunman ended up as a paraplegic.

What comes around goes around!