The Wild, Wild West

The Wild, Wild West

-       Sam W. Joseph

 “Well, hold on, Pilgrim”, John Wayne warned Black Bart. “If you wanna go in there, you have to go through me and that ain’t gonna happen”. Black Bart proceeds to draw his gun and John plugs him right in the chest before he can even clear the holster.

So it went with my Western heroes all through my youth. One after another proving himself and passing another test. I still enjoy a good Western movie (or oater as they’re commonly known). I’ve watched the Clint Eastwood spaghetti Westerns countless times.

           I idolized the swaggering, plain spoken good guys, who displayed the virtues admired by my friends and me. When I departed a movie theatre I would think that’s the kind of person I’m going to be. That feeling usually lasted only until the next movie I attended as I receded into my old persona the following week.

           In our games my playmates and I would re-enact some semblance of the movies we had seen, packing our hand-made wooden pistols and using broomsticks to emulate snorting, muscled stallions. We were all good guys, while the bad guys were images that we conjured in our minds. We would stage fights with them and win shoot-outs as we defended the oppressed and the honor of abused young women.

           In real life, the only adverse situations I encountered were in the schoolyard, where I had the occasional fight with bullies and won some and lost some. Either way, I was eventually led to the vice principal’s office, where I would incur additional punishment to my body via whacks from his paddle.

           My first real test came at my Dad’s gas station, where I frequently helped out, gassing up cars, lubricating them, fixing flat tires, charging batteries and with other of the many tasks that had to be accomplished in that type of business. We were an independent station meaning that we weren’t subject to the rules established by the major oil companies. As such, we stayed open as late as we wished, which was usually around 11:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. That allowed us to catch the night trade, which being in a rough part of town, often meant dealing with drunk and disorderly people. We had become accustomed to them and were able to cajole and move them along.

           There was one instance, however, when I was about sixteen, that I will never forget. It was close to midnight and a car loaded with five young, rowdy  guys drove up to a pump and the driver asked for three dollars worth of gas, which, in those days, cost twenty five cents a gallon. I gassed up the car and moved to the driver’s side to collect the three dollars, when I was told to check the “damn oil”. I asked him to release the hood and proceeded to check the oil and water.

           “Oil and water’s full up”, I told the driver.

           “Did you check the tires?”

           I did as requested and then returned to the driver’s side to collect for the gas. He handed me all coins including a large number of pennies., which I had to count to assure that the full amount had been given to me. The driver seemed aggravated that I was counting the coins.

Having determined the amount was correct, I walked back towards the office area to place the money in the cash register. As I moved away from the car, I heard the car doors open behind me. The hairs raised on the back of my neck and I sensed there was going to be trouble. My Dad had been napping in the office and I had to get his attention. I yelled very loudly in Arabic, “Abbi, jeeb il baroodi”. Translated, I had said, “Dad, get the gun”. By the time I arrived at the doorway, he was standing there with his .410 shotgun and was throwing a shell into the chamber. To my eyes at that moment, he was John Wayne. At the same time, my sister Josie emerged holding a .45 automatic pistol and climbed on top of a horizontal Pepsi Cola cold drink cooler. I wasn’t quite sure what she planned to accomplish because I knew that gun had jammed the last time my Dad had shot it and it was still jammed. I ran into the office and grabbed a .32, Smith and Wesson, five-shell revolver, that was functional and joined my Dad.

           At that point, the five thugs began to move toward us. One guy was huge, three were average-sized and the other was short and wizened looking with a very angry look and a large knife in his right hand. My Dad admonished them to stop. When they refused and continued to advance, he fired a shot between the legs of the big guy.

           “Keep comin’ and I’m goin’ to take all of you down, and you, you monkey lookin’ SOB, you’re gonna get the first slug”.

           They stopped dead still, undecided how to react. I looked around and noticed a large crowd had appeared and I didn’t know if they were choosing sides. As I was mulling over the situation and looking anxiously at my Dad, police cars began to arrive. The policemen quickly arrested the five individuals and dispersed the crowd. Afterwards they questioned each of us about the occurrence. Then, satisfied that we were not the perpetrators, they climbed back into their cars, their leather belts creaking with the weight of their revolvers and other paraphernalia, and left to take care of the next crisis.

           After locking up the station, we were riding home in my Dad’s 1948 Chevy pickup, Josie in the middle and me next to the passenger side door. We were quiet, reliving the night’s events and thinking about what might have been. After a while, my Dad spoke up, “You know son, that short guy was right behind you with a knife and if you hadn’t called me when you did, you might be dead now, or at the very least, in the hospital, and your Mother would have put me right there with you”.

           “Thanks, Dad, I’m just glad that you were awake when I yelled out”.

           “I was sleeping but when I heard the urgency in your voice, I was wide awake.”

           I thanked him again for saving my life. Later, I thought to myself, ”What would John Wayne have done? He probably would have mowed those guys down.”

Then it occurred to me that life is not always as it is in the movies and you can pass a major test in life without being a hero.

           Sometimes you only have to survive.