When I surpassed the age of twenty-one, I noticed my creativity of socializing died down purely to the concept of drinking. You were really cool if you drank out in public. It was Friday night and the boys and I wanted to do something, so what do you do? Hit up a bar, of course! What made this Friday night special was that some of the old college friends were in town.
Of the crew, there was myself, Kyle, Eric, and John who were all now locals at this point, but Evan and Sean were ones who moved away. Having them in town was a treat. Earlier on this Friday, I was spending my time with Evan; we were doing the whole “catching up” thing. When the evening came upon us, I decided that I would drive to downtown since throughout college, Evan was the one that drove me around. Little did I know that this was going to bite me in the ass later this evening. After the usual rounds of drinks at the regular bars, Evan decided he had enough and, in a subtle way, demanded to go home. Knowing that I was driving, I took it easy with the drinking and felt absolutely fine to drive Evan back to the house he was staying at and then continue onward to my own habitat.
The rest of the crew went to one of those bars where there were other things to do beside sit and drink and listen to music that you didn’t want to hear. They found themselves at the local bar that had a pool table and shuffleboard. I was a bit jealous since they were still continuing a night of fun, and here I was driving Evan, the forty-five year old stuck in a twenty-four year old body, back home.
When our evening started, I parked in front of Kyle’s house, which was a matter of blocks away from the main downtown strip. This was due to the fact that parking in the downtown region was like playing the lottery: you’ll never win. Upon leaving, we walked down Walnut Avenue, which was the street that led straight to the side street that Kyle lived on.
Evan and I walked by the newspaper printing press building, which is not very illuminated on Walnut Avenue. As we were walking by the overwhelming brick walls that make up the printing building, I started hearing some popping noises. I honestly had no idea what these were until I looked slightly to my left and saw a van drive by slowly. It all clicked suddenly, that we were being shot at with something. My first thought was paintballs; I remember seeing specials on Dateline or some other late night journalism show where they showed a clip of teenagers who had video recorded their crazy night on the town as they shot paintballs at anyone that was walking about at night. As this processed in my head, all I could think of was "this sucks."
Fortunately out of all the shots that I heard, I managed not to be in any pain. I felt even luckier when the only impact I felt was something hitting the right side of my butt, which was where my wallet was. Talk about lucky; I felt like I should have enlisted in the army because I developed the idea that bullets would bounce off of me. However, that idea did not last very long in my head.
I was not quite sure what had tried to hit us, most likely a BB gun or something in that range. The van, that I noticed, was going about ten miles an hour as it unleashed its weapon on us and then increased to forty miles and continued onward down Walnut Avenue. We lost complete sight of the vehicle. After its departure I looked at Evan and said, “Well, that sucks.” It most certainly did for Evan once he pulled up his shirtsleeve. His upper arm had been hit, which made sense since he was the one closest to the street. When viewing his arm, the wound looked like somebody had been picking at a mosquito bite. There was a small crater in his arm and some blood coming out. For Evan, he would consider this a near death experience. When he tells this story, the blood was pouring out at a rapid rate and he was near unconsciousness. I laugh. Looking at the wound, I decided to shrug it off, keep walking to the car, and then pursue to drop Evan off at his place. I soon realized that this would not be the case.
The walk to Kyle’s street from where this evil act took place was maybe three more blocks. It felt like I was walking with somebody who really got shot. Evan was commenting on how it kept bleeding (again, the mosquito bite scenario) and how his arm was becoming cold and soon he was losing the feeling in his arm. We made it to the car, what seemed to be, in one piece. As I was starting the car, Evan asked me if I could take him to a hospital. “You’re kidding, right?” I asked in shock. Evan remained with the same pain stricken face, as if my question was rhetorical. For a slight moment, I felt bad thinking this way since I was the one who did not get shot. That somehow it was a lot easier for me to move on from this due to the fact that there was no pellet in my arm. But then that thought trailed out of my head like the thought of me in the army. I realized again that Evan had a mosquito bite with a small piece of metal inside, which he had pulled off.
As the car started moving, I was asking where to go. Dominican Hospital is the main hospital in Santa Cruz, but unfortunately it was on your way to Capitola and we were in the heart of the Westside of town. Evan mentioned there was that twenty-four hour med-clinic on the corner of Laurel Street and Mission Street. I agreed to that since it was only two streets away. When we got near the twenty-four hour med-clinic, we saw that it was closed. Interesting, I thought. We continued further down on Laurel Street and Evan started the topic of talking to the police. Suddenly I heard the typical audience laughter one hears when watching a sitcom. “The police?” I asked in the same tone as if he was kidding about going to the hospital. “Yeah, think about, we could talk to a police officer and report what just happened. And I’m sure he could take a look at my wound and decide whether or not it was hospital worthy!” Evan was very certain about this cause. I just drove in shame. The police station was, luckily, off of Laurel Street. We pulled into the parking lot and it was looking kind of bare. We walked up to the main doors and saw that there was not a single soul in the building. The police headquarter doors stated that it was closed. I was not quite sure what was going on; Friday night is probably the most energetic and interactive night for any police officer, and at this point it was 1:00 am. This is when the crazy ones are out. So, what was bewildering me was why was the police station closed? The twenty-four hour med-clinic that was closed seemed to make sense at this point.
Internally I was pleased to see that both destinations were not functioning, which meant that I would get to take Evan home. This would not be my luck though. By the door was a telephone with a sign on top that read FOR AN EMERGENCY PRESS 1 AND THAT WILL CONNECT YOU WITH 911. My first thought was that this phone, like the sign said, was for emergencies and our situation was just a band-aid away. From there I started walking back to my car and assuming that Evan was right behind me. I turned around and there was Evan with the phone receiver in his hand and pushing the button labeled “1.” Fuck! I stood in the parking lot hearing Evan describing to the 911 dispatch about what exactly happened. I should have known better at this point because as I was hearing him describe the events that occurred I realized that things are very serious in Evan’s eyes. Evan is an only child and no matter what ranking you are in birth there are always the stereotypes. For Evan, the stereotypes of being an only child were pretty much facts.
One time Evan was riding in John’s car and left his backpack in it. At some point John’s car was broken into and his stereo, CDs, remains in the glove compartment, and Evan’s backpack went missing. In Evan’s backpack was his $150 graphing calculator, which vanished with everything else. Upon seeing the car broken into, both John and Evan were upset. John was upset due to the fact that his car was broken into and that there was a sense of violation he had just experienced. Evan was irritated to the fact that his $150 graphing calculator was stolen. “Who does that?!” Evan asked in agony “who steals a graphing calculator?” John turned to him in disgust and asked, “Who breaks into a car and steals everything valuable in it?!” Life is very serious, dramatic and intense for Evan. This pellet gun incident was the equivalent of being stabbed severely and seeing your first-born child stripped from you right before your eyes.
As Evan was on the phone with 911 describing the five Ws, I decided to call the crew we were hanging out with earlier in the evening and comment on how ridiculous the situation was. They laughed at me and responded with, “Only Evan.” I hung up and saw Evan walking towards me with his right hand covering the battle wound. I looked at him with a face of curiosity mixed with disgust and he replied with stating that an officer will be here in the next five minutes. We stood in the lot with nothing being said; my thoughts were that this was ridiculous and I wanted to be in bed. I tried reading Evan’s thoughts; what I received were thoughts of revenge blurred with justice, a Purple Heart maybe, and the thought that his arm may have to be amputated. I might have been wrong.
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