Troy Burroghs, in Chicago

(December l969) I was going on leave, from Army Basic Training; it was Christmas time, and I stopped in Chicago, a short stay, and only but a few hours. I pulled the string of the bus and he let me off. I was thinking this was my stop, seeing a sign that said Greyhound, but when I got to it closer that is, the station was abandoned, and the sign indicated where the new station was. I had taken a plane to this mighty and windy city, and I wasn’t all that far from my hometown, to be quite honest. I look around for a cab, no luck. For another bus, no luck, and then I saw a Spanish dud coming.

He came to about four feet in front of my nose. I looked about, and there were three others, all standing in a funny diamond shaped geographical design. On corners, and within running distanced, as if they were covering the four corners of the world. I knew I was being set up to be robbed: and I felt it was act now, or never. He clicked his finger in my face with the “West Side Story Look,” on it.

I saw as I was about to open the door of the little barber shop next to me, a lady, and when she saw the sit-up, she shut the inside door, and locked it. She was cutting another woman’s hair, and another customer woman was waiting. I went to see if the door locked completely, because I heard the latch possibly miss, as she walked away. I think she was hoping I didn’t notice it, but she didn’t turn around anyways. I did open the door, and I went in.

“Can you call me a cab Miss; it’s getting a little dangerous out there.”

“No,” she replied.

I looked about. Everyone was just doing their thing. No eye contact. I looked out the window. There was that dim short looking Mexican, with his pals nearby.

I turned away from the window and looked at her again. She did catch my eyes this time, but did not say a word. So I sat down. It was 3:45 PM. She would be closing I thought soon, and she’d have to let me use the phone.

I kept looking out the window, for about twenty-minutes. I never saw a cab. No buses. Then I thought I seen a bus coming my way, meaning, anyway at this point was my down. It was now up a ways, by a four way stop and go light. I got up to take a better look. Put my duffle bag around my right shoulder and went outside.

Thus, this hot shot came up to me as I was standing on the corner trying to see if it was a bus or not. He came up to me, but before he took that last step from four feet to three feet, he pulled a knife out this time, and when he put his foot down, to stand three feet in front of me, I hit him between the eyes, and he dropped like a sack of potatoes. I grabbed the knife, turned him over to see if he had any other weapons, pushed my duffle bag off my shoulders. Yaw, he had a gun tucked away in his back.

He was awake but drowsy,

“You’re a dead man,” he sputtered in some kind of English.

Funny I thought, he was on the ground and I’m the dead man.

“No,” I said, “I don’t see it that way…“ I told him.

One of the other three fellows came running up, I took the knife and threw it, it landed between the man’s eyes, and he was about six feet from me when he dropped to the ground. Then I took the revolver and shot the other two men: one by one they dropped, about ten feet in front of me. The Hot Shot looked at me, now not quite in a daze, and tried to swallow his tongue I think after witnessing his comrades being put out of commission, it spoiled his appetite. I put the knife and gun in my pocket, saw the bus coming my way, and so I got up, and caught the bus as I had always intended to.

I noticed, looking out of the bus window, the man trying to get into the barber shop as the bus pulled away from the corner, and I noticed the woman’s eyes catching mine. I think she was in disbelief, crying for help, in fear the man was going to do her harm. The man was screaming something in Spanish”dejame entrar… carajo!” …

Dejame entrar…

Carajooooooooooooooo…

De

jame”

4/2002/Modified 12/19