What Do You Do When You Run Into a Man With a Gun?

A strange thing happened exactly one week ago today, and I have about two hours to decide what I'm going to do about it.  A gun-totin' hombre walked into the Lake Anne Coffee House where my friends and I were having our Tuesday morning knitting group.  This is true.

Every Tuesday morning a group of from four to 10 of us old, retired ladies get together to knit, to drink coffee and kibbitz.  We laugh, admire each other's projects, mentor newby knitters, and it's good.  Very good.

But last Tuesday, my friend came back to the table with the coffee she had just purchased with a very tall, good-looking young man at her side.  He was standing
so closely to her we thought he might have been her son.  But she didn't look so good. 

She later told us that while she was waiting to order her coffee this young man handed her a couple of dollars and said, "Let me buy you some coffee."  Now...women of a certain decade do not accept drinks from strange men and she, being of a certain decade,  thanked him very much and said she'd prefer to pay for her own. 

He followed her to our table and asked what we were doing.  So, always ready to welcome newcomers went around the table raising our sweaters, scarves, soon-to-be stuffed bears and other what-not.  Then, in the normal course of social small-talk, we asked him what he was doing.  There, he became very vague and mysterious.  He said, "I'm livin'," 

While one of our group said some version of, "Huh?"  and while he was saying something I didn't pick up, he had turned slightly to face her and then I saw the strap on his right leg. Looking around, I saw that it was a handgun.  None of us had seen that until now, not even the woman he was trying to charm with coffee.

So, not one to beat around the bush, I said, "Oh is that a gun?" He nodded.   Probably in order to avoid a debate which I knew we would lose, I told him with pride (I am proud of it.) that I had a sharp-shooters medal which I earned in high school, where we had a shooting range. 

I don't think that was the response he expected or even wanted.   In discussing it later, we thought he might be one of those people who like to say and do provocative things, and we weren't gasping in indignation or fear.  We talked a little more, and he allowed as how he was going to the shooting range.

During the course of our post-gunslinger conversation, one of my friends asked if I thought he was dangerous.  I said, I can't predict that he's dangerous, but I can predict that I'm afraid of him. 

That young man was not breaking a law.  You might say he was trying to be friendly.  There, I'd have to disagree with you, but he'd certainly have said he was just trying to be friendly.  

However, in many ways his behavior was quite unusual -- out of the mainstream.  Handing an older woman whom you don't know a couple dollars to buy her coffee was the first thing that struck us.  It certainly made my friend uncomfortable.  Following her to our table after she declined his offer was also a little peculiar. 

But then, in normal social small talk, you ask me a question which I answer, I am then entitled to ask you question of my own.  We certainly showed him our knitting projects in response to his "what're ya doin'?", but in response to ours he responded "oh, just livin'"?  Okay, so without the gun, he was, at best, weird.

But  now throw in the gun, and I say he was bizarre.  This isn't Texas or the prairie.  This is Reston -- on Lake Anne.  He was culturally so inappropriate that we all concluded he was bizarre. 

I am afraid of him.  More, I'm afraid of him if he runs into one of the so-called liberal males around here who might respond to gunslinger's provocation with provocative remarks of his own.  At which point, I'd want to hit them both on
the head with a rock.  But you get my drift.

I am afraid. 

Some of my friends aren't going to knitting today.  I refuse to live that way, but I don't really want to. But, then, when would I feel safe to go back to Lake Anne?

So, I guess I'm going.  But ew.