So I’d handed out the hats. The guys had given me all the apples and most of the oranges (with their teeth they can’t eat crunchy or stringy stuff). And we were sitting there bs’ing.

Steve told me about this red Volvo that had been reported by another homeless guy as driving around offering help, handing out a little cash, then pulling out a gun and threatening to shoot.
But,, Steve said, who knows how much of that was really true, still.. Watch out for a red Volvo, don’t let him get to close to you.

An hour or so later, hey! Lookit that! A red volvo station wagon pulled up. The guy gets out and starts asking why we’re not in the shelter and do we need any help. It went wacky from there. The guy s clearly off. He threatened to shoot the dogs while he was trying to pet them. Keegan wasn’t too interested in him and I wasn’t letting her anywhere near him. THen he’d say something about how he wanted to help. Then he started getting handsy with me, not cool. Trying to whisper in my ear. Creepy. Then as he backed away from me one of the younger guys stood up, having made the connection between the car and the earlier story, and told him thanks for coming, now it was time for him to move on.
The guy pulled a gun, started aiming at all of us.
The same guy that had told him to move along was now writing his plate number down.vthen out came the phones, our guy called the police. Don’t know who the pistol guy was calling.
So pistol guy is still pointing the gun around at us ech individually and grinning like a loon. Our guy is on the phone with the police describing everything. Seriously!
Then a police car shows up about half a block away with lights blazing and looney guy jumps in his wagon and burns rubber. The police go zipping past us after him. Two more were coming at him the other way. Loony pulled off about 3/4 mile down the road from him. There were 5 cars surrounding him. We gave statements.

They arrested him for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Those in the group acquainted with the finer details of criminal charges said that’s worth 15-life. And that because he threatened each of us individually he’d get 5 different charges of that duration. Two of us still need to go to the local substation and give written statements.

It was interesting.

So Happy Holidays and thanks for not shooting us!