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Shootout at the Silver Bullet

They say the man who did the shooting was upset about his girl, not the music.

How'd he ever get a shotgun into a bar anyway? He shot six people, three of them critically. Two are dead and one is still in the hospital.

The first thing you see in the Silver Bullet, if you get there early on a Saturday night, is the circle of bouncers off in the corner waiting. The waitresses have been taught to be unobtrusive, to stay out of sight if they're not serving drinks. But no one has given any thought to the three husky men in t-shirts with Silver Bullet stenciled front and back.

Don't ask me why the bouncers get there so early, long before there are any customers, but they do. Maybe they have to help haul ice and beer kegs when the place first opens. They choose their bouncers big and husky at the Silver Bullet. Their bouncers don't carry guns; they don't expect to need them.

Corrine won't be in for at least another hour. Experienced waitresses like Corrine don't have to come in until eight on a Saturday. They make the beginners come in early for training under Laurie Henshaw, an older waitress they call "the mother hen."

(Don't call Laurie that to her face, though; it makes her mad. I saw Laurie one time pour a bottle of beer on a bouncer's lap. She poured it slow and deliberate and Ken sat there and took it, the whole bottle; it was only when she was shaking out the last few drops that he dashed off to the men's room while the other bouncers laughed and laughed.)

Saturday night at the Silver Bullet always begins with a dance lesson. Michelle, "Michelle the Great," as the dj calls her, is the instructor. She's 5'2" tall, maybe 5'3" with her heels. She can dance both the man's and the woman's part of twenty different dances—the two step, the Dallas shuffle, the cowboy waltz, the cowboy cha-cha, the ten step, and the twenty-one step, the tush-push, slapping leather, walk softly, and the mule, and these are just the ones I've seen her teach.

The lessons are free—to the customers. The Silver Bullet's owners pay for Michelle's services. They figure to make it back on drinks from those of us who come in early for the lessons.

Even if you already know how to dance, you'll enjoy the lessons. Michelle's a hoot and the lessons is a great way to make new acquaintances. You've got time to size up the girls (or the fellas if you're a girl), figure out which ones can dance or can be taught, figure out which girls are going to try to lead on you—a big no-no, and you get to do it all without the pressure there's going to be later in the evening when people start worrying about who is going home with whom.

At the beginning of each lesson, they make the girls, "ladies," Michelle says, line up on one side, and the men, "gentlemen,” line up on the other. Michelle shows the guys how to walk forward "left, right, short, short," and the girls how to walk backward, "right, left, short, short."

Then she takes the guys on a "butt walk." She says it's so the men can practice going, "left, right, short, short," while traveling in a circle, but in fact it's so the girls, "ladies," can see which guy has the cutest butt. (No, I didn't make this up. I overheard these two women friends of Michelle talking about it one evening.) Michelle finishes by having the women back up all the way across the dance floor, hips swaying, till they've got the men pressed against the far rail, and then she says, "Ok, ladies, turn around and choose a partner."

If you've brought a date or if you're like Mike, tall and handsome, you just stand there and wait to be chosen. If you're like me and Phil, why then, you cut quickly into the crowd and stand so a lady's got no choice but to pick you out.

That evening, Phil's first choice, a tall blond, clearly had someone else in mind. She walks right by Phil, stepping on his foot, so he ends up with this mousy little brunette.

This brunette is just an ordinary looking gal. Phil says he couldn't even tell you what she looks like if it hadn't been for them publishing her picture in the paper the next day. Turns out she is/was the man's girl friend. She is a good dancer though. "At least she didn't try to lead," Phil says.

Phil says it makes him shudder now whenever he thinks about it, "I could have been the one dancing with her when he started shooting." But the man didn't seemed to care who he was shooting at. They say he never even looked but once at where he was aiming the gun.

The dance lesson is in three parts. Maybe it would be better to say there are three different dance lessons. One at six-thirty, one at seven-thirty and one at eight-thirty. Michelle teaches them all. They're short, half-hour lessons and in between you get to dance with anybody you like. Anybody that is you can get to dance with you.

Who I danced with that evening was four ladies: First, Corrine, before she went on duty; second, someone whose name I didn't catch and didn't get to know before we finished our first and only circuit of the floor—nuts to you too lady; third, the partner I had during the first dance lesson—she was an older woman, a bit heavy and not a very good dancer, but at least she had a smile on her face; and fourth and last, Pat the blond. Pat maybe smiles once when you first ask her to dance, smiles so you think, Goddam maybe she's chose me. But once Pat's out on the dance floor, you won't see that smile again. Nothing for you but pursed lips, sighs, and flustered little steps designed to convince you maybe there's something just a little bit wrong with the way you dances.

I remember the first time I danced with Pat. I had to spend twenty minutes at the bar after we were through letting the whiskey convince me there was nothing really wrong with me. A couple of evenings later, when I make the mistake of asking Pat to dance with me again, the boys at the bar tell me it isn't me, it's everyone she dances with. Mike wouldn't dance with her at all, "There's just too many good looking ones that can dance."

Still, I try to dance with Pat from time to time. It's a challenge. And she's a fine-looking woman.

Phil says that Pat dances to a rhythm of her own. If you can just tune out the music, which is maybe going a little slower or a little faster than Pat is, you can really enjoy yourself dancing with her. I've seen him give it a try often enough, though I don't see that he's been any more successful with her than I have. She's a nice person, he says.

About nine o'clock, as they are finishing up on the lessons, the man comes into the room. He walks to the bar, sits down, and gets up again quickly when some girl asks him to move. She says to him, "that's my purse; don't you see it on the stool?" in that nasty way that only a woman would risk in a crowded bar. He doesn't say anything, just gets up and moves away.

After awhile, he orders a beer. He stands off to the side and drinks it down to the dregs, not once looking at the dance floor. Standing there like that, he couldn't, wouldn't have seen his girl. Not that he would have anything to complain about with them only doing line dances.

Because it is a line dance, Myra, his girl friend, isn't dancing with anybody. Besides, the man isn't looking at the dance floor. He is just standing there drinking his beer and looking into himself. Maybe he doesn't like what he sees. Maybe. How do I know what goes on inside another man's head?

Phil says he had a premonition that something would go wrong that night: "There weren't enough girls at the dance lesson to begin with." Now, what kind of reasoning is that?

Sometimes, I think Phil likes to spout off and complain more than he likes to dance. He'll get together with a couple of cronies at the bar and they'll talk about how bad looking the girls are and how all the girls want to lead and how the blond over there may think she's such great stuff but she can't dance for anything. They talk like that and still they come back to the Silver Bullet the next Saturday.

The first person the man shot was George Stevens. George was standing on the edge of the dance floor, his arm over his girl friend Stella's shoulder. Stella's a tall, big-bosomed girl who could probably have any man she likes. Why she chose George is a mystery to me, though he does have a good sense of humor. George is handsome and ugly at the same time. His new mustache helps hide the ugly part, but you can still make out the birthmark on his upper lip that makes him look as if he has a permanent cold sore.

George hears the blast of the gun and feels the pain in his side. He sits down, plop, on the stage, which is the right thing to do, because the next shot goes right past his head where his chest used to be. The shot hits an older woman, Emma something, who's visiting the Silver Bullet for the first time. She's still shook up from her divorce and hasn't dated in maybe fifteen years. She's going to the Silver Bullet thinking she might meet somebody nice. Better than the last one. Her girl friends talked her into going out with them. Anyway, it gets her out of the house and away from the kids for awhile. She is killed instantly.

"Take the gun away from him," someone shouts. But no one does.

Phil has a plan to get the gun, he tells me later, but he can't get it going cause of everybody running every which way. He does move closer to the gun while everybody else is moving back. He keeps working out plans in his head and discarding them because they all end with his getting shot.

"For a moment, I can't move, am lucky even to breathe. People are moving away from the man, pressing and squeezing each other against the walls desperate to get away. I'm still moving toward the dance floor. I kinda slip between these two fat guys and, 'pop,' shoot forward like a cork coming out of a bottle.

"Then, oh my God, I'm standing there all by myself with nothing but the long empty dance floor between me and him. There's a wall of people behind me. There's a wall of people behind him. A girl is all crumpled up on the dance floor near me; she broke her leg, snapped it like a twig when someone ran over her. She makes a moaning sound and tries to crawl. An older woman is lying next to her, not moving; I just hope this woman's unconscious and not dead.

"Back out of the way where I can't see is Chet the bouncer; he's got a baseball bat concealed by his side, and he's trying to sneak his way forward to where he can hit at the man's gun.

"What I see is this little man. He's got acne scars on his face. And he's got a shotgun; the barrel is pointing down around my crotch and it's waving back and forth.

"A runt, no more than 5'5" or 5'6". Anyone could beat him in a fair fight, but there's that big shotgun. It won't take more than a second to bring it up, to blow poor Phil Barnes away.

"The man's face is all twisted up like only part of him is angry and the other larger part wants to cry. I'm feeling the same way: inside of me a kid part is screaming, 'No, don't kill me,' and I want to run. No more Phil Barnes. No more me. In my mind, I feel him pull the trigger, see the shot hit my chest.

"But I get my courage together; 'You don't want to do that,' I say to him. He's not listening. His mind is off somewhere else. I can see his mouth moving, but the words are not meant for me. Just the gun is real.

"The gun is waving to and fro, to and fro, keeping everyone back. Then it slows down. It points at me and starts to move upward.

"The room is dead silent so I can hear my own heart pounding. I can hear him breathing. I hear someone, a woman's voice; she's talking quietly, though it sounds like a shout, and rudely: 'You asshole!'

"Who said that? Not me. I'm not moving. I'm not talking. I got one eye looking all around me trying to see who the woman is who's carrying on like that and the other eye fixed on the man wondering what the hell he’s going to do.

"'You asshole!'

"It's the same woman's voice, a harsh unloving woman's voice. Maybe it could be sweet and loving in another place, but right now it's a nasty bray. The man is bringing that shotgun up toward my chest, but the voice has slowed his movements. He's got one eye out, too, looking around him frantically, wondering who the hell's got the nerve to talk to him like that."

"You dickless shit."

It's Pat's voice. I can make her out now, at the front of the crowd, brassy blond hair, white blouse with a high collar. Chet the bouncer has his hand on her arm trying to pull her away and she is paying that big hand no more mind than she ever does my lead on the dance floor.

The runt has turned around now, his back to Phil, turned full around and is looking at her. They say he's got a smile on his face,first time he's had a smile since he came into the bar. He brings his gun up so the barrel's only a few inches from Pat's bosom.

Phil moves forward. Chet tries to push by and get between Pat and the gun. And she just walks into the gun barrel, brushes it aside, and kicks the man right between the legs.

"Boom." The gun goes off, of course. The man had been pulling on the trigger when Pat kicked him. She's damn lucky; the shot goes right by her and catches Chet in the shoulder.

I put my arm around her to give her a hug. And damn, so does every other man that ever bad-mouthed her dancing.

Pat got to be popular. Chet got a week off with pay and lots of visitors including Pat. They even dated for awhile. She dated Phil too, but it didn't work out. She was still too nasty, he says, though he'll buy her a drink any time she's got an empty glass. All of us would.

Why does a man do a thing like that? And how'd he get that shotgun into the bar anyway?

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