CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States
There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
Profile continued . . .
Me and a gun. And an asshole.
this entry brought to you by sleater-kinney, "you're no rock n' roll fun"
The following is an actual email I sent to my former supervisor on February, Friday 13. That's right, Friday the thirteenth. It's a little long, but it's a really interesting, albeit somewhat scary story that you ought to read.
Ed,
This isn't the email you expected to get from me, I know, but considering what's been going on at work past couple days, I thought I should at least give you a heads up.
Friday, Nick showed up almost an hour late. Which made us all upset because when he wasn't there by 3:15 we assumed he wasn't going to come in at all-- wishful thinking.
It was weird, because after I finished stocking Health and Beauty, I went up to lock-ups where Matt and Chris Wilson were, and I said, "I just came by to ask you if I'm the only one that thinks if Nick gets fired, he'll come back the next day and shoot everyone." Matt and Chris smiled in that "this is eery" kind of way-- turns out the reason Chris Wilson was talking to Matt was to find out what Matt thought of Nick, and Matt replied that we all hated him, but if he got fired he'd return and kill us all. It was funny, yet uncomfortable that all three of us were probably thinking the same thing at the exact same time.
...Turns out maybe we're not so far from the truth.
About an hour later, at 6, Nick and Jose start fighting. Not fist fighting, but... This is how I worded it later to my wife. You know when you're out in public, maybe at a park, maybe near a street basketball court, and you hear a group of grown men right before a fight? You know the noise men make right before fists start flying, the looks they get in their eyes, the way they puff themselves up? Two things can happen right at this moment; either the two of them will start fighting, or someone breaks them up because everyone has this internal instinct that this is what's right about to happen. This whole time I'm right next to them trying to get them to cool down, saying, look, we'll listen to 92.3 until 7-- that's right, another damned argument about the radio-- and from that point til 8 we'll listen to Jose's station, but it's as if I wasn't there, it was as if Nick wanted to fight Jose. They were calling each other horrible names, and Ed, I honestly thought I'd have to break apart two grown men from fighting because I'm standing right there.
At one point during the most heated part of the shout-match, me right in between, Nick says to Jose, "So, I guess you never had your stuff pushed in?" That's right. In those words. Stuff.
The whole time I'm trying to break these two up, and when he says this suddenly I'm just taken aback, as was Jose. There was a pause in the air, and Jose and I both let out a "What?" simoultaneously. In hindsight, it was definitely the most bafflingly hysterical thing any man could threaten or insult another man with, especially considering Nick's only 5'3" and Jose's got a good foot on him.
"What're you, a fucking fag?" Jose retorted after Nick repeated what he'd said. I would expect that sort of response from a monkey like Jose, and I knew exactly how Nick would react, seeing as how he'd been fueling this fight from the get-go.
Nick froze, his eyes widened. "...What did you just call me?" Nick asked.
I knew what was going to happen next, and I felt like whatever I did wouldn't stop it, and I could feel myself shrinking away back into the aisle that was closest to me. I wanted to be as far away from all this as possible.
Jose finally turned around with a "Fuck you, man, forget you," and walked away, and Nick-- and I'm standing maybe five feet away from him at this point-- got this look on his face as if he were unsatisfied with the outcome of the argument, that it indeed was not over for him, and he darted-- he made a freaking bee-line-- over to his jacket, and pulled something out of his pocket, which he shoved underneath his shirt.
...Ed, you know there's only one of two things a man will reach into his jacket pocket for immediately after a heated argument, and neither of them are good. I guarantee you he wasn't whipping out a poetry book to write down how angry he was. I thought he was going to shoot Jose right in front of me.
...He tucks it into his shirt and he looks up at me-- we'd made eye contact maybe three times as he ran up to his jacket to get whatever it was, as if deciding whether it was worth doing in front of me or not, deciding it was worth it because maybe I'm too afraid of him to tell or whatever the hell was his thinking-- he tucked it into his shirt and looked up at me and gave me this dirty look, as if it were understood that I'd better keep this exchange to myself.
After much internal debating, I told Judd about five minutes later-- I had to take a walk around the store a couple times to cool myself off, and also to decide what the hell to do. I wouldn't have even hesitated if he didn't freaking see me watching this exchange, but he looked right up at me, he knew I knew what was about to happen. And if I were to tell, I didn't want this guy after me for snitching. But on the other hand, I couldn't stand it if I had known this all along and Jose got shot or stabbed.
...Long story short, nothing happened. After I told Judd, he went and checked out how things were going, didn't mention anything to them that he knew about what I'd told him, said he didn't see anything under Nick's shirt, which simply means that Nick put it back-- maybe it's because he knew I was standing there watching him.
But it gets slightly worse. Nick and Jose continued to argue fiercely and loudly throughout the rest of the day, and Nick left at 8:30, without any explanation to Judd, telling only Will, "I don't need this shit anymore."
For job abandonment, Judd told the operator to call him and tell him not to come back until you contacted him.
End of that, right?
He showed up this morning at 3:00am sharp, asking, "Where the fuck is Ed?"
Judd told him that you weren't there. Nick said, and I'm quoting here, "I've got a couple bones to pick with Ed."
To make matters even worse, I got confirmation from Joey that it was indeed a gun. I know Joey's a lying sack of shit, but the way it was brought up in conversation I know he wasn't lying about it.
On Saturday, Joey, who wasn't there on Friday, asked what happened to Nick, since he was supposed to be there that day. I informed him that Nick had been fired.
"What, because of the gun?" Joey asked jokingly. I looked at him with a "How in the hell did you know?" face, and his eyes widened and his face turned white. Turns out Nick and he were talking about how Joey lives in a bad neighborhood, and Nick offered to sell his spare gun, which he said he had on him. Joey assumed it was bullshit, because Nick's the kind of wanna-be thug trying to make himself look tough. Joey took it as a joke. When I told him everything that happened on Friday, he got really scared and nervous. Again, Joey's a lying sack of crap most of the time, but he brought up the gun thing before I ever mentioned it.
...I don't want to get you paranoid or anything. Maybe Monday will go by without incident. But I know Nick had a weapon on him on Friday, and intended to use it-- he either decided it wasn't worth it, or didn't because he knew I'd seen him, but the point is this maniac had a weapon on him at work, and now that he's been told not to come back to work, he wants to speak to you.
Maybe nothing will happen, but jeez Ed, I would never forgive myself if he did something we're all going to regret on Monday and I didn't warn you, knowing what I know. Security is aware of him and what happened, Judd and I were told that head of security would check the camera tapes, but it's Target security for Chris'sakes. I don't trust them to secure anything.
So, basically what I'm saying is, be warned, that psycho little shit might show up at work on Monday with intentions other than to just talk to you. And he was there 3am sharp this morning, so he was trying to catch you before you got in. As it is, I myself am incredibly hesitant to go in on Monday, considering I'm the one that alerted everybody to him, and while he doesn't know who knows other than me, I'm sure he could figure it out himself that I'd tell someone.
--Chris
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While Nick never returned and shot up the joint, he did call three or four times threatening to kick Ed and Judd's ass, and here's another quote-- "Straight up start some shit." When asked exactly what he meant by "starting some shit", Nick replied icily, "You know what I mean."
...And guess what? Nick just moved into my apartment complex a couple weeks ago. I see him about once a week. For joy!
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with love from CRS @ 7:01 PM
2 Comments:
NOW U HAV DUN IT!! I NO WARE U LIVE BITCH! ITZ ON NOW! I KICK YER ASS!
really like the whole posting in caps, poor spelling, not making any sense deal. Almost made me believe it was a true threat
