Out There in the Darkness by Ed Gorman Page A

being popular back East.   People think that a nice middle-sized Midwestern city like ours doesn’t have major crime problems.   I invite them to walk many of these streets after dark.   They’ll quickly be disabused of that notion.   Anyway, the Patrol worked this way: each night, two neighborhood people got in the family van and patrolled the ten-block area that had been restored.   If they saw anything suspicious, they used their cellular phones and called the police.   We jokingly called it the Baby Boomer Brigade.   The Patrol had one strict rule: you were never to take direct action unless somebody’s life was at stake.   Always, always use the cellular phone and call the police.
    Neil had Patrol tonight.   He’d be rolling in here in another half hour.   The Patrol had two shifts: early, 8:00-10:00; late, 10:00-12:00.
    Bob said, “You hear what Evans suggested?”
    â€œAbout guns?” I said.
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œMakes me a little nervous,” I said.
    â€œMe, too,” Bob said.   For somebody who’d grown up in the worst area of the city, Bob Genter was a very polished guy.   Whenever he joked that he was the token black, Neil always countered with the fact that he was the token Jew, just as Mike was the token Catholic, and I was the token Methodist.   We were friends of convenience, I suppose, but we all really did like each other, something that was demonstrated when Neil had a cancer scare a few years back.   Bob, Mike and I were in his hospital room twice a day, all eight days running.
    â€œI think it’s time,” Mike said.   “The bad guys have guns, so the good guys should have guns.”
    â€œThe good guys are the cops,” I said.   “Not us.”
    â€œPeople start bringing guns on Patrol,” Bob said, “somebody innocent is going to get shot.”
    â€œSo some night one of us here is on Patrol and we see a bad guy and he sees us and before the cops get there, the bad guy shoots us?   You don’t think that’s going to happen?”
    â€œIt could happen, Mike,” I said.   “But I just don’t think that justifies carrying guns.”
    The argument gave us something to do while we waited for Neil.
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    â€œS orry I’m late,” Neil Solomon said after he followed me up to the attic and came inside.
    â€œWe already drank all the beer,” Mike O’Brien said loudly.
    Neil smiled.   “That gut you’re carrying lately, I can believe that you drank all the beer.”
    Mike always enjoyed being put down by Neil, possibly because most people were a bit intimidated by him—he had that angry Irish edge—and he seemed to enjoy Neil’s skilled and fearless handling of him.   He laughed with real pleasure.
    Neil sat down, I got him a beer from the tiny fridge I keep up here, cards were dealt, seven card stud was played.
    Bob said, “How’d Patrol go tonight?”
    Neil shrugged.   “No problems.”
    â€œI still say we should carry guns,” Mike said.
    â€œYou’re not going to believe this but I agree with you,” Neil said.
    â€œSeriously?” Mike said.
    â€œOh, great,” I said to Bob Genter, “another beer-commercial cowboy.”
    Bob smiled.   “Where I come from we didn’t have cowboys, we had ‘muthas.’”   He laughed.   “Mean muthas, let me tell you.   And practically all of them carried guns.”
    â€œThat mean you’re siding with them?” I said.
    Bob looked at his cards again then shrugged.   “Haven’t decided yet, I guess.”
    I didn’t think the antigun people were going to lose this round.   But I worried about the round after it, a few months down the line when the subject of carrying guns came up again.   All the TV coverage violence gets in this city, people are more and more developing a siege