There is a first time for everything in life. The first time you walk. The first words that you utter. Your first day of school. The first time you fall in love. And the first time someone points a gun at you.
The first time that I ever had a gun pointed at me was when I was in high school. I would like to say that I was brave and that it didn’t make an impression on me. But that would be a lie.
I was living in Mexico at the time and hung out most afternoons and weekends with an Egyptian/Mexican friend named Ayman that lived across the street. Ayman was this tall, skinny guy that had a pronounced curve to his back that made him look like he was always leaning forward. As a kid, Ayman had broken his back in a sailing accident when he got caught between the sail and the boat.
Ayman had a ’64 Ford Mustang that he was slowly refurbishing. First, the engine was completely rebuilt from top to bottom. This was followed by the transmission, which was an automatic. I came to learn later that only a limited number of Mustangs were built that year with automatic transmission, making the car a bit of a rarity in Mexico. Next came the bodywork and paint job – a beautiful dark grey metallic finish that shined like a mirror. The last piece of the puzzle, was the tires and rims.
One Saturday evening, we were stopped at a traffic light along Paseo de la Reforma in the Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood, when a woman pulled up beside us on the passenger side in a red, mid-1980’s Ford Mustang. Inside the car with the women were 4 or 5 kids between the ages of 6 and 10 bouncing around with no restraints. The car had some unusually fat tires with black rims, so I asked Ayman what he thought of the tires. After looking over, Ayman shook his head and said that he didn’t like them. Keep in mind that this whole exchange took place in a few seconds, with both our windows closed, as well as those of the other vehicle closed.
Suddenly, the car next to us started honking, and when I looked over, the driver was yelling at us and flipping us the bird. A few choice words could be heard through both sets of closed windows. Full of piss and vinegar at the tender age of 17, I started to roll my window down to initiate a calm exchange, when the light turned green and the woman took off. We started moving as well, when suddenly the woman veered into our lane and slammed on her breaks, bringing us to a stop behind her and up against the center median of the road.
As I reached for the door handle, a second vehicle slammed into the side our ours, sending us up onto the median. A large gentleman exited the back, left seat of the vehicle carrying a shotgun. As he walked towards us, he racked the shotgun with a sound that I can still hear clearly to this day. He walked right up to the half-rolled down window on my side, pointed the gun right at my head, and pulled the trigger.
As loud as the racking sound of the shotgun was, the click of the firing pin in the empty chamber sounded louder than any gunshot could ever. The sound reverberated like a boom in my head, but was slowly replaced by the sound of laughter coming from the driver of the vehicle that hit us, as well as from the women and children who were all jumping up and down in the car with joy. The gentleman with the shotgun returned to his vehicle, not before throwing a “pinche gringos” remark, smiling all the way, and they all took off, leaving us alone in the middle of the road.
Ayman and I sat in silence for what appeared to be hours, but was likely only minutes. He then started the vehicle and we limped back home without speaking a word.