Mr. Lucky by Frederick K Foote

Sometimes I don’t recognize good luck when I see it. For example, on Sunday morning, at breakfast, part of the filling in one of my back teeth comes undone. I crunch on the broken filling and spit it out, and after that, everything is either too hot or too cold to eat. And around noon, there is a little pain at the site of that missing filling.

And I start feeling worse by the minute. I call my Dentist’s emergency number and get an appointment for tomorrow at 7:00 a.m.

So, it’s 6:30 AM, on Monday, and I’m rolling down my block feeling tired and peevish from the lack of sleep and the constant pain.

There’s a sheriff’s car parked down the block from my house, and as I approach it, the officer blinks his headlights, gets out, and waves me to the side. I pull over immediately, park, turn my car off, and put my hands on the steering wheel. This was not my first rodeo. I know this is one of the most dangerous situations a Black man can face in America. A good outcome would be if I ended up like Rodney King rather than George Floyd.

The 40-something White deputy stands at the driver’s window with his hand on the butt of his gun and asks, “Are you Randall Allen Paul of 3647 15^th Avenue?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Mr. Paul, I’m waiting for a warrant to search your home for stolen property. Would you allow me to search your home at this time?”

“Officer, sir, I have an emergency dental appointment this morning. I’ll be back as soon as it is over, and I’ll welcome a search of my house at that time. The damn tooth is killing me.”

In fact, all my pain disappeared when the officer flagged me down.

The deputy takes down the name and telephone number of my dentist and allows me to proceed on my way.

And now the pain is back, worse than ever, and I have another problem.  For the last three or four months, I have been buying hot goods from some of the neighborhood teenagers. I have five diamond rings, three TVs, ten leather jackets, one complete silverware set, and three pistols. The little punks have turned on me and gave me up to get a lighter sentence.

I’m sweating up a storm, my mouth is dry, and I’ve got the shakes. Shit! I’m going to jail for a long time. I’ll lose my job, my house, my girl, and I’ll have a record that will keep me forever underemployed or unemployed.

And jail here in San Juan, California, is no piece of cake. Male or female, beatings and rapes are your introduction to our County Jail. The death rate at our jail is incredibly high. I have more friends who died in jail than died in auto accidents.

Fucking greed! That’s why I’m in this mess. I didn’t even know what I was going to do with this shit when I bought it. It was irresistibly cheap. I can’t resist a fucking bargain. And now these bargains are about to fuck me.

I make a right at the corner, and I make another right at the next corner, and I’m driving down the street behind my house. Behind my house is Emmett Pike’s house. He drives long distances for UPS. Emmett lives alone, and his truck is gone. I think he’s gone to work, and I believe there is no one else in his home.

I park in front of his house and walk around to his side gate, which is unlocked.

Emmett has four-foot-high shrubs against our shared six-foot-high back fence.

I struggle through the shrubs and climb the fence into my backyard and enter through my back door.

Once in my house, I gather up the coats, the handguns, and the jewelry, climb back over the fence, and hide them between the shrubs and the fence. It takes three more trips for the televisions and the silverware.

I carefully conceal all the stolen goods, so they won’t be seen if someone looks over my fence into Emmett’s yard, and Emmett won’t see them when looking at his backyard.

I’m a little scratched up and have a tear on my puffer jacket, but I’m good to go.

I’m only ten minutes late for my dental appointment, and the dentist arrived minutes before I did.

Fifty minutes later, I’m on my way home with a numb mouth and a racing heart.

There are two sheriff’s squad cars and a sheriff’s truck parked in front of my house. SWAT guys are eagerly leaping out of the back of that truck. One of them has a battering ram.

I lay on my horn, and all faces turn toward me.

I screech to a stop next to a squad car and jump out with my keys in my hands and my hands raised over my shoulders.

“Hey, hey, this is my house.  You’re welcome to search. You don’t need a warrant. I told the deputy that before I left. Please don’t knock down my damn door.”

The SWAT guys look a little disappointed they don’t get to make a grand entrance, but they allow me to unlock my door, and they seat me on my couch, give me a copy of the warrant, and tell me not to move.

The raiders’ enthusiasm quickly turns to anger and frustration when they don’t find the TVs or coats or anything on their warrant list.

They open all my drawers in my bedrooms, kitchen, and garage, and dump the contents on the floor.

They empty my freezer and refrigerator contents onto the floor.

They dump my sugar and flour on the floor, and they remove my kitchen drain.

A SWAT team member with sergeant stripes faces me and says, “What did you do with all the stolen goods? We will find them, and we will add years on to your time. Where did you put it?”

I’m sweating like I’m in a sauna. I don’t trust myself to speak. I just shrug my shoulders.

The cop looks like he wants to slug me in the face. He yells out to his crew, “Search the backyard. Look in the neighbor’s yards. Find that shit.”

Another cop gives me the finger, and while he has my attention, he kicks a hole in my living room wall and is immediately swarmed with termites. He is startled and falls backwards onto the floor.

Another deputy turns his AR-15 on me and screams,” What the hell did you do?”

There’s another scream from the Guffys, my neighbor’s to the north of me as a deputy is introduced to the Guffy’s Akita guard dogs.

There is gunfire from the Guffy’s yard.

I can hear Miriam Guffy screaming at the cops.

The cop with the AR-15 instructs another officer to handcuff me.

There are sounds of sirens rapidly approaching.

Someone on my street has called the fire department.

I hear the cops destroying a fence to get their fellow officer away from the dogs and Miriam. 

Now Miriam’s husband, Joe, has his gun and is trying to defend his backyard, wife, and dogs.

Joe’s 80-year-old father, who lives with them, is backing up his son with a fireplace poker when he experiences chest pains and collapses to the ground.

Fortunately, the fire department rescue unit is here.

And doing all this danger and confusion, anger and fear, one of the kids that sold me the stolen goods punctures the sidewalls on the tires of the fire trucks and police vehicles.

Two hours later, I’m out of the cuffs and cleared of assaulting a police officer with a termite swarm.

Joe’s father is in the ambulance, flirting with the cute EMT.  The dogs and Miriam have not been harmed, and the cops didn’t find the stolen goods. And I didn’t recover them either. In fact, I think it was the same kids who sold the goods to me stole the goods from me.

The good parts of all of this are that I have found other outlets for my greed, and now I attend online sales and auctions. I’m accumulating a ton of junk I don’t need. I’m seriously thinking of selling this stuff to the rip-off kids, and they can move it as hot goods to suckers like I used to be. But you know what is missing? I miss being part of the gangster life. I know I was on the fringes of things, but I miss having an outlaw connection, you know?

On the upside, Joe’s and my homeowner’s insurance will replace the fence.

And my homeowner’s insurance is going to take care of the termite damage, which had not progressed very far, and my insurance agent says I’m lucky I caught it when I did.

My brother, who works for the Oakland Police Department, tells me to file a claim with the county, and the county may compensate me for the damage to my house.

My girl, Young Hee, has declared my entire house a disaster area, and we are planning on doing renovations. I’m living with her while my house is being upgraded.  Young and I will live together in our renovated place if we can survive living together at her place.

They say crime doesn’t pay, but they are always saying some stupid shit. I think overall, no one was seriously injured, and I have been scared straight, got a head start on my termite problem, and escaped a possible prison sentence. Sunday, when my filling failed, might have been my lucky day.

However, I’m not ready to face another lucky day anytime soon.

Frederick K Foote

A Pile of dental instruments of torture. Picks, syringes, forceps etc etc. from Pixabay.com