I was living in Miami, my first time in America, 18 years old. Early 1981, John Lennon had been shot and killed a couple of months previous and the radios were playing The Beatles constantly, which suited me perfectly. I had a small cassette player and listened to The White Album constantly, my favourite track being “Happiness is a Warm Gun”. I had stayed for a while in snazzy Coconut Grove with friends but after a while felt the need to get my own place. I rented a garage room at an highway intersection from a couple of lesbians who preferred that I stayed in the garage. It was a very boring existence and I spent most of my time working illegally at a couple of pizza restaurants. When I got “home” I would cross the intersection and shop at the Seven Eleven for TV dinners and Bugler cigarette tobacco which came in an old-fashioned blue and white paper package with papers included. The Indian guy behind the counter seemed to be at work all 24 hours. We talked a bit. We talked often, he seemed pleasant.

One day I was lying on my mattress in the garage when the two women burst in. They had heard someone wandering around the garden and feared it was a thief. They pushed a revolver into my hands and sent me out. I had never held a gun before, let alone fired one, so I am not sure what use I would have been. Looking at the holes in the chambers I could see that the bullets were hollow-points, fat lead donuts. I had heard of these and knew that they were designed to cause of lot of damage.

After a cursory look around the garden I saw no one, thankfully, and could go back inside and relieve myself of the gun, having acted suitably heroic.

A couple of days later I was lying on my mattress, watching the small TV the women had provided. Outside I heard a lot of noise from sirens and engines. Looking back at the TV and the news show that was playing, I learned that the Indian guy behind the counter of the Seven Eleven across the street had just been shot dead in a hold up.