Joey Cloudy online

I Was Twelve

I was 12

the first time I was ever held at gunpoint

I was 12.

It was the first summer I got to work with my older brothers moving company on a move job. Getting asked to go do real paying work at that time I felt honored. It made me feel like I was a grown up. And being able to keep up with the men working when you are a boy is a big deal at that age.

That day we were working in the park cities, highland park area. The cops rolled up and jumped out of their cars with all of their guns drawn and pointed at us as we were taking furniture into the house.

I stood watching this one skinny young cops gun shaking so violently, it seems to almost blur, as he trembled in fear looking right at me, but not seeing me. A 5 foot 5 inch, 116 pound, 12 year old kid. As I stood there frozen, halfway down the ramp, holding my end of the sofa. 

He was going to shoot me.

Then cool as cool can be the owner of the house strolls outside, and it goes without saying he is white, and he is pissed off. He begins to interrogate the cops, sarcastically asking the most asinine questions. 

What I cannot believe is that not a one of you can see the difference between someone putting furniture into a house i.e. moving into it, and someone breaking into a house to rob it i.e. you take things out? I understand the sort of persons attracted to your peculiar vocation can find it trifle bit difficult to discern these subtle differences. So, as the owner of this private property, allow me to help you boys out. It is the exact opposite of what these gentlemen are doing. Do you understand? They are literally taking things out of the trucks and into an empty house. This is in layman terms called how we move into a house.

He talked to those cops like they were the biggest, stupidest fucking idiotic, lead paint eating children he had ever seen and it worked. He got their undivided attention and he saved my life. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think he was trying to save me or anybody else, he was just a half drunk rich white boy with zero fucks left to give, but this, this was his finest hour. He was in that glorious moment and forever my hero.

I was 12.