Writer's Island "Embarrassing Predicament" & Sunday Scribblings "Stranger" - 11/16/08

This weeks prompt of “Embarrassing Predicament” from Writer’s Island and “Stranger” from Sunday Scribblings lend themselves to this story. My kids have been encouraging me to write about this event, not one of my finest moments. First, a bit of background.

I retired from the Air Force in 1992 and for some reason, still unknown to me, moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming. I went to work for the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) as the sole Wyoming field rep. My job in a nutshell was to sit in bars and listen to music, writing down what I heard. You see, to play music in public you are required to have a license which pays the creators of that music royalties. My job was to build a case against those that refused to purchase a license. Some called me the music police.

I received a pretty good salary and a company car. Pretty good gig. Except for one thing, Wyoming is freaking huge and traversing it winter is nearly impossible. For those not familiar, Cheyenne is almost not even in Wyoming. It is on the extreme southeastern border. The drives to Mammoth, which is almost not even in Wyoming on the extreme Northwestern border or Evanston, which is almost not even in Wyoming to the Southwest, are grueling. So I decided to move to the exact center of the state. It didn’t exactly take Euclid to find the center, since Wyoming is almost a perfect rectangle. This task would have been much more difficult had I been somewhere like Michigan.

The exact center of Wyoming is in the middle of nowhere (as most of Wyoming is) on Highway 20, near the town of Powder River, with a population of 51. So I selected the closest town with streetlights and a gas station. I moved to Riverton, Wyoming in 1994. Riverton is a nice town of a little under 10,000, with a great golf course (very important to me).

As Wyoming cities go, it is a virtual megalopolis, 9th largest in the state. Some of you who live in more populous areas are now gasping at this amazing fact. You are also wondering where this embarrassing predicament with a stranger occurs. OK, here it is.

Riverton sets smack dab inside the Wind River Reservation. This huge piece of wasteland is shared by two tribes, the Arapaho and the Shoshoni. I knew nothing of Native Americans (though I have some blood) other than what I had seen in old westerns. I have since found out that those accounts were somewhat slanted. I had heard about a lot of crime on the reservation, but most of it is between the two competing tribes. A bit like the Crips and the Bloods or the Hatfields and McCoys. They don’t necessarily love each other. But, though I am a white eye, I was still a bit wary of being a stranger.

Late one night, I was leaving the IGA grocery store, walking to my Ford Taurus POS company car. Two young Native American men cut me off from my car. That part of the parking lot was nearly empty. They were saying something to me, but Native American’s are very soft-spoken and speak almost under their breath. They also have a strong accent and dialect that I became familiar with later. I could not understand them but I knew one thing for sure. I had only been in town for a week or so and I was being robbed. I had a bag of groceries cradled in one arm and a gallon of milk hanging from the other. My survival instincts took over. I was not going to be a victim. In a surprise attack, I swung the gallon of milk upward as hard as I could against the jaw of one of my assailants. He went airborne over the hood of my car. The plastic jug exploded, showering the crime scene and me with milk. The other thug ran away before I could select something in my grocery bag to hit him with.

Almost immediately a police car arrived with blue lights blazing. The city cop asked me what happened and I proudly told him my heroic story. He started laughing, which I thought odd. He said, "You ain't from around here are ya? They weren't robbers, they were beggars. They wanted your change." I tried to explain and he waved me off. He said, "I will take care of them, just don't be clobbering our citizens with 2%." Luckily, the unconscious Arapaho draped across my car was not seriously injured. I was really sorry about what happened. I could have just said no. I am sure those two guys were not expecting my reaction to "spare change?" Put yourself in their moccasins. You ask a stranger for some change and WHAM, he initiates a homogenized attack on you. I left some money with the cop to give them. Not really, but, in hindsight, I wish I would have. It would just make me sound like less of a jerk.

I went back into the store to get a fresh jug of milk and a paper towel. The night manager met me with one of each. He said it was on the house because watching that episode was worth it. He had called the police to get rid of the beggars, who were bothering customers. He hadn't expected a vigilante would show up. For the rest of my six years in Riverton, every time I saw that particular police officer or any of the IGA night crew, I was referred to as the milkman. Coincidentally, I was never approached by panhandlers again.

People that know me know that I am a charitable person and not prone to attacks on Shriners, the homeless, or Habitat for Humanity volunteers.