As I recently mentioned, I was a groupie to a local band back when I was in law school. They were a big part of my maintained sanity. My friend reminded me of a CD they’d made back then–I’d forgotten they did one (even though I now recall visiting them in the studio several times while they were recording it)! I had just remembered a tape and a CD of the lead singer after he went solo. Anywho, I just found the CD and am delighted that I like them just as much as I’d remembered. Oh, the sweet memories. I still especially love the songs with the mandolin.

So here’s the one criminal story we all were involved in. The background story is as intriguing and interesting to me as the finale, so I’ll give it all to you.

We’d all gone to see Big Sun at Jimmy’s (last I passed this place, it was some sports bar–but back then it was a good venue for hearing local music). After the gig, we’d all gone across the street to Carrollton Station. We were having quite the good time, and it was getting late (or, rather, early). I popped into the bathroom and one of our friends (a fellow groupie) was in there as was some other woman in one of the stalls. My friend had a weird look on her face. She clearly could not talk due to the other woman being in there–who was talking to my friend, telling her what a nice voice she had.

Back in the bar, it was apparent the tides had changed and something was amiss. Before long, the lead singer, Joe, told me that our friend had been “invited” by the woman in the bathroom to return to her place to join her and her husband for a fun little threesome. Well, now, yes, we were groupies, but we were no whores. I mean, this was from left field–we’d never even seen these people before. No problem, we collectively thought, we’ll dump them.

About this time, another friend asked me to ask the bartender to give her more coke in her mixed drink–it was too strong. I told her to ask herself. She responded that the bartender didn’t like her because she’d already complained about another drink. Still, I refused to step in (it all seemed silly to me for some reason–well, that reason probably being I was drinking). So my friend took the matter into her own hands and grabbed the soft drink trigger and added the coke herself. About half way through, there was sudden silence in the bar. The bartender had turned off the music to SCREAM at my friend not to touch his trigger. Turbo Dog blew out of nose about then.

Well, things had degraded to such a point that it was time to leave the Station. So we all walked outside. We told the couple that we’d meet them at Muddy Waters, a nearby bar. Of course, we had no intention of going there; unfortunately, they were smart enough to see through our ruse. One in our group (the Defender) finally just stepped up and started to tell the Husband to leave–that our friend was not interested and all that goes with that. There was a blur of things said–the Husband claimed to be a philosophy professor at UNO (and I happened to have graduated from UNO and had taken several philosophy courses and knew he was lying).

Then we heard this: “Honey, get my gun,” wherein the wife reached into a duffel bag and, well, got his gun. Everyone ran for cover. Except for me and the Defender. I was FROZEN with fear. The gun was handed to the Husband and, at that point, my friend who’d had the transgression with the bartender called my name then said, “RUN.” I followed her voice and ended up huddled behind a nearby parked car. Then we just watched in horror.

The Husband raised the gun over his head then with all his strength brought it down on the Defender’s head. Over and over. He pistol-whipped him. And none of us could do anything but watch. Then when the Defender fell to the ground, the Husband kicked the living shit out of him. When I was certain the Defender was dead, the Husband raised the gun back in the air and shot straight up. “Ohmygod. He’s gonna kill all of us,” I thought. I was scared to death of that damn bullet falling back to earth and hitting one of us. Then the Husband brought the gun down and held it in front of him. He slowly turned in a circle (to sufficiently threaten each one of us) and asked if anyone else had anything to say. No one murmured a peep. Then he and the wife started to walk (for some reason only God knows) SLOWLY down the street. They did not take our friend with them.

Then one of us came to our senses and ran back into Carrollton Station and had the angry bartender call the police. The bartender had heard the gun shot and had forgiven us for our earlier rowdiness. Well, the cops must have been eating donuts at the corner restaurant because there were there with lightening speed. They followed the couple and easily caught the Husband. An ambulance was called for our friend. He was not dead. But he did suffer multiple lacerations and cracked ribs along with permanent hearing loss in one ear from the beating.

Now, earlier in the week, I’d taken my first semester exams–including criminal law. This night out was a partial celebration of having survived the exams. After the cops and ambulance drove off, all I could do was count off the number of crimes we’d just witnessed: Assault against the Defender; Battery against the Defender; Assault to each one of us in our group (that was, like, ten counts alone); Assault with a Deadly Weapon; Battery with a Deadly Weapon; Attempted Murder; and so on.

In the end, we all met with the assistant DA (they don’t like law students). She was unimpressed with my mastery of criminal law. She said something about not wanting to “over charge” him lest he not get found guilty of anything (that STILL makes little sense to me). In the end, no one would bail out the Husband and he spent a few days in jail. Then he copped a plea and had to do something like 200 hours of community service. I, for one, was disappointed in our criminal system–he should have spent years in jail, I thought, not days.

Joe threatened to write a song about this night, but he never did. But none of us will ever forget it.