The Pensioner and the Gun
I was ready to get off the number 61 bus in Selly Oak and then progress onto the train station for the second part of the journey home, when an elderly gentleman with a small basket on wheels engaged with me in conversation. Such an interlocutor is common on public transport and I was getting ready to deliver my usual friendly, inane words that I have ready for such situations.
However, on this occasion I couldn’t help notice the handle of a rather large kitchen knife jutting out from his basket. The blade was wrapped in paper so I assumed it was part of his shopping. I pointed to the knife.
"Be careful. You could get four years in prison for that." I smiled.
The gentleman was in his sixties with a hearing aid and he gave me a not quite toothless grin.
"Oh that. That’s just something to help me cook."
"It’s a good knife. As well as cooking I’m sure it will be good for protection," I commented knowingly.
"For protection I have something else for that." He went inside his water proof jacket pocket and very quickly and secretly showed me what he had inside. It was a small handgun which after showing it to me he placed back in his jacket. I am not on expert on handguns so it may well have been a replica but replica or real it still had the same effect on me.
"I suppose you can’t be too careful," I said smiling nervously.
"No you can’t. That’s why I have backup." As he said this he patted his inside jacket pocket like an elderly Wiseguy in a Hollywood gangster film.
"Just in case," added the gun toting sextagenerian reassuringly.
I decided to bid him goodbye as he and I both got off the bus. I was relieved that he was walking in a completely different direction to me. I am convinced that tonight my dreams will be filled with visions of elderly folk putting caps in the behinds of others.
Oooh how guilty will you feel tonight if you turn on the BBC and see Nick Owen saying how an elderly psychopath gunned down some poor innocent drug dealers in some crazed vigilante killing spree.
Mind you, with the hygene standards at Kwiksave (where all old people shop) the shopping in his basket was probably more of a risk to the health of society
I now realise that kwiksave is a place filled with the truly violent offenders. I am now convinced that all pensioners are actually the masterminds of the criminal underworld
The papers will soon be filled with reports of pensioner on pensioner crime and signs in shops stating, “No Hoodies. No tweed.”