Shot in the Heart - Mikal Gilmore [142]
He said nothing. He walked out of the house, slamming the front door behind him. It was the last time my mother ever saw Gary as a free man.
ONE OF GARY’S FRIENDS DURING THIS TIME was a young black man named Cleophis. Once in a while Gary would bring Cleophis around the house. Mostly, they would sit in a car out in the driveway, drinking beer, talking, laughing. Cleophis was a friendly guy—he seemed nicer than most of Gary’s friends—but, like Gary, he had a taste for intoxicating narcotics.
A day or two after his confrontation with my mother, Gary was hanging out at Fred Meyer, a local variety store, with Cleophis. They went into the drug department, where Gary had the pharmacist fill a prescription for a narcotic-based cough syrup. As the clerk was checking the known-addicts list, Gary spotted a man at a nearby register cashing a check. Gary couldn’t tell how much money the man had, but he saw him put a wad of green bills in his pocket. “We’ll be back for that prescription in a little bit,” Gary told the clerk, and then signaled Cleophis to accompany him. They followed the man out to the parking lot, and then got in their car and followed him as he drove along. “What are we doing, Gary?” Cleophis asked.
“We’re going to rob this fucker,” Gary said. “I’ve got a lead pipe in the back seat we can use on him.”
“Oh, man,” said Cleophis, “I don’t want to do that kind of shit.”
Gary gave Cleophis a hard look—a warning look. “Don’t chicken out on me,” he said. “Back my play.”
The man pulled into his driveway and Gary pulled in after him. He and Cleophis got out of the car and somebody—it isn’t clear to me which of the two—brandished the lead pipe. Gary grabbed the man, took his money, threw him to the ground, then he and Cleophis took off. They had come away with eleven dollars for their trouble.
As they pulled away, somebody took note of their license plate, the model of the car, and the direction they were headed.
BACK AT THE HOUSE ON OATFIELD, Frank was sitting in the living room watching TV. He was the only one home. He heard a car pull in and he got up and looked out. It was Gary and Cleophis. He didn’t think much about it. They were always coming and going.
A few minutes later, he heard a good deal more noise—like a legion of movement in the driveway. Frank looked out again and this time he saw the yard was full of city and county police cars, their red lights spinning and blazing. There were maybe twenty or more cops standing alongside their cars, all with their rifles and pistols aimed at Gary and Cleophis, who were standing in the side yard. Cleophis had his hands up and was standing still, but Gary was weaving around, like he didn’t know what was happening.
Frank went tearing out the back door and put himself between the cops and Gary. “Please don’t shoot my brother,” he said.
“If you don’t want to get shot yourself,” one policeman said, “get out of here.”
Then, all the cops were yelling at Frank: “Get the hell out of the way!” As they said it, other police cars were flooding up the hill and closing off the street.
Something about the exchange between Frank and the cops pulled Gary back to earth, out of his narcotic haze. He raised his hands, looked at the policemen, and said: “Don’t shoot him. He doesn’t have anything to do with this.” To Frank he said: “Frank, get out of the way. I know what all this is about.”
The police closed in, handcuffed Gary and Cleophis, and took them to the Clackamas County Jail, in Oregon City.
GARY WAS IN SERIOUS TROUBLE THIS TIME, AND WE ALL KNEW IT. He was facing assault and robbery charges, plus he already had a long record of offenses behind him. Though none of his previous crimes had been too serious—and none had involved violence—the accumulation was enough to convince the prosecutor that Gary was already a habitual criminal and a danger to society. The D.A. elected to take the case to trial and seek a long sentence.
In the months following the arrest, while preparations were being made for the