Trigger Happy

This story is mostly true. I want to work it up for a competition entry.

Nick and "Pete".

Captain Pete Bedford operates as a State Fishing Guide along the coast and up the rivers that drain into the Gulf of Maine. He really looks the part with a neat uniform, bandy seaman's legs and a grey fisherman's beard. I hired him for a day and I think it is fair to say that we were both relieved when it was over. It was not his fault. We set out thinking that we had a lot in common because we are the same age, we both like to fish and we share a common language.

He told me he loved to watch British TV programmes such as "Doc Martin" and I had to reply that I do not watch TV.  We talked about fish quite a bit and we both tried to launch fresh topics but, after several false starts, I gave up talking and ended up listening to monologues about his political views. Perhaps he took my silence for agreement because his confidence grew and he became more forthright as the fish-less day wore on.

Pete's views on welfare were just those you might expect from an American conservative, but I was shocked to learn that he was the Selectman in his community that you had to go and see if you needed help.

On crime, he told me that the reason that there was so little of it in the state was that everyone had a gun. I suspected that he had a hand gun with him and looked around the boat for it. The one thing I was not going to do was to ask him where it was in case he started waving it about. If he knew my political leanings, I thought, things might become tricky.

I am afraid of men with guns. I have never lived in a place where people carry guns quite openly and so I do not have a lot of friends with guns. In the UK if you see anyone, apart from airport police, carrying a hand gun, you should run and hide.

It is true that there are probably more guns than people in Maine and that the crime rate is actually very low but, as a left-leaning, liberal Englishman, I have to believe that there are other forces at play here. I think the crime rate is low because there are no really big cities and that, if you committed a crime on your own patch, your neighbours would recognise you.

Given that the crime rate is so low, one has to ask why people sleep with a gun, as though their house might be burgled at any time. Captain Pete told me a story about this that spoke volumes for me.

One night last summer, Pete awoke to hear someone rummaging around in his kitchen downstairs. He  grabbed one of his hand-guns, shook his wife awake and told her to stay put while he went to investigate.

On summer nights Pete wears no pyjamas so he covered part his ample frame with his wife's silky dressing gown that was hanging over the end of the bed and tiptoed to the top of stairs. He could see a light in the kitchen so he leaned over the banister and pointed his pistol in the right general direction. Rummaging sounds were emanating from the cupboards, so he knew that he had not been heard. He cleared his throat and said, " I know you are in my kitchen and I have a loaded revolver. Unless you show yourself now, I will blow your head off. "

A female voice replied, "Don't shoot, Mr. Bedford, it's me, Louise."

Pete's son, John, had arrived home unexpectedly with his current girlfriend. It was totally possible that either of them could have been shot because of Pete's phobia about being burgled in the state with the second lowest crime rate in the USA!

Over breakfast Pete apologised and asked Louise if she had been freaked out. She replied;
"Not really, I'm from New York, so its not the first time I've come across an armed man. But, tell me Mr. Bedford, do you always walk around in a nightie that doesn't cover anything up?"