I Walked Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death for $14 and a Sandwich

And the day had started out so normal

For reasons I don’t need to delve into here, I found myself in a pawn shop just south of Fort Worth this morning. Actually, I’ll tell you why, so it doesn’t vex you for the remainder of the story: I am a full-time writer and it’s the beginning of the month. Enough said.

Anyway, I was at this pawn shop, which is part of a national chain I will not mention just in case they are litigious. Such establishments are not new to me; in my youth they were one of the best places to buy records and tapes cheap (did they sell records at pawn shops in Alabama, Terry Barr?). I also occasionally bought and sold musical instruments before I came to grips with the fact that my musical ability stops at the ability to turn on a radio.

The shop I was at this morning had no records and only a few musical instruments. What they did have was tools, various electronics, and more guns than I have seen in one place since I left the Army. What quickly became frighteningly obvious was that I was the only person in the shop looking to sell anything. Everyone else was buying, and the only things they were buying were guns. Lots and lots of guns.

There was a sweet-looking couple purchasing his-and-hers Glock 9mms. There was a man around my dad’s age (86) trying to haggle over the price of a .38 revolver. And there was a guy straight out of a casting call for Duck Dynasty who bought both a hunting rifle and what looked like a Colt .45 Model 1911. At one point he asked the clerk if she could remove the trigger lock so he could inspect the trigger, and she replied that they were not allowed to remove the locks “just in case.” The sad part is that we all knew what “just in case” meant.

In the span of around 15 minutes, I watched no fewer than six guns leave the store to join the other 1,006,555 registered firearms in the state (as of 2021, according to statista.com, and that’s only the registered ones). And before you shake your head and say, “That’s Texas for you,” according to a recent RAND Corporation estimate, we rank 14th lowest in gun ownership nationally. Roughly 35% of households in Texas own at least one gun; the state ranking the highest is Montana at 65% of households. Astonishingly, Vermont, Minnesota, Delaware, New Hampshire, and Michigan all come in ahead of the gun-loving Lone Star State.

Statistics are one thing, but watching the actual firearms move out into the world in the hands of people who may or may not know how to safely handle them is something else entirely. I believe in the Second Amendment (and made my views on the assault weapons debate clear here); unlike many of my friends, however, I remember the phrase “well-regulated” that goes along with the “right to bear arms” part. The next time there’s a road rage shooting (probably sometime around 7 p.m. tonight), I won’t be able to avoid wondering if it was the couple, the grandpa, or the survivalist from this morning.

I concluded my business quite unsatisfactorily (I got $14.00; they just don’t pay like they used to) and beat a hasty retreat, remembering that my granddad had always told me pawn shops simply sold other people’s misery. He also told me as a child that while my grandmother’s family hadn’t arrived in America from Italy until around 1910, his ancestors founded the Georgia Colony with James Oglethorpe in 1733; I later learned that those first settlers were all from English debtor’s prisons, so maybe my early affinity for pawnshops was genetic.

I needed something calming after seeing so many guns in one convenient location, so I pulled up the 10,000 Maniacs album In My Tribe and hit shuffle. The first song to play was “Gun Shy.” Yep, it was turning into that kind of day (here it is for a bit of musical interlude):

Since it was close to lunchtime, I decided to head across town to a sandwich shop that had been in business for nearly 50 years. What had somehow slipped my mind, even though I wrote about it almost exactly two years ago, for crying out loud, was that the place had changed since those early days. Here’s a picture I took for that story, showing the reading material they offer customers.

A quick sidebar about my drive to this fine eating establishment before proceeding: even though it was a late Saturday morning, the traffic was hellish. The Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex has more people than all but 13 of the U.S. states, and the town I was in has more than half the number of people who supposedly live in the entire state of North Dakota (I say supposedly because North Dakota is not a real place). Why can we not all agree to spread out a little? It might bring the anger level down, if nothing else.

Anyway, having forgotten that the sandwich shop that was once adorned with black and white pictures of Brooklyn had been transformed into a cross between the bar outside the front gates of Fort Campbell and the VIP lounge at the Republican National Convention, I was taken aback when I walked inside. Even more worrying was my attire: a Neil Gaiman American Gods t-shirt and a Syracuse University baseball cap. Taken together, they screamed to every MAGA acolyte within a five-mile radius that I was surely the great-grandson of Leon Trotsky himself.

When I was there two years ago, I only noticed the life-size poster of American Sniper Chris Kyle, the “Keep America Great” banner, the magazines, and that I was the only one wearing a mask before getting the hell out of there with my food. This time, mainly due to pawn shop and traffic fatigue, I decided to eat there (assuming they didn’t tar and feather me first). And that is where this semi-rant takes an unexpected turn.

The ladies running the shop were as pleasant, gracious, and dare I even say normal as one could possibly hope for. Surrounded by the radical new symbols of the once-sane Republican party, they were discussing the damage an overnight storm had done to one lady’s house before deciding to bring me into their conversation. Did they ask me what I thought about Joe Biden or the COVID “hoax?” No, the owner asked what I thought about “Lola” as a name for her new French Bulldog puppy. She chose it because of the Barry Manilow song, but her husband was not convinced. She lit up like a Christmas tree when I suggested that she tell him it was also the title of an excellent Kinks song.

We chatted the entire time my food was being prepared and never veered close to politics. In fact, the only time after that politics even entered my mind was when I took the first bite of the sandwich. It was so incredibly, indescribably, slap-your-mama good that if they told me I had to listen to a Trump speech while I ate it, I would have (and showered immediately afterward).

Don’t misunderstand me; I doubt that we would have agreed on the hot-button issues of the day, and I wish there were fewer political symbols of any kind in their shop. But for a brief period, I stood with a group I often demonize in my rants and had a pleasant, civil conversation, just like we used to back in the days when we could disagree without hating each other for it. After a morning of guns and insane traffic, that was more of a win than I’ve seen in a long time. I wish it happened more often.

One final note. The sandwich (with chips and large drink) cost me $14.14, so I am counting on this article earning enough to put me back in the black and make the whole trip worth it; help a poor brother out and comment like crazy for the new algorithm. Let me close by sending this one out to Lola, the French Bulldog puppy:

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