Columbus Avenue, late 1980s: A middle-class utopia of carefully manicured lawns, freshly painted homes, two-car garages, shrubbery trimmed to perfection, and pristine paved streets.
It happened during the dinner hour. The shot heard ’round the world was from his black walnut Marlin .35 rifle with the pistol grip.
He always bragged that it was the best rifle around with its pinpoint accuracy. It was that accuracy that allowed him to shoot a man in the ass in the middle of the night during the 1979 gas strike. The perpetrator was attempting to siphon gas from mommy’s two-door, burnt orange Monte Carlo.
Often, he beat his wife or stomped her, but this time he took it to another level. On this night, he depended once again on the Marlin’s accuracy to hit another moving target.