Solving the Unsolvable

If you ever watched Unsolved Mysteries, I'm sure by the end of the show you were like me, confused and scared... What happened to these people, who did it? You don't find out, no one knows. They just leave you there, worried that the culprit will strike again and this time you will be the unsolved mystery... Well, good news. I have a follow up on our little Unsolved Mystery, so you don't need to worry (or do you...). As I file the gunblast case under "Solved," I will share with you what truly happened.

Yesterday, Nick, Jason, Dooley and I were sitting in the living room watching our sweet new channels (more on this later). Nick left briefly to his room and soon thereafter detective Kevin Miller entered my house. In his brilliant style of questioning, Kevin addressed Dooley, "So, I hear you shot a gun off in the house a couple of days ago." This question caught my ear and I turned my attention away from Double Dare. Fully expecting another excuse, I listened to what it would be. "Yeah..." Dooley said, "It was an accident, I was cleaning my guns, I've grounded myself from guns because of it..." I then took over Kevin's questions in a variation of "good cop/bad cop," or...more suitablely named "calm Kevin/freaked out Chris." "You were cleaning loaded guns??" I exclaimed. "Yeah, I was cleaning them and I sneezed...it accidently went off," was his stammered response. "I knew it! I knew the firecracker was a cover story!" He defended the story by saying he didn't want to freak the girls out, which clearly by the way we acted, included Nick and me in addition to Karen and Gage. Kevin, once again, not so smoothly adds in, "Yeah...we looked around in there and didn't find any bullet holes..." Yeah, Kevin, tell the roommate with guns that we were snooping around in his room... Dooley, seeming to ignore the comment, then invited us into his room to show us what we overlooked, The Bullethole...

On our way in, I saw Nick in the hallway, and to get him updated on the situation, I gave him a wide-eyed face of terror, he acknowleged mine with his own version. He joined us as we entered the room for the first time since it happened. He bent over and picked up a small desk fan that was sitting on the floor by his closet. As he picked it up, he pointed out the hole through the base. Aha, the point of entry... The fan was passed around and examined. He then stooped down and stuck his finger in the hole that had been pierced in his carpet. "The bullet went in here and fragmented like it's supposed to." No, bullets are not supposed to fragment in my carpet...or anywhere in my house. He pointed out that all of his guns had been put in the top of his closet and locked away. He said he would not touch a gun for 180 days as punishment. His room, for the first time, did not resemble a pawn shop, there were no guns in sight. After he left, we were able to further investigate. The bullet had fragmented and left a circle, 6 inches in diameter, under the carpet without padding. Kevin excavated a piece of the bullet from under the carpet, which was then placed on the entertainment center next to Bombay Monkey on a Bike as evidence. But, as Dooley exited the house, to go to work last night, I heard sirens. He soon opened the door and hurried back in the house. "Oh no..." I muttered. "No, no," he said, "I was just wondering...none of the neighbors called the cops the other night?" I told him no, Penny didn't even hear it... "Wow, I fired off a gun and none of the neighbors complained? Alright, see ya" and he left for the night.

The neighbors complain when we play hall soccer, they complain when we play Bottle Ball, but they don't complain about the gunfire... I did find that odd. It would be understandable if we lived on the other side of the street, but not on the Northside. It's like Balcones Street is the boundary between ghetto and quaint living. Very often, the police sirens we hear are coming from across the street, the impalas are bassing out to Mike Jones, and on one occasion we were asked to go inside our apartment by some police officers because they were about to release the K-9 Unit... Gunfire might just be a normal sound for those complexes, but I didn't think the residents of Fox Meadows would agree. Whatever the case, one thing is for sure. My house now has bulletholes in it, so the boundary defining "ghetto" may have just moved to the stairwell between Apartment 19 and Apartment 21...