guns on river street
There were two of them, both men, both wearing white shirts and dark blue slacks, polished shoes – no ties – lanyards around their necks and each had a holstered Glock 22 .40 caliber semi-automatic ten-shot pistol hanging off his belt as they walked past me and into a cafe.
Big blokes. No-nonsense. But with guns?
It’s 12:30 pm in Ballina and a bloke’s sitting on a seat outside the frock shop next to the cafe and waiting on the little lady to buy a blouse when he sees these two lads coming by .. so he waits for the biggest of them to emerge from the cafe with a meat pie in one hand and macchiato plus cream in the other and points at him with his right-hand forefinger like it’s a pistol barrel.
The gunman stopped dead. Waited.
‘What’s with the gun?’
.. pause
‘You mean what sort of gun?’
‘No. What’s with the gun?’
‘Meaning what?’
‘Well,’ sez I, ‘it’s lunchtime in River Street Ballina on a sunny day, and you two blokes are walking around wearing guns. Howcome?’
For that I got a half-shrug.
‘Tell me,’ sez I, ‘do you feel any different when you walk around without a holstered gun hanging off your belt?’
‘Not really.’
He seems like a good sort of bloke, even though he’s eight-foot high, weighs 120 k’s, looks like he could run fifty miles without raising a sweat then shoot ten people dead in rapid-fire auto mode.
I had to ask.
‘So who needs shooting around here?’
Another shrug.
‘Terrorists, armed robbers – that sort of thing.’
Admittedly, Ballina has had a few unnecessary deaths lately, a fistfight gone fatal, two blokes hitting a drunk drunk way too hard for his poker machine winnings, a drive-in jewellery shop smash and grab. I mean, what regional town doesn’t have its local dramas?
Add to that his coffee’s going cold and I know he’s had about enough of chatting with some unshaven old codger with uncombed hair and wearing a pair of very old thongs and who has nothing to do all day but ask strangers a lot of silly bloody questions.
About that time the little woman exited the frock-shop with a good-sized load of merchandise bags. Saw me talking to a man wearing a gun and stopped halfway out of the door. Probably thought I’d been sprung for growing all those illegal dandelions up on the farm.
That’s when the big fellow told me he was part of the Correctional Services Tactical Squad. Said he had to wear the gun at all times when he’s on duty.
Even when ordering a pie and coffee to go on River Street in Ballina on a sunny day.
I watched him walk away.
He was swaggering. I guess the weight of a Glock does that to a man.
petebowes.com 
I have had my own experiences with the tatical squad, but, largely that is my fault, that I did not screen the Fuckwits that her and I chose to let live below us, When they knock on your door, after you have a couple and they are swarming over your property, they are not for debate on why they are there and they have this look,if you continue this line of questioning i could well be with the guy they are about to arrest below me. I suspect they cut me some slack, which when I was young I would have totally expended that, at least I didn’t have to walk home, I was home!
But my topic is going to the BWS, for a second trip of a bottle of wine. I am feeling happy and have to walk up a corridor (a shortcut for locals, but it is also a shortcut for robbers), to get to the St Ives Goodna BWS. Now in this wonderful frame of mind, this small Maori fella runs at me down the corridor, he is looking as happy as I am (carrying alcohol of some description). But he has this peculiar look about him, a look of smiling guilt, I disregard it. Maybe he knows I am drunk and I will not work out what he is doing, he is largely right. But I am going clued up to these guys that take the back way, they are taking it for the same reason I am taking it, to avoid attention.
I know there is something suspicious when his partner in crime, a six foot plus African(again carrying alcohol of some description and ok, he might not have been six foot, but he was black and tall), starts running towards me. This is when I think I will take him out, I have done it before at parties, that have leaded to broken teeth, broken asbestos walls and broken old plumbings fittings and these were my mates!
I start chasing him, but all I can do is scream out Run Boy Run! Sub consciously I am worried about the racist overtones, but gladly he doesn’t stop to talk about the finer points of my comment. I would have explained to him, that I pulled it out of my sub conscious, being the movie about the dullard.
Now, they are runnning in the bush behind St Ives, I shout that the cavalry is coming and I am directing them to the suspects. I known which street they are going down and I find the two walking. On seeing me, they start to gallop, so I start slapping the side of my car, herding them. I am enjoying this. I go back to BWS and get my second bottle and tell them of my heroics.