While enjoying a tasty caraway bagel the other morning, I opened my daily paper to see a half-page story about my jeweler opening fire on three punks who tried to rob his store at closing time. MY JEWELER. This is a mild-mannered guy about my age in a family-owned business that goes back sixty years. I wrote about him and his Pop in Initially Yours, an entry about buying Son a special birthday gift at their shop.
Pop died earlier this year, and I’m still surprised not to see him in his little corner of the store when I go in. He was an old-world watchmaker, a master craftsman who looked every bit the part with his kindly, time worn face and posture forever bent forward over a jeweler’s bench. Together, father and son offered something rarely seen nowadays in our world of anonymous or worse customer service. They offered family service. With Pop’s passing, Jr. is the whole show there now along with the nice woman who assists him behind the counter.
What happened is that Jr. was closing up alone one evening when a young couple came to the door saying they wanted to buy an engagement ring. It being the holidays, he figured he’d stay a little late for a young couple just starting out. As soon as he let them in another young man appeared and the couple indicated they knew him. Shortly after he entered things quickly went berserk. The last guy in pulled out a gun and jumped over the display case. Jr. grabbed the gun he kept behind the case and a gunfight ensued. Jr. was shot once in the side, the windows were blown out, and two of the robbers took off empty-handed with Jr. detaining the third until police arrived. He was treated at the hospital for his gunshot wound while police captured the two who fled.
I drove by the shop the day after the story broke, but kept driving because the plate glass windows were all being replaced. The following day I went in and found the tiny store hopping. Jr. was being interviewed by yet another TV anchorwoman trying to make him out to be Charles Bronson. Again he repeated he was just defending himself and his livelihood. He was not a vigilante. He did not advocate fighting off punks trying to rob and maybe kill you. This was just his decision in this instance. All the boys and girls out there should not try this at home. When asked if he had it to do over again would he still start shooting, he answered if he it to do over again he would not have let them in.
Adding to his obvious discomfort at being thrust into the spotlight, I started taking pictures of him because what are cameras for other than blog photos of your jeweler gone Rambo?
While the anchor lady tried to elicit something sensational from this hardworking family man, his assistant crossed over to me and we whispered about how crazy it all was. The phone rang while the news crew was taping and you could tell Jr. wanted nothing more than to answer it and have everyone go away. I asked the assistant if she had ever seen the Viggo Mortensen movie A History of Violence. The one where Viggo plays a small town diner owner, husband, and father who defends himself during a robbery by shooting all the perps dead at the scene. The ensuing publicity brings his former life as a deadly gangster crashing around his head. I asked the assistant if she thought her boss had a secret past. She looked doubtful. He was pretty much on the straight and narrow. But she did promise that if Ed Harris and William Hurt ever come in the store looking for him, I’ll be the first one she calls.
Check out this footage from MY JEWELER’S surveillance camera
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xkw-dG1LeVA
Daughter’s relevant Featured Foto is from Ad Hoc Art in August
