Monday, May 14, 2012
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
December 26th, 1992
I went to college in Baltimore. To pay the bills I waited tables at a steak
house. My sister Kelley and I were
roommates and coworkers. We spent a lot
of time together back then and to this day, are still very close. The story you are about to read is a big
reason why.
The day after Christmas, December 26th 1992, was
a very slow day to work at a steak house in the suburbs north of Baltimore. Around 8:30pm, there were only a handful of
diners and we were working hard to close the restaurant at 9. Kelley was in the back rolling silverware or
cleaning coffee pots or performing some other mundane closing duty. I was in the “front of the house” vacuuming
the floor. That’s when our lives changed
forever.
There was a commotion at the front door as 3 men barged in,
clad in dark colored, oversized winter coats, and panty hose over their
heads. They were yelling and pointing
guns at the employees and customers. I
was ordered to “Get on the floor!” by the smallest of the 3 from behind a
nickel-plated .38. Somehow I was
overcome by a calm that, to this day, I still don’t fully understand. I squatted between 2 tables a few feet away
from the restaurant’s two managers, who were eating dinner when the robbery
ensued. It occurred to me that, when
this was over, there would be police and police reports and a lot of
questions. With that in mind I stared at
the gunman who had ordered me on the floor so that I would have something to
tell the cops when they came later. I
stared at his face through the disguise, studying his facial features, his
revolver, and his clothes. But mostly
his face. I almost never took my eyes
off of his face.
One of the other thugs had leapt over the front counter and
emptied the cash register before going from table to table to personally rob
each of the diners. Meanwhile, the third
was in the back herding the cooks, dishwashers and servers out to the dining
room. As the procession of terrified
employees filed out, the leader with the .38 ran back and grabbed one of the
staff by the arm demanding to know where the manager was.
John Tillman, 29, was in a work release program at the
restaurant as were many of the cooks and dishwashers. John had served 9 years for robbery and had
all but paid his debt to society when he found himself looking down the barrel
of a gun. John was very popular among
the other soon-to-be-ex-cons as well as the rest of the staff. He was very handsome with perfect hair, clear
eyes and a beguiling smile. He had a
great sense of humor, killer style and crazy swagger. My favorite thing about John was that he
never did anything fast. He always moved
slowly, not because he was lazy, but because he was fucking cool. He would call my sister and our friend Julie
“Hottay” (hottie) and it was never creepy. They would giggle and enjoy the innocent
flirtation. When John came into work
that afternoon he had a large shopping bag with him and, as I walked past the
storage room where he was changing into his work clothes, he called me in. On the way to work from the “center” (sort of
a halfway house) he had snuck into the mall between bus transfers and purchased
two leather coats. He was proudly
showing them off to me and explaining how one was for his lady and the other for
his mother. He had planned to meet them
briefly after work to give them their Christmas gifts. He was stoked.
“Where is he?!” the masked gunman screamed. John, with his hands raised casually on
either side of him, was less than 10 feet from me, with a gun in his face. Unimpressed, John, his hands still raised, sort
of tilted himself in the direction of the managers who were seated a few feet
from where I was squatting, still staring at the masked face behind the shiny little
hand gun. It was at this point that I
noticed my sister and Julie huddled under a table inches from the unfolding
scene. Their fear was evident. I remained calm and collected and had never
even “gotten down” all the way, still squatting with my arms resting on the two
tables on either side of me. From the
moment the robbery began I was thinking things like, “Well, shit. Now I’m going to be here for hours talking to
cops. What a drag.” It never occurred to me to be scared. These guys just wanted money. Once they had it, they would leave and we
would finish closing up.
“Who? Him?” the
robber demanded, pointing at a customer at the table next to the managers. “Nah, man…” John replied calmly, about to
correct the error when POP! The coward behind the gun, behind the panty hose,
shot John in the face.
Pandemonium ensued as my calm dissolved into full-blown
terror. I was suddenly paralyzed; unable
to look at the gunman at all for fear that I would be next. I stared down at the floor, now on my knees
with my head down when my thoughts turned to my sister. Seconds later the murderer and his
accomplices fled the scene and the shocked silence was replaced with screams of
horror and sadness at what had just happened to our friend. John was dead before he hit the ground.
As I stood and gathered myself, I saw Kelley huddled under
that table, inches away from John’s lifeless body. Blood slowly spilled from his wounds and
pooled around his head. I immediately
called 911 from a payphone adjacent to the dining room, in plain sight of the
scene and my traumatized sister. I
finally came to her afterward and held her while she wailed into my chest. I had turned to stone.
In the hour that followed, I felt very little. All I could do was silently console my sister
and wait for whatever was to come next. I
shed no tears. I found myself alone in
the manager’s office soon after, smoking a cigarette, when the phone rang. I answered to hear the voice of an older
woman crying, asking me what happened to John.
It was his mother. She had
received a call from the center, and was told that John had been shot. In her panic and disbelief she called the
restaurant hoping that it wasn’t true. I
told her that her son was dead. The
phone dropped from her hand and I heard her cries coming through the
receiver. I hung up the phone as the
reality of what happened overtook me.
The phone rang again. Still alone
in the office, I answered again to find John’s father on the other end. In the background I could hear John’s mother
still crying loudly and his father’s voice, hopeful that it was all a
mistake. I assured him that it wasn’t
and offered my meager condolences. Then
I hung up the phone and cried.
A week later, detectives came to our apartment and
interviewed us again about what we had seen and showed us each a book of mug
shots, hoping we might be able to identify John’s killer. In the nights that passed after the shooting,
I dreamt about the face that I had studied so intently. My mind had constructed an image of the face
without its disguise and I knew that I would know it if I ever saw it
again. I sat alone with the detectives
as they flipped through the book of photographs directing me to tell them
anything that I thought about any of the faces that I saw, even if I wasn’t certain
it was John’s killer. “Tell us anything
that comes to mind as you look at these,” one detective said. After several pages of earnest scrutiny, I
didn’t recognize anyone. When the page
turned again I immediately saw, in the midst of 20 or so faces, the face of
John’s murderer, the face I had seen so clearly in my dreams. It was him.
I was absolutely certain of it.
Of the 30 or so people in the restaurant that night, only
Kelley and I were able to positively identify the murderous coward. Months later, we testified against him and
put him away. His lawyer argued that the
gun went off accidentally and apparently made a good enough case that he was
found guilty of involuntary manslaughter rather than second degree murder
which, everyone in the restaurant that night could tell you, was the actual
crime. Before taking the stand I
remember being nervous, even scared about testifying in front of the man who
killed my friend. When I took the stand
and was sworn in, however, I once again turned to stone. I stared at John’s murderer the entire time I
was examined, then cross-examined. I
never took my eyes off of that face. I
did not feel a drop of fear. I didn’t give
him the satisfaction of having power over me the way he did when he hid behind
that nickel plated revolver and women’s underwear.
It may seem unjust that John’s killer was found guilty of
the lesser charge. That is, until you
remember John. His killer went into the
same penal system that John had gone through, making friends of everyone he
met. John was a special man and everyone
loved him - adored him. I have always
taken solace in the sincere belief that his killer definitely got what was
coming to him.
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