By Bill Scott
Joe and I stared in amazement as the drama played out right before our eyes. Normally, the little convenience store where Barrett Williams’ bought his daily pack of Marlboro’s was calm and serene; but Marcus Ledbetter had mentioned something about Barrett’s kids, and Barrett made disparaging remarks about Marcus’ hunting dogs, and the place blew up like a rickety, old barn in a tornado.
As I remember, Ledbetter was standing in the Campbell’s Soup aisle throwing rusty cans of vegetable soup Barrett’s way, and Barrett was returning fire with plastic bottles of Diet Coke back at Marcus.
By the time the cops showed up, all the shelves from the coolers, and from aisle number three were laying on the floor, and the cops handcuffed both of the participants in the brawl and were interviewing the witnesses. By the time they got around to me. I told them the gist of the situation as I recollected without taking sides, but Ledbetter threw me a sneer on the way out, so I guess he suspected me of siding with Barrett, and I imagined another melee would ensue as soon as Ledbetter made bail, which brings me back around to the soups and sodas.
If Charles Dickerson, the owner of the store was scanning his inventory and tracking his stock, it would have lessened the abundance of ammo available that was set loose in the situation. For the life of me, I can’t understand why these convenience store owners don’t pay more attention to all the junk they shove on their shelves.