is a room in Julie Thompson’s name, and your meal is on myself and Brandon.”
A large group of people began to walk down the street. My attorneys were walking with the prosecutor and were laughing with him.
At the restaurant, Julie sat alone. I stood by Larry, then went and sat by Julie. None of the jurors had come!
The prosecutor came up and knelt down between Julie and myself. “Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, just so you know, I was rooting for you, but I had to do my job. Please don’t take this personally; I was happy to agree on the community service. I wish you two the best, and stay away from that guy; he is trouble.”
After the prosecutor left, it seemed that each person came by and wished Julie the best and warned her to stay out of trouble. She handled each one graciously and with a true smile.
When things died down a bit, Julie and I left. I had told our guys to meet us at our house and we would settle up.
The drive home was quiet, and Julie fidgeted with the buttons on her white dress.
We were in sight of our house when she blurted out, “What do I have to do for the hundred hours?”
I wasn’t sure, but answered her, “You will have to clean up city parks, pick up trash and probably clean off graffiti.”
That seemed to relieve her. “I could take the kids with me and make it a fun time.” She was worried about something, and it still hadn’t come to the surface.
I asked her, “What is bothering you, Julie?”
She turned to face me. “He was so graphic, but he made it all up. You do believe me, don’t you? I would never do anything to hurt you!”
I only thought for a second. “Honey, I believe you completely, and know that I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you either.”
We enrolled Franky in children’s daycare. Julie began doing modeling gigs every week, and of course I worked at my job and we were one happy family.
This went on for three weeks.
It was Wednesday, June nineteenth. Julie left before I did as she often did when she was modeling. My car was in the garage and I had left the front door unlocked. The three men came in wearing hoodies and ski masks.
I didn’t have a chance.
I yelled, “Get out of my house!” Like they would mind me.
All that I could see was that the lead man had a shotgun pointed at me. He yelled back at me, “Open the safe and give us your money!”
The shotgun was jammed into my neck, and I could see a gloved finger on the trigger.
I spoke softly. “We don’t have a safe. You have the wrong house.”
The other two men began ripping pictures off the wall and turning over furniture. “We are going to kill you if you don’t give us the money.” The man with the shotgun was black; that was all that I could tell about him. He added, “Don’t look at me or I will have to kill you.”
I said, “I have some money in my wallet. You can take it all, my credit cards too.”
The other two men came back from the back of the house. “Mitch, there is no safe.”
Mitch jerked the shotgun toward the man who had used his name; I was up in a flash and ran for the open front door.
I made it just past the door when Mitch fired the shotgun at me. It caught me on my right side and blew me out into the yard.
The last thing I saw was the three men running down the street toward Mitch’s.
My last thought was, Damn, I surely have a lot of really bad days.
The lady next door who baby-sits for us on occasion heard the gun blast, looked out her front window, saw me in the yard, and the three men run to Mitch’s house. She called 9-1-1. The police, fire department and an ambulance all responded. I laid on the ground slowly bleeding out while the police secured the scene, then the paramedics got to treat me. I was hooked up to an I.V. and a pressure bandage was placed on my back.
One of the paramedics took my phone out of my back pocket and handed it to one of the policemen. He called the ICE number, in case of emergency, and Julie answered, “Hello honey!”
The officer responded, “This is officer McGowen of the Grapevine police department. Do you know a Brandon Thompson?”
Her heart had leaped up in her chest, but she was calm. “Yes, he is my husband. What is going on, officer?”
Officer McGowen said, “There has been an accident. Your husband is injured. Can you get someone to drive you to Grapevine Memorial Hospital? Your husband is being transported there as we speak.”
Julie ran to the dressing room, changed clothes and jumped in her car. She headed down Main Street to Fourteenth Street and turned right. She floorboarded the Cadillac and raced for the hospital.
At the hospital, she turned the engine off and ran inside.
“My husband, Brandon Thompson, how is he?” she screamed out.
A nurse took Julie by the arm. “Mrs. Thompson, your husband is in surgery. He was shot in the back. We are doing everything that we can for him.”
Julie threw her head back and screamed, “Who did it?”
The nurse replied, “We don’t know. The police are here; maybe they have some information for you.” She passed Julie off to the rookie police officer.
The cop soothed, “Ma’am, we don’t know who did it. Someone entered your house in an apparent robbery. Do you have any idea who might have done this?”
Julie looked at the officer like he was stupid. “Of course I don’t. Everything was fine when I left this morning.”
The officer took Julie, bought her a cup of coffee, and sat with her in the waiting room. He was new on the job and had no idea what to do in this situation. He didn’t tell Julie that I had been shot in the back with a shotgun, but what he did say was, “Your husband was shot and was in good condition when he left the scene. I followed the ambulance to the hospital.”
The surgery did not go well. My right kidney had been destroyed and had to be removed. It took several hours to dig all the pellets out of my back. During that time, I had three pints of blood pumped into me. If I lived, I would have a depression in my right side and a very ugly scar.
I was in recovery and had just started coming to when my heart stopped. The crash cart was rushed in and I was shocked three times. The doctors and nurses worked frantically. I was injected directly in my heart with a stimulant.
My time of death was set at two o’clock, central daylight savings time. I was right: it had been “A Really Bad Day!”
* * * *
AFTERWARD
Brandon was buried Friday, July third. Mitch and his two co-harts were convicted of the murder and robbery, and all received life sentences with a minimum of one hundred years in prison. Julie turned out to be pregnant with Brandon’s third baby. She named him Brandon Thompson Junior.
Julie lives in the house that she designed in Grapevine Texas. She goes to visit Brandon’s grave nearly every day. To this day, she misses him terribly. She has never remarried.
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