Pat Dollard

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“I’m Against Guns and Violence, Unfortunately Reality Has Intruded on My Delusional Paradise.”
by Robert J. Avrech
Big Hollywood

“Thing is, he’s going to kill me.”

“Have you gone to the police?”

“Yes, of course I have.”

“And what happened?”

She shakes her head from side to side, wraps her arms protectively around her chest.

“I got a restraining order against Ned, that’s my ex-boyfriend. But you know what good that is, don’t you?”

“Tell me.”

She inscribes a big zero in the air.

Five Minutes Earlier

It’s a crowded Sunday morning in the Martin B. Retting Gun Shop in Culver City.

There’s the usual cross-section of customers:

Two elderly black women, sisters, who have been robbed countless times by drug-addicts. Ignored by the LAPD, they have no choice but to buy a gun for self-defense. The women wear colorful bonnets. Yup, they dressed up to go gun shopping.

There are a couple of hunters buying high-powered ammunition; they sound like Los Alamos scientists as they discuss the exquisite physics of various exotic slugs. It’s way beyond my comprehension.

Two Marines on leave are stocking up on rugged, combat-ready clips for their side-arms. Semper Fi.

There’s also a young Hispanic apartment manager who lives in a high-crime area. His wife just had a baby—Mazal Tov!—and he wants to protect his family from the local “desperadoes.”

I’m waiting my turn.

Protagonist

And so is a young woman who absolutely sticks out in the gun shop. She’s wearing a cream colored linen baby doll with blue grosgrain trim; on her feet, pink flip-flops that pop off alabaster skin. Her hair is the color of golden Kansas wheat. Mid-twenties, she’s an iconic all-American beauty who makes me flash to memories of a truly insane childhood crush: Tuesday Weld as Thalia Menninger on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.

Looking as if she’s on the edge of a meltdown, she paces, glances nervously at the display cases lined with gleaming rows of pistols and revolvers. She makes a move to exit the gun shop, then returns, as if yanked by a fishing reel.

“Excuse me, do you, do you know about guns?”

She’s even got that vulnerable, tremulous Tuesday Weld pitch to her voice.

And she is talking to yours truly.

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