Showdown At Super 8
based (loosely) on true events
(with apologies to JPD and Super 8)
The International House of Pancakes was open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. In a college-town like
It was nearing 10pm and the parking lot was its usual half-full. A couple of students pulled in, ready to devour a some Belgian waffles when lights began dancing before them. They watched as a
Across from the IHOP was a Super 8. This, in laymen’s terms, translates to “motel for the desperate.” There was nothing super about this particular Super 8. But something was apparently brewing there tonight. The officer in the patrol car skidded to a stop, left his lights flashing and took off running towards the rear of the motel. The students, still sitting in their car, looked at one another wearily. This sort of thing didn’t happen often. Do they stay in the car and watch the events unfold? Or do they traipse into the restaurant and demand waffles?
“Stay,” they said simultaneously, answering the unspoken question. Waffles would have to wait. Not a moment later another patrol car joined the first, its driver sprinting off to find the other.
The scene was eerily quiet for a moment. Only the flashing of the patrol cars’ lights interrupted the peace of the evening. Suddenly sirens began sounding from the left and right. Fire trucks were descending upon the motel from both directions. Within the next few minutes a dozen more squad cars arrived, along with three ambulances and 2 more fire trucks. The students turned the car back on and tuned into the always trusty local AM radio news station. The events happening before their very eyes were quickly turning into the big news of the night. After waiting a few minutes, the DJ repeated what everyone had been waiting to hear.
“There is a hostage situation now occurring at the Super 8 motel.” The students gazed into the flashing lights, stunned. This kind of thing just didn’t happen around here. They were certain this had just been an over-reaction to someone’s cat being caught up a tree. They were gravely mistaken. Apparently Bubba had finally crossed the line. No, really.
Bubba Monroe (pronounced MUN-row) had gotten tired of it. He loved his wife but it was finally tim0ed they both admitted that she was just after his money; and his trailer – it being one of those classy new double-wides and all. He had never really minded that she was a gold-digger. He knew she loved him all the same. That is until he found her shacked up with some chump from her bowling team. He had walked in on them after she had rented a room in his name at the Super 8.
Bubba, being the enraged husband he was, stormed out to his truck and grabbed his shotgun from its hiding location behind the seat. It wasn’t loaded, but no one would find that out until the next morning. The clerk had merely seen an angry man stomping up to one of the rooms with a gun in his hand. The cops were immediately called and now there was a major hostage situation right across the street from the IHOP.
So the students sat, watching and listening as it all unfolded before them. Unfortunately there was no trained hostage negotiator within the Jonesboro Police Department. Instead there was Rick. He was the night secretary down at the station. He was known for his level-head so he was handed the job of talking a now blubbering Bubba out of the motel room without firing the unloaded weapon at any of the room’s occupants. Bubba lasted a solid thirty minutes before he came out, crying like a baby. He had even tried making a few outrageous demands – a new pickup, a new wife, a new gun – but none were successful. It was later said that he cried all the way to the station.
Within the hour all of the noise and the lights had faded. The last squad car had driven away. The two college students turned off the car and sat in silence for a moment. Crime had been committed. Guns raised. Officers dispatched. What were they supposed to do now? In the end, there was only one thing left to do.
Waffles.
THE END
