At least he said thank you.
Well, now we know. Fear is the mind killer. But, we were very stoned on Afgan hash. All 4 of us immediately began to game him. We weren't afraid, at all. That was later. Good to be stoned.
One guy went for a knife on the drain and as a kind of a ruse, another very tall guy jumped up over to stop him and by then he was surrounded except for Sun Tsu, escape route, we left, back out the kitchen door. I'm still pinned behind the kitchen table and become the Speaker.
He tried to make a move right then for the rest of the house, but my very large brother, just chest butted him, and said, NO!
Now I'm talking to him. Real quiet, friendly but insistent, almost a whisper, on his side. "You can't get us all." But, very reasonably and worried for him. I continued with the Thug Whisperer bit.
And that grabbed his attention, and we almost had him.
But, he saw it, at the last instant and pulled the gun back to his ribs. Then another friend, the very tall guy, says from almost behind him, in a flat tone of voice, opposite of mine...."you should leave."
By then, the first guy has a very large knife, not the little meat knife he went for. I, who have been sitting calmly, pinned behind the table, stand up and show that I'm about to turn the table up into the room on him, but, say, in a weird, whining tone of voice, that surprised even me..."don't take all the hash, leave us soooooommmme." But, my face was not whining.
I'm making eye gestures toward the door.
He took the bag, calmly, as we all were, (except my giant brother still in his blocking position, scowling fiercely), knife guy is hanging loosely at his side, but looking very evil, the tall guy, 6' 5" is still right behind....
He fished out a palm full of pieces and set them them down and left. When we looked, we saw he took less than 1/2, now that I remember.
He just wanted to get he and some friends stoned I think and we were just sitting there with the screen door latched. Loud and hashed.
He could have just asked us and we would have been happy to more party, just hippies with an OZ. Now, race doesn't matter here, does it? In Pensacola, it does. Just about that part. It never occurred to him to ask, I think. So, he had a ruse about a cat," are we missing our cat?" and he motioned under his arm. That got the screen door latch opened. The gun was under his arm.
Hmmm.....I would not have been thinking ruse, without that, I bet. As it was, we all were.
Many years later, I became a student of conflict and thus a student of Sun Tsu. What happened in that kitchen that night was straight Sun Tsu, particularly in that we naturally left him an out, and that we naturally controlled his attention and demeanor.
I also read the Dune Series after that and noticed my natural application of the VOICE by weirdly whining his Out of Here, thought....take some Hash...