Episode Twenty-Four - The Interview - Paul Black

Running into a hitman really wasn't part of Paul's plan after his end-of-school party. In this longer episode hear the story of how he saved both him and his date's lives. From his quick reaction time to a sloped driveway-everything was on his side.

Transcript

In front of a large,

Huge kind of Tudor mansion-ish kind of home,

This guy was doing a car,

Was turfing the yard.

But what was unusual was the light was on inside the cabin of the car so you could see the occupants.

This kind of Sopranos-esque,

Wise-guy-ish looking guy with greasy,

Slick back hair and his beehive hairdo girlfriend.

And they're turfing this yard.

He spins it around to his nose-to-nose with us.

And we're probably about 20 feet apart.

And we can see everything that's going on in the cabin.

And I look to Ann and she's like,

What the hell is going on?

What is this?

The girl is at his arm,

Tugging him not to do something.

And he's all pissed off and throws it in park and goes to the glove compartment and steps out and walks in front of the car.

He hits this combat stance and aims a gun at us.

And Ann goes,

Oh,

My God,

I think he's got a gun.

I jam it reversed and floor it.

Well,

I introduced myself as Lord Paul Black,

You know,

And no,

I'm just kidding.

But no,

If I'm at a cocktail party and someone goes,

What do you do?

You know,

That kind of thing.

I usually tell them I'm a creative director in advertising and I write novels.

I used to teach tennis and I would always tell people at any one time one of them was making me money.

You know,

It actually does that little trifecta of what I do pretty much sums up what my life is about,

Too.

It's about creativity.

It's about health and sports and athletics.

And it's about storytelling.

And people usually yawn and walk away.

Everyone breaks their life,

If they are older,

As I am,

They'll break their life into probably periods that they lived through.

You know,

We all had our early 20s and 30s and then we had our middle ages,

So to speak.

And now I'm entering my third act at age 63.

And early in my life,

My world was centered around the sport of gymnastics.

I was an international competitive gymnast.

And at one week in my senior year,

I was number one in the world at what I did.

You know,

My score was a 10-0 and that put me at number one and blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And,

You know,

For a day,

You know,

Until some European guy crushed it or the new numbers came out on a Monday,

You know,

That type of thing.

I have that little claim to fame,

But I was a national champion twice.

And I was the number one recruit in the country for gymnastics at that time.

You know,

You work very,

Very hard at that level.

You know,

It dominated my life up until,

Oh,

My early 20s,

Until I graduated.

I think if you put your mind to things,

It's amazing what you can accomplish.

And I've put my mind to a lot of things in my life.

What I tell people when I'm doing a book signing or whatever,

I'm out schlepping the books,

I'll ask them,

What do they like to read?

And they'll tell me,

And then I'll go,

You know,

Do you ever read like Michael Crichton or something like that?

Oh,

Yes,

I love Michael Crichton.

I've read all his books or whatever.

And I go,

Well,

My books are very similar.

My books often center around a protagonist who is thrust into greatness,

Kicking and screaming,

You know,

That kind of thing and how they deal with it and the adversity of that.

My books,

If you went to Barnes & Noble,

You would find them in science fiction and you would find them right next to Ray Bradbury,

Since my last name is Black,

You know,

It's in good company on the book,

On the shelf,

As they say.

My family is all from Wisconsin,

And so that's Lutheran,

Pretty,

Pretty solid Lutheran folks.

My mom and dad were raised Lutheran,

But we're not heavy practicing religious people.

So I grew up in a non-denominational-esque household.

Early in,

I have two brothers,

Both much older,

And in our early childhood,

Our parents took us to a Unitarian or a unity church,

A non-denominational church.

I think our household was a little more science-based,

If that is a way to posture it.

You know,

My dad was a corporate executive and my mom was a stay-at-home mom and raised her sons.

And that's the world I lived in,

Upper-middle-class Chicago suburb.

In our Rockwellian suburb that we lived in,

In Hinsdale,

This is a 1975,

To give you some clarity of time frame.

And again,

In my high school career was centered around academics and gymnastics,

Mostly gymnastics.

I went out on a date,

First-time date,

With a girl.

And we went to a end-of-the-year,

Senior-year party kegger-basher at someone's home.

And toward the end of the night,

And I never drank that much in high school,

We were bored with the parties.

So she goes,

Hey,

You want to go see what her dad was an architect,

Pretty well-known architect in the town or in the Chicago area and did residential.

And she goes,

You want to go look at some homes,

You know,

He's just completed,

Which I think was code for you want to go next somewhere,

You know,

Which was great.

And I was like,

Yes,

Ma'am.

It was in southern part of our town,

Which was a little more rural or whatever,

But larger lots and more wooded and that type of thing.

And these were pretty big homes.

We were coming up a hill in a wooded area.

These streets did not have curbs.

They were soft shoulders.

In front of a large,

Huge kind of Twitter mansion-ish kind of home,

This guy was doing a car,

Was turfing the yard,

Which in of itself is not that unusual,

Quite odd,

But what was unusual was the light was on inside the cabin of the car.

So you could see the occupants,

This kind of Sopranos-esque wise guy-ish looking guy with greasy,

Slick back hair and his beehive hairdo girlfriend.

And they're turfing this yard in this kind of nondescript sedan of the time period.

And he comes flying off the front yard and cuts me off at the top of this little kind of hill that we were coming up to.

And it's late at night.

It's probably midnight.

He spins it around to his nose to nose with us.

And we're probably about 20 feet apart and we can see everything that's going on in the cabin.

And you know,

I'm like,

I look to Ann and she's like,

What the hell is going on?

What is this?

And I can't get around him because he's in the middle of the road.

It's a narrow road.

And the girl is at his arm,

Tugging him not to do something.

And he's all pissed off and throws it in park and goes to the glove compartment and steps out and walks in front of the car.

And now he's a silhouette because of his headlights.

And he hits this combat stance and aims a gun at us.

And Ann goes,

Oh my God,

I think he's got a gun.

And I push her down in the seat.

We have bucket seats in this particular car,

Sedan,

My mom's car,

And I jam it reverse and scrunch down and floor it.

And this guy unloads his clip into our car as we careen back down the hill,

Veer off the road,

Hit a drain pipe and embankment kind of thing and become airborne and fly through a hedge of bushes and land in a front yard of a ranch style home,

A big long front yard,

Can see through the hedge of the path of destruction I just made and see the guy pop the clip out,

Dig out of his pocket another clip,

Slam it like out of a movie,

You know,

Out of a slasher movie in this imposing figure all silhouetted,

You know,

From his headlights,

Throw another clip into the gun and come trotting down the road toward us.

The car is damaged,

The gearshift is damaged,

It's stuck in drive,

It's digging and kind of in reverse in the front yard.

And I can't get out of my door because the hedge that I just plowed through is smashed up against my driver's side door and opens her door.

I said,

Go,

Get out,

Get to that house run.

Because now it's,

You know,

This guy obviously is out to kill us.

I mean,

He's out to finish the job he did not do.

And I mean,

Bullets went flying through the cabin and hitting the windshield and pinging off and whizzing by and Ann jumps out of the car,

I crawl out of the council,

We're running up the front yard jumping onto this guy,

You know,

Running on this guy's driveway or this family's driveway,

Running around the side of the home to the back door of this ranch style home.

We both leaped over,

She was a track person,

You know,

So she like leaped over the little hedge around the patio,

You know,

Like a sprinter,

You know,

And we come up to the back door and it has windows,

Eight pane windows.

I smashed one in,

Reach around,

Unlock the door and like literally go in because we were freaking out at this time.

Because we didn't know this guy was like running after us.

We I didn't stop to look we just hauled ass.

We play break into this home and it's the kitchen pitch black in the house.

All the while I'm really screaming at the top of my lungs,

Please don't hurt us.

Please don't hurt us.

Save us.

We're like being shot at.

Please help us.

There's this guy who walks in,

I can see a shadow in the kitchen,

You know,

He's like,

Just get out of my house.

Like sir,

Sir,

Sir,

Please,

You got to help us.

There's a person that's not trying to kill us.

He's been shooting,

You know,

Like freaking out.

And this guy reaches into a drawer and I can't see him well because he's,

It's all dark and he's a dark figure.

He reaches in and pulls a knife out,

You know,

Big butcher knife.

And he's like walking up to me like with it aimed at me and I like I'm literally like crouching going sir,

Please,

You know,

I've got my hands like in front of me pleading,

Please help us because I don't like we can't leave this guy's out to kill us.

And Ann has been trying to find a light switch and she hits the lights.

So it finally finds it like going along the wall,

You know,

Because it's super dark and the guy is buck naked.

And Ann's like,

Whoa,

You know,

She puts her hands over her eyes and turns around and the guy's like over me with the knife now.

And he's like,

He's like,

Oh shit.

And Ann goes,

Oh my God,

Have you seen your arm?

And I went,

No.

And I looked at my,

I look at my left arm and the side of me,

I am covered.

I was wearing a yellow polo shirt and it is just drenched in blood because when I busted the window and reached around it,

A little shard,

I guess,

In the pain caught the edge of my arm and I just kind of,

You know,

Just scraped it along and opened up a big gash,

But I never felt it.

I wrap a towel around that.

The guy comes back with the robe on,

The kids are now beginning to kind of stumble down the hallway.

What's going on?

You know,

Rubbing sleep out of their eyes,

You know,

That kind of thing.

And the guy is like,

You are,

You're,

You're both on drugs.

You're high,

You know,

You're high.

You wouldn't get shy at,

I'm calling the police.

I said,

Great,

Call the police,

Call them.

You know,

I said,

If you don't believe me,

I'll walk you to your front yard and you can look and see what's going on in your front yard.

He says,

All right,

Fine.

And we go to the front yard and we walk out to the car and it's in reverse,

You know,

Spraying mud up into the air,

You know,

Cause I couldn't get the linkage out and there was all these bullet holes across the windshield.

Right.

And the guy likes,

You know,

Literally scratches the back of his neck and goes,

God damn,

You did get shot at.

I go,

This is what I've been trying to tell you,

You know?

And he goes,

Okay,

Okay,

We'll,

You know,

We'll call the police.

So we go back into the home,

Shut the door.

No,

No sooner we get into the kitchen,

There's like a knock at the front door.

And for some bizarre reason,

I go,

I'll get it.

I don't know why I just walked to the front door and there's a guy with a big,

You know,

Mag light there standing there and he flashes it in my face and he goes,

You know,

He swings it at me.

He swings it to the car in the front yard,

Swings it back and he goes,

Do you own this car?

It's just like,

No,

Hello,

No,

You know,

No introduction.

He just goes,

Do you own this car?

I go,

Well,

Well,

Yes I do.

He goes,

Shakes his head.

He goes,

I'm detective.

I can't remember his name.

I'm detective Johnson.

You know,

We were on a stakeout about a half a mile away and we heard like world war three over here.

What the hell is going on?

And I quickly,

I go,

You know,

I explained it.

My date and I were to have been shot at for no reason.

You know,

I don't know what's going on.

And I mean,

In 10 minutes,

Every emergency vehicle in Hinsdale and the tri-state area was coming in and it's just mayhem.

You know,

It's now it's another form of a movie set happening.

One of the state troopers goes,

You know,

You gotta go to the hospital.

You're you're you need,

This is deep.

You know,

You can see the bone.

This is bad.

And I'm like,

Okay,

Yeah,

Great,

Fine.

I get in this big ambulance.

I'm just sitting there,

You know,

These two emergency,

You know,

These two EMT guys sitting there and we're not saying anything,

You know,

Because they put a bandaid on it.

That was it.

You know,

Like they were wrapping me up and then I'm just sitting there riding back to the hospital,

You know,

And the one EMT looks at me and he goes,

He points and he goes,

You're Paul Black.

Yes,

I am.

How did you know that?

And he goes,

You beat my brother in state in gymnastics.

And he goes,

No,

He goes,

No,

You did a great routine,

Man.

You beat him fair and square,

But you beat him,

Dammit.

We wanted him to win.

At the hospital,

There's all these people from the party.

One guy laid his motorcycle down with his girlfriend on the back and they all got torn up.

Another guy was backing out of the driveway at the party and ran over a friend of his foot.

You know,

It's just,

You know,

It's classic kegger nightmare shit,

You know,

In a small little suburb town of Chicago is dealing with all these crazies.

I walk in and they go,

Hey Black,

You know,

What'd you do?

You know,

And I went,

Well,

I was shot at,

Dead silent.

I mean,

Even the nurses like all turn around like this and I'm like holding my hand,

One nurse grabs my hand,

The bullet did this?

You've been shot by a bullet?

I go,

No,

No,

No.

This is when I broke into the home,

You know,

And the people are like,

What?

Two days later,

We had to go back to the guy's house,

The family's home,

Because obviously my dad's insurance is going to have to pay for,

You know,

Fixing the hedge and fixing the yard and the break into the house and blah,

Blah,

Blah.

You know,

So my dad's got to meet with this guy and handle all that shit.

We get there and the kid is kid.

One of the kids is playing bass shooting hoops in the driveway.

The guy isn't home from work yet.

So we're waiting outside and at the end of the driveway,

Slowly driving by is the car with the girl in it.

I casually looked to my left.

I remember this vividly looking and,

And again,

It kind of slowed down.

She was slowly looking and she saw it.

We made eye contact because she was kind of looking over the passenger seat,

Kind of looking up the driveway and her eyes got really big when she saw it.

And I went,

I like pointed at her,

Dad,

Dad,

There's the car,

There's the car,

That's her,

That's her,

That's her.

And I went running down the driveway and she sped off and I got three numbers off the sixth number license plate.

And so I had the detective,

The original guy who flashed the mag light in my eyes.

He gave me his card before I got into the ambulance.

So I called the guy and I said,

I've got,

I told him this story.

He goes,

Wow.

He goes,

That never happens.

Give me those numbers.

Three,

Four weeks later,

The detective calls me,

You know,

I'm in the dorms.

I get a call and he goes,

Well,

You want to know the story?

You want to know what happened?

And I go,

Lay it on me,

Man.

You know,

And he proceeds to tell me that it's a case of wrong place,

Wrong time.

Like he goes,

Because of the license plate number you got,

We could track trace the car came out of Detroit.

It was stolen.

And he said,

More than likely the home that the guy was terfing.

We don't know why he was surfing.

It was the president CEO of a large corporation in Chicago,

Downtown Chicago,

Who was the middle of very,

Very,

Very difficult union negotiations with labor labor union negotiations.

And he goes,

We believe that this guy was a hit man out of Detroit.

And you just came up on him before either he was about to do something bad.

He may have thought you were the president coming home or he flipped out and was shaken or,

You know,

He goes,

We think it was probably thought you were the president.

And he was there to either send a message from the boys of the America,

Detroit or kill.

And we think kill.

And the reason we think that is when we dusted your car and did all that,

This guy was,

Had you not thrown it in reverse and gone backwards down a hill,

Thus raising the hood of your car up a little bit as you went backwards,

Kind of deflecting some of the bullets.

He goes,

The first rounds would have gone right into your head and in your dates head and you would have been killed.

I mean,

This guy was out to do it.

So as you kind of have thought about this incident over the years,

And as you've gotten older,

Do you ever replay it in your mind and think,

My God,

All of the things that had to go right for us to escape and be alive?

Well,

That's a very good segue because when I went back and did a little research,

I researched near death experiences and what happens during a near death experience and why does your perspective slow down into slow motion?

Because it did for me in the car.

And the medical theories behind it are that the brain does this.

And there's a lot of studies on it,

Obviously a lot with soldiers,

A lot with people who have crashed a plane and lived to tell about it or whatever.

When you are in a hyper intense situation,

When adrenaline is flooding,

The medical theory behind it is that the brain,

It's a not prehistoric,

But it is a that kind of part of our brains click on and perspective as it comes back into the brain from our senses is actually slowed down by the brain in order for you to do the right things,

To perceive and put the car in gear and push and down and scrunch down and hit the accelerator and watch out the side window if you're actually driving semi straight and all of those things,

Your brain does this to give you a fighting chance to survive.

It's instinctual.

It's a survival instinctual mechanism that your brain clicks into for four seconds,

One second,

Two seconds,

Enough to make you dodge the whatever the lion that's coming to eat you.

I can tell you it works.

It exists.

It happens.

It does happen.

That's what the cop said too.

The other cop goes,

Man,

A lot of people would freeze up and go,

And then you'd be dead.

You just went click,

Click,

Click,

Boom,

Boom and hit it.

He goes,

You had to have done it so fast because his reaction time to fire the rounds off takes a second because he was lifting the pistol up in a combat stance like a cop would both hands on the gun.

I mean,

This guy probably was ex-military or whatever,

But no,

He wasn't just shooting because he was drunk or whatever.

He was like,

I'm going to kill you.

He was a pro.

He was a pro.

That's what the guy said to detectives that he goes,

Hit man pro.

But do you ever look at what happened that night as a miracle?

No,

I don't.

I personally think of miracles as what Jesus did in the sense of a blind man touches eyes.

He can see.

I mean,

That's,

That's a miracle.

Yeah.

I know I don't look at it as a miracle.

I look,

If there was a miracle,

I reacted very quickly.

Maybe if we want to drill down and pinpoint a intervention of a God-like thing.

Yes.

That God gave me the wherewithal or I was born with the instinctual reflection,

Reflexive ability to do in those four seconds,

The things that I needed to do.

Okay.

Maybe there's the little miracle.

You could go,

All right,

God gave you the opportunity.

And I took it.

I acted,

I ran,

I put us in reverse.

I got us out of harm's way.

Now God may have,

If we want to talk this way,

Gave me that little four second break.

And then it's up to me.

It's up to me and Ann.

One of the things that I'm thinking of,

Just listening to your story and for me,

And you discussed it already,

You already said it,

That you responded so quickly in that four or five seconds.

And think of you and if we want to use the term God and how you were created and there's that saying,

I am fearfully and wonderfully made and God made you into an elite athlete.

I mean,

You were absolutely at that time at your prime or getting into your prime of being just at this level that pretty much most humans on the planet aren't able to be in.

And so the miracle for me is that you are this elite athlete.

You are like the person that needed to be there in that moment because you were able to respond so quickly and get the both of you out of trouble.

I just,

That's just what I think.

I think it's like,

Oh my gosh,

If I'm being shot at by a hit man who has maybe a death warrant out on the president.

When I happen to stumble across him,

I want someone who has the abilities of Spiderman at my side.

This has been episode 24 of bite-sized blessings,

The podcast all about the magic and spirit that surrounds us.

If only we open our eyes to it and whether you choose to listen to our bite-sized offerings for that five to 10 minutes of freedom in your day or the longer interviews were grateful.

You're here.

I need to thank the author Paul black for sharing his story today,

As well as the creators of the music used Raphael crux,

Kevin McLeod,

Alexander Nakarada and Agnese.

For complete attribution,

Please see the bite-sized blessings website at bite-sized blessings.

Com on the website.

You'll find links to other episodes,

To books,

Music,

And change makers.

I think we'll lift and inspire you.

Thank you for listening and here's my one request.

Be like Paul,

Embrace science and the truth while still being open to the mystery.

Square.