The tip of the knife rested atop the man’s thigh having already slipped through the fibers of his pants. His foot rested on the bike pedal of a well worn, most likely stolen BMX bike, the choice transportation of the professional meth headed miscreant, both urban and rural. His attempted ambush via bicycle had not gone as planned. Having seen the large flathead screwdriver in the right hand as he approached in the dark I increased my speed to close the gap. Likely he had planned on stopping with a foot or two between us so the screwdriver would have potential threat. Now we were close enough that we were not inches apart with his leg, parallel to the bike frame was trapped between us.
As it was a cold December night my .45 was buried under a surplus European woodland camo jacket and heavy shirt. Realizing what was about to happen I discarded the idea of going for the Colt and wrapped my hand around the .22 Beretta Bobcat, stowed in the coat’s right. My mind was made up in an instant to shoot him twice as he got close. Turn and if necessary engage his partner, who was coming up behind me, bicycled as well, and help him figure out the rest of his life. There was a brief debate if I should turn and engage the guy behind me first but, I sensed that he was farther behind me than the trouble in front. Stick with the plan. This plan was solid. I was going to stop in my tracks. Shoot twice. Turn and decide to shoot or not. Simple as you please and thank you very much.
Then my brain pulled a dirty trick on me. My hand came off the tiny Beretta, went to the large folding CRKT knife that rode horizontally across my chest between the buttoned closures of the jacket, pulling and opening it to the click, and covered the distance between us.
A moment later he skidded to a stop, perpendicular to my path while I all but ran into him. Bare knife in hand. Now the screw driver was locked between his right hip and my left leg. The point of the knife now through the fabric of his pants. “You don’t want this.” was all I said, putting my face in his face. Waiting to get a knife in the ribs or a hammer to the head from his partner. I felt him adjust the grip on the screwdriver and knew this was over. That simple adjustment meant that mentally he was trying to decide. Go? No go? And he knew he didn’t have it. If his partner clubbed me from behind I would have collapsed under my own weight and the five inches of knife would have sliced through the meat of his leg and into femur.
He gave a short reverse nod, leaned on the left side of the bike to veer off and a moment later, both crossed an empty four lane street, disappearing along rail road tracks on their bikes.
Continuing up the street I eventually came to my reason of the evening, pulled the door open and felt the cold night give way to a warmer inside.
It was not well lit inside, and much of the light in the underground, unlicensed bar seemed to come from a combination of illegal slot machines, an area that passed as a stage where the less than attractive stripper attempted to whirl her body around one of two poles, and blue track lighting that followed the interior outline of the place.
Hunched over a two dollar can of beer, I caught a glance of myself in a Budweiser mirror, looking like the broken down, always busted “old man” I was attempting to look like. It was no wonder the two bad actors on bicycles had taken an interest in the man in the mirror. He had all the markings of an easy target.
Unbeknownst to them, we had encountered each other an hour earlier on the same street. Only then I had been postured and dressed somewhat differently when I conducted a foot reconnaissance of the area.
Earlier that evening, I had parked the truck in a used car lot up the street, pulled on an Orvis woodland camo jac-shirt, a black watch cap and tucked my 1911 into the waistband of dark blue jeans.
It was one of those areas that was seedy without trying, and set against a cold mid winter’s night. A block in, I saw the brace of bicyclists-in-question riding zig zag patterns in the middle of an empty street and, wondered if there would be something of it. They rode past.
The target building was noted by a steel fire door and a narrow slit of a window that ran parallel to it with a neon cigarette inside it. Lighting up one of my own from a pack kept in my undercover kit I walked around the back like I was suppose there. An exit door opened next to a homemade grease trap, then a dumpster. There was no fence to interrupt a hurried just-in-case exit out the back. The only camera was over the main entrance door. With my advanced detail done I cut down a side street making my way back to the truck.
I checked into a decent enough corporate hotel, rode the elevator up to a nice clean room with white sheets tucked fast to a king size bed. Not wanting to be out any later than I had to be after the four hour drive to get here, I set about changing my clothes. The dark jeans were traded for an old pair of faded Levis that had soot and grease stains. The frayed pockets told the tale of wear from pocket knives with G10 scales. I put on fresh socks, then some beat-to-hell-but-still-comfortable work boots. From the bathroom I took a large bath towel from the rack, to the bed where it was rolled. Laying it across my shoulders I pulled on an oversized shirt to help hold in place, giving me an immediate change in appeared posture. Back in the bathroom I worked a piece of charcoal along my cheeks, blending the soot to give the appearance of of skin condition someone could remember but did not exist. The old .45 Combat Commander slid into an old Dillon Leather holster at the five o’clock position, then covered it with the surplus army jacket. But not before adding the Otanashi Noh Ken tactical folder and the Beretta Bobcat to the mix. An old fedora with a turkey feather stuck in the hat band, and a few inches too short walking cane that encouraged me to hunch further over completed the look.
The outward appearance was that of an older man who was not in the best of shape in life. Someone no one would look twice at. I looked like nobody.
A half hour later I also looked like easy prey.
The modern dictum of the “gray man” philosophy is that you are to blend in. Disappear. The physical embodiment of a specter amongst the living. Having no one take notice of you.
It certainly sells. It’s mental pornography for the tactical world, and it is very effectively marketed.
While one can easily justify a plain looking pack that has been retrofitted to house a compact AR or PDW (Personal Defense Weapon) for the average rank and file person that is about as far as it needs to go. The moment someone starts selling you shirts and jackets to be a “gray man” just know that you are the product.
For a while, after the corporate career ended I disregarded any type of professional dress. My mind immediately recalls a meeting with a high level executive who was being blackmailed. We were to meet at his office at corporate headquarters. He was in a suit, I was in a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a black leather jacket, with my .45 in a shoulder rig. I had all the cocksureness of youth and actual ability. The bravado to my credit was not false, but it was “a bit” much. I had all the subtleness of a wrecking ball at a grand opening.
A week or so later, after I had resolved his personal crisis, we met again at his office. Though I still wore jeans, I traded the t-shirt for white buttoned down, and covered my pistol with a sport coat. He had not asked me to do so, but I felt it in the room during the first meeting, and had adjusted accordingly.
Learn to read the room, and treat the world around you as the room. Because the “culture” that tells you to be a “gray man” isn’t a culture at all. It is a marketing team spread across electronic devices selling you their wares.
You might have need for a “low vis” piece of gear. You also may be trying to justify your desire to chase a trend. We often talk about “the war” against this, or that. The Country. The Family. The Environment. History, etc., but the one we don’t often talk about is the covert war against your wallet.
I spend an enormous amount of time observing the world from street level, and have done so for decades now. Long enough to span two different centuries across much of America and good swaths of the globe. Sitting in vehicles, cafe’s, airports, hotel lobbies, walking through conventions, sitting in hotel bars eaves dropping on conversations, and taking notice of it all. The harder you try to blend in, the less you often do.
