"I know - you shot the robber. Now lie still."

He was in the E.D. for stitches. The police brought him in.

Stan was in his 70's but, for a few brief moments, he felt 20 again. The robber broke into his house, but Stan found his gun and now there was a dead body on his bedroom floor.

Stan came from one of the eastern European countries that had been swallowed up by the old Soviet Union. Though he had lived in the United States for nearly 50 years, he still spoke in a broken, Slavic-influenced English. He and his wife lived in a small wood-frame bungalow in what was once a working class neighborhood. They raised two sons who still lived near by, still visited every Sunday.

Stan and his wife had been retired for years. They had worked hard for what they had, worked hard to provide a life for themselves and their sons. They knew they were far better off here than they would have been in the old country. They were typical a working-class American success story.

"I shot him - I shot the robber."

I know. Now will you quit, already?"

"I saw him stand over me and I reached under the bed for my gun and I shoot him."

Their house was on the border of a changing neighborhood. The old neighbors, friends, had either moved, died, or were hanging on to time - one eye on the clock, the other on the calendar.

For years now they had locked their doors, even during the daytime. They grew accustomed to neighborhood break-ins.

Stan knew it was his job to be not only the provider, but now, the protector - the last barrier of defense against a newer, more violent world - an America that was as alien to him now as when he first encountered it. He was older, but still vital, still a man. So Stan bought a gun.

"I saw him. He hit me in the head, but I got my gun and shot him - then I ran next door and called the police."

We sewed up the cut on his forehead and listened again to his story.

His sons had talked to the police, then they came to the ED. I left the room. I didn't want to be there when they told him.

"I shot the robber."

"Yeah, Stan. You shot the robber.

Stan was the victim of a break-in. He heard the noise of the intruder and started to raise out of bed. A blow to the head sent him to the floor, unconscious, and the intruder fled. Stan's wife heard the noise, grabbed a flashlight and came to the side of the bed to see if her husband was OK. Stan woke up, saw a form standing over him holding a flashlight. He found his gun, brought it up to the light and fired.

I left the room when his sons came in.

"I shot the robber," he said to his boys. Then he was quiet.
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