"Our kids will need to know about this."

We had two windows on the front of our apartment—one leading onto the fire escape, and the other just looking out over the street. We had built wooden shutters over both to prevent junkies from breaking in. Most of the time we kept them securely locked from the inside.

Evie and I each opened one of the shutters again, and this time stuck our heads out. It was a warm evening. Evie had just finished her last day of work at the bank, we had withdrawn all our money, and we were anxious to get on our way. But how could we? We had one thing in our favor—we could wait them out. We knew that eventually they would grow impatient, and take off. Junkies are not patient people.

Our plan had been to snatch up our remaining belongings, and run down the stairs toward the street. Once outside, we would jump in the front of the truck, tossing our laundry bags full of goodies in ahead of us, and stealthily slip out of town.

Our lead-up planning did not foresee that the path to our truck would become a war zone; that the street people would choose this place and this time to stage their final attack. I leaned out the window, and spotted seven or eight of them leaning against our building on the truck side of our front door, and a couple others sitting on our hood. The battle lines were drawn, but not by us.

As the situation stood at that moment, there was no obvious way to escape. Furthermore, their numbers, and the way they had laid out the battlefield, strongly suggested that robbery was not their ultimate goal—I was to be killed, perhaps Evie as well.

As soon as we would get past the guys leaning on the building, we would be confronted by those sitting on our hood—they would simply slide off and block the truck door. Then those leaning on the building would attack us from the rear, probably with a slug or blade to the spine. I recognized one of the junkies from an earlier encounter. At that time he had used a chrome-plated 38 Special in an effort to rob me. I had no reason to think that he would have discarded this firearm. He was positioned to come at us from the rear.

They had numbers, and they had weapons. We were in trouble.

The only solution I came up with would be for me to brandish my 12 gauge pump. I knew that would certainly land me (maybe us) in jail. Instead, we decided to wait them out.

But sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes chance is your most faithful ally. This was to be one of those times.

Suddenly, as Evie and I stood there with our heads still poking out our windows, we heard a "pop," then another; followed two seconds later by a third "pop."

"Ev! Those are gunshots!" I exclaimed. "Those are gunshots! Who’s shooting?"

Then it unfolded before our eyes. Out of a bar about six doors down the street bolted a shirtless sprinter. He was bounding toward us faster than I had ever seen a junkie run. Peering behind as much as ahead, he ran up the middle of the street, right past our truck, and right past our junkie/dealer "buddies."

In his right hand was a revolver, and in his left hand a wad of bills. Just behind him was the proprietor of the bar, with a still-smoking black snub-nose pistol in his right hand. He was old and fat, and sloppily bedecked in a neck apron, untied and dangling. It was obvious he had no chance of catching the robber who had already sped out of snub-nose range.

So, instead of firing more shots, the overweight pursuer merely staggered to a halt right below us, and there fired off a litany of ethnic slurs at his no-longer visible target. After a couple deep breaths, he then contented himself to lower his pistol and turn back toward his bar.

His retreat was greeted by a chorus of jeers from his unsavory audience. They, of course, sided with the robber.

"That idiot just robbed the bar! Can you believe it? This is it! This is our chance!" I shouted to Evie. Her mouth opened, but she never said a thing.

Without a split-second’s hesitation, I ran to the phone and dialed the NYPD. This was the first and last time I ever enlisted their help.

"I want to report a robbery in progress! A man just robbed a bar! Shots were fired! The address? 531 East Sixth Street!" I exclaimed, affecting as much excitement as possible.

Now, the crime had actually occurred at something like 500 East Sixth, but I didn’t want the cops stopping six or seven buildings up the street. I wanted them stopping at our address—531 East Sixth Street.

"My name? Roger Smith. Yes, I will wait inside." Then I hung up.

I scurried around the apartment grabbing our laundry bags. I positioned them right by the door. I then went back to the window and waited for the signal to make our escape. "When the cops get here, we’re gonna have to move quickly. Grab the camera bag and follow me," I told Evie. I adjusted the wrist strap on my big stick to ensure that it could not be easily wrestled away, and put the truck keys in my mouth.

Within seconds we saw the first cop car approach. We bolted to the door, grabbing the laundry bags as we ran out.

By the time we hit the street, there were half a dozen emergency vehicles pulling up, some even taking positions on the sidewalk.

One of my "buddies," was redirecting an officer to the bar up the street, while others were pointing down the street indicating where the robber had run.

We had timed it perfectly. We pushed right through the initial line of junkies. They had moved away from the building a bit to get a better look at the excitement. When we got to our truck, I dropped my bag and

quickly unlocked and opened the driver’s side door. I tossed the laundry bags across the seat. The cameras landed on the floor, and the weapons came to rest against the passenger door.

Evie then jumped in, sliding over as far as she could to make room for me.

We still had a couple unwanted hood ornaments sitting on our truck, even as I cranked the engine. Startled, they turned around to see what was happening. I flashed them my biggest smile, and shoved the shifter into reverse. They knew the time had come to give up.

We had won.

Their immense frustration was obvious. They had been so very determined to get me. But again they failed, just as I imagine they failed at everything else they had ever attempted in life.

While two or three officers interrogated the junkies, I backed our Chevy up until I felt the rear bumper gently thud against the lamp-less car behind me. I whipped the wheel to the right and eased ahead until I bumped the car in front. Backing up again, I felt the curb. I whipped the wheel again to the right, and pulled onto the street, narrowly missing a cruiser that sped past in pursuit of the robber. The officer inside gave me a dirty look.

"Mike, we forgot to tell Mrs. Bono goodbye. Should we go back?" Evie said, finally smiling.

"I don’t think so," I followed, forcing a nervous laugh.

With four truck wheels moving down East Sixth Street, and with us inside, Evie and I were finally confident that we had successfully eluded the bad guys, hopefully for the last time.

But we also realized that without the timely distraction of the bar robbery, this chapter of our lives might have had a different ending. In fact, dozens of times throughout the years, as I contemplated this amazing event, I wondered how it might have turned out had these guys simply put a knife through one of our tires, or pried open the lock on the back of the camper, and tossed our stuff on the street. That would have changed the whole dynamic of the situation.

We inched past the last cruiser; this one parked a few car-lengths down the street.

"No need to hurry now," I said, probably trying to convince myself that we were safe at last.

"Man, can you believe all the cops out here?" I commented. "I think they show up in greater numbers if they think they might get to shoot someone."

"That’s good for us," Evie said, as she turned around as if to look back. Of course, she could not, because there was no window in the camper. "Goodbye Mrs. Bono. Goodbye East Sixth Street. Goodbye New York."

For the next ten minutes I concentrated on fighting rush hour traffic; but I still observed that a thick quiet had settled over us. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Evie was stirring. I glanced over at her, and saw her reaching into her purse for a tissue. Her dark brown eyes had filled with tears. She was silently sobbing.

I then said, trying to console us both: "We had a great time, didn’t we? …We’ll come back. …Whenever you leave someplace, you take a part of it with you." My eyes were stinging with tears.

Several long minutes passed. "Hello Philly," Evie finally squeaked out.

We looked at each other, and forced a smile.

And so it happened. With map in hand, gas in tank, hopes high, cash (but not very much) in pocket; and with a treasure trove of rich memories from our first years together, our Chevy pickup popped out of the tunnel into a bright New Jersey sunset.

Evie and I were now officially on our way to our next great adventure.

We did not say much during the remainder of the trip—there was not a lot that needed saying. But one thought did galvanize itself deep into the creases of my brain, never to be forgotten: "We must chronicle our experiences in New York."

Then Evie confirmed my thinking. With nose running, and makeup streaking down her face, she mumbled: "Mike, someday we have to write a book about our life together in New York. We just have to. Our kids will need to know about this."

"We will," I replied.

Then I thought for a minute, "Did she say ‘kids’?"

Well, we have now been married for over forty years. She was right, we did have kids—four of them, and six grandchildren to date.

And what follows is our effort to record (in a roughly chronological fashion) the story that we contemplated doing nearly forty years ago.

As you read the books in this series, you will find them to be filled more with romance, excitement and history, than with the sort of violence that marked our last moments in the city.

Also, you most likely will conclude that our story reads more like two stories in one binding. That’s because once you get past the introductory comments, Evie and I each record our own version of events—Evie tells the story the way she remembers it, and I tell it my way.

Of course, Evie thinks her version is the correct one; while I believe mine to be the more accurate. At no point does either one of us seek to be dishonest or misleading, we simply remember things differently, some of the time.

In the end, you the reader will make the determination as to who is right, who is wrong, and who is just honestly mistaken.