The Roanoke Times

Printed Sept. 26, 2000

Lying in a puddle of his own blood, John Collins played dead.

Around him, turmoil reigned. Bullets flew through the air. People were screaming, crying, diving for cover.

He felt the arms of his good friend, Danny Overstreet, wrapped tightly around his legs. But suddenly, the grip loosened ever so slightly.

"I realized Danny was already gone," Collins said. "There was nothing I could do for him."

Collins was lucky. One of the most seriously injured in the Friday night shooting at the Backstreet Cafe, he lived to tell the tale of losing his friend of 25 years and to tell the horror that filled the Salem Avenue bar that night.

He almost didn't make it. Doctors told his mother, Lois Collins, that it was touch and go. Shot in the stomach, Collins lost parts of both intestines and his colon. He'll have to wear a colostomy bag for at least three months before another operation to try to repair the damaged organs.

The emotional damage is another thing.

Speaking Monday afternoon from his room in Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, the 39-year-old Northwest Roanoke man recounted the minutes when a man opened fire in the crowded bar, killing one and wounding six.

A drifter named Ronald Edward Gay was later arrested and charged with murder in connection with the shooting.

Less than a half-hour earlier, Gay had told an employee at another bar he wanted to "go waste some faggots," police said.

Collins was at the bar, known to cater to gays and lesbians, at the invitation of Overstreet. It was a place he periodically went to hang out with friends and play a few rounds of pool.

The night started uneventfully. Collins saw some buddies at the bar and grabbed a stool. He ordered a Zima and went to the bathroom. When he returned, he saw Overstreet at a table with another friend.

Collins grabbed his Zima and went to say hello. He knelt down and chatted for a few minutes. As he got up, he leaned over and gave Overstreet a hug. Collins is always hugging people, his mother says.

Then it began.

The bearded man sitting across the table stood up. He pulled a gun from beneath a black trench coat and looked Collins in the eye.

The man fired. A bullet pierced Collins' stomach.

"It was so fast," Collins said. "I said to myself, 'This isn't happening.' I looked down and saw the blood, and it started burning. It was a terrible, terrible burn. I went down to the floor. I was crawling toward the door. The pain was so intense, and there was so much blood."

While crawling, Collins felt Overstreet latch onto his legs. The man was still shooting, so Collins stopped, thinking that if he wanted to survive, he had better play dead. Then the pop-pop-pop that sounded more like firecrackers than bullets stopped.

The man stepped over Collins and headed for the door. Collins, on his side, felt the long coat rake across his shoulder. When the man left, pandemonium grew as patrons tried to help the wounded.

Overstreet, shot in the chest, was dead. Collins and five others were rushed to the hospital. Monday, he and one other victim, Iris Page Webb of Dublin, remained at Roanoke Memorial. Webb, shot in the neck, still is in very serious condition.

Collins, speaking calmly, said the reality of what happened hasn't quite sunk in. He does know, however, that he's angry. He's angry that his friend had to die. Angry that he is in so much pain. Angry that a stranger so filled with hate changed so many lives forever.

National gay and lesbian activist groups have called the shooting one of the worst anti-gay attacks in U.S. history.

In his hospital room, his mother pleads with him not to hate. Hate, after all, is what brought him here in the first place.

But Collins is adamant.

"I don't know if I can ever forgive him," he said. "Maybe eventually. It'll give me some time to figure out why. But when you kill a man right in front of me who means something to me, then right now I can hate this man."

Since the shooting, Collins has had nightmares in which he relives the scene again and again.

He knows that once he gets out of his hospital bed, he'll have a huge task before him. He'll have to come to grips with the fact that Overstreet, a perpetually happy man who was the brother Collins never had, is gone.

"The doctors want to get my body working before I start dealing with my mind," Collins said. "I haven't had time to mourn his death yet. That's coming."

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