Standoff (2-28-13)

Whenever I leave Ashker’s after the Wednesday night open mic I’m always feeling right. Getting a chance to share my work with others and take in theirs, plus the great community feeling that has developed there leaves me with a wonderful inspired feeling on top of the high I usually get simply from reading my work. As I make my way home down Elmwood Avenue I always feel alive and invigorated. Some nights when Elmwood is a little rowdy I wonder if I can make it home with my happy-happy-joy-joy buzz intact. I know Wednesday nights after ten aren’t exactly Friday or Saturday nights at the same time but you never know.

As I’m walking my mind is just going… savoring moments, creating, visualizing, critiquing, you know, just going. Although I’m deep in thought, I’m still aware of my surroundings. I still stop at the corners to make sure the lights are favorable to cross. I still look over my shoulder as I begin to cross to check if someone is turning and not paying attention. I still notice every person who approaches and passes. I’m good at that. I’m good at tuning the world around me down so I can turn the volume up inside and really let my mind work without turning the world completely off. Sometimes when I get so deep into thought that I don’t want to come out and someone brings me out, I get a little agitated, especially if it’s not a good reason to break up my thoughts, like someone I don’t know asking me for something, offering an unsolicited opinion or someone acting crazy or dangerous within enough proximity that I deem them a potential threat.

Things were going well. I was thinking about one of the pieces I did a few hours earlier and some adjustments I’d like to make to it and suddenly, about a half block ahead I could see and hear some guy screaming about something. I thought “that guy must be having a bad night”. He was on my side of the street, directly in my path and I would be reaching him in less than 2 minutes. I snapped out of my thoughts and then began to angrily assess the situation. Should I cross the street and avoid him? Is he much of a threat? He was facing my direction and yelling while waving his arms around irrationally.

As I started to close in I could hear some of the things he was yelling. He was screaming how no one should mess with him, although a little more graphically than that. He was screaming that he would mess up the next person who did. Then the craziest part of all happened. As I approached, coming down the sidewalk towards him he started to direct his ire at me. He started yelling for me to come get it, egging me on and telling me what he was going to do to me. He somehow thought my walking down the sidewalk towards him was me accepting his challenge. He was standing in front of the pet store right next to Acropolis. At this point I was approaching Cecelia’s and closing in on this person. The closer I got, the more upset he was getting as if I was doing it intentionally to spite him. Again my mind warned me to cross the street but it was too late. My pride had already kicked in and my rarely seen Latin temper was beginning to simmer.

I started thinking who does this guy think he is? In my neighborhood, threatening people, threatening me!

When I was a teenager and I was trying to figure a lot of things, it was as you might expect, a very frustrating time and my temper would occasionally make an appearance. Sometimes I would put my hand through wall or something could get broken. It could be that bad. I would just feel this intense rage, beyond any anger I could normally muster and then I had to release it. My father had a fiery temper too; it’s no doubt that’s where I got it from. His would come out only occasionally as well but when it did, everyone avoided him.

The last real fight I ever got into was in high school at 16. I’ve probably blogged about it before. To summarize, it was study hall, there was a kid hanging with 3 friends in the corner. I was reading a book on area colleges and was just starting to think about them. The teacher left the room unattended for several minutes and then suddenly a used blow-pop stick landed in my hair. After pulling it out and figuring out what had occurred I jumped out of my desk stormed across the room throwing desks in my wake and challenged basically all 4 of them, although mostly the one who did it, whichever one it was. When one of them was brave enough to get up I tried to kick him very hard to the face, just missing and then he tried to tackle me. Unfortunately for him he slammed into my midsection but I didn’t budge. I then reached down, grabbed him and threw him completely over my head and onto the floor and before he could figure out what had happened I pounced on him like an animal does their prey and put him into a very painful hold. Thankfully 2 teachers heard the commotion from down the hall and rushed in. When I saw them, my mind kicked back on and I realized what I was doing so I released him. If those teachers hadn’t rushed in I might have snapped something on that kid or worse. I went at him with unspeakable rage. I wasn’t dancing around, showboating or interested in anything other than neutralizing my enemy and making him pay for thinking he could disrespect me in such a way. I probably would have done anything to prevail. Afterwards I thought about that fight frequently and it scared me. It scared me how angry I was. It scared me in terms of what I was willing to do, what I could have done to that idiot, or any idiot moving forward. I could not be that angry again.

Over time I read about Dr. Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Bruce Lee and I remembered the wise lessons of Mr. Miyagi. I became attracted to the ideas of non-violence or violence only as a last resort. From that day on, I have never been in a real fight. Sure there have been some altercations, confrontations, screaming matches, insults traded but it takes a lot to get me to go. Hell it’s been over 20 years since that last one and frankly I know that the rage and that temper is still in there because every once in a while when I get really frustrated or upset I can feel it trying to bubble to the surface. I suppress it. I’ve heard of people who release their hate, their hurt and the animosity towards others. I don’t know how they do it. I’ve learned to forgive but never forget and every situation, every moment or every person who has ever hurt me deeply is still in the back of my mind, the lessons and the pain ready to rain down on the person who pushes me too far. I hope that day never comes.

After a few decades I have gotten a whole lot better at keeping myself calm in choppy waters. It takes a lot but the temper and the rage is buried in there. You know what will get it out? When someone does something malicious with seemingly no reason behind it, to myself or anyone I care about. I hate injustice and I hate seeing it or feeling it even more. I will fight against that. Also, if you know me you know I am fascinated by vigilante justice. I don’t always agree with it but I feel like at times it’s needed. A time like this was starting to feel like one of those times.

I was about 50 feet away from the guy and he wanted to fight. He wanted to go. He kept saying “c’mon mutherfucker, let’s go”. The anger was swelling inside of me. Who do you think you are! You don’t even know me! How dare you assume you can speak to me that way! My mind was trying to keep me from saying these things out loud. It was also trying to quickly decide what was going on and what I should do before reaching the point of no return as I kept walking toward him and the distance between us was shrinking fast.

As I closed to about 40 feet he reached inside the yellow garbage can attached to the street light and pulled out a bottle. My pace slowed a little. He immediately slammed it onto the sidewalk next to him. He was getting even more upset and more excited as I drew closer. Where did this guy come from? He couldn’t have been out here, almost right in front of Acropolis no less, acting like this without someone calling the police. I was starting to get really angry. I wanted to stop him and also show him that there are consequences for acting the way he was acting. I made the assumption that since he reached into the garbage can for something that could be used in a threatening manner, he did not have a real weapon on him. If he did, in the state he was in, he would have had it drawn already. This guy was in his 40’s I think, maybe 30’s and I was not afraid of him physically whatsoever, but this guy’s mind is what had me anxious. I felt like if I fought him I could use his over aggressiveness against him. I was almost sure I could defeat him, but at what cost?

Then for a slight second my mind took full control. It said, what the hell is wrong with you? You have your brand new digital camera in your backpack, you’ve already had knee and ankle issues this week… why are you trying to fight some guy who may be drunk, high, crazy or all of the above. If he was crazy, I could have locked into a fight to the death with him. Who knew? A man of my intelligence should know there is a fine line between being a man and being macho, between being brave and being stupid.

As I drew to within 20 feet of him I stopped. I took a few steps to my left and went a few feet into the street and then proceeded forward. Ideally I would have crossed the street but my pride considered this a small victory. Okay, so you’ll make me deviate a little but I’m still not going to cross the street, suck it! Pride… a fool’s best friend.   

As I passed him he was only about 10 feet to the right of me. He wanted so badly for me to indulge him. He started calling me a “cracker” and other wonderful things to try to get me to change my mind. As I walked past him my mind kept telling me not to do anything that would escalate the situation which quite frankly, it wouldn’t have taken much. He was standing his ground but he wasn’t coming after me even though I was so close by. My fists were clenched so tight and my body was throbbing I wanted to thrash this guy so bad but it had been decided, I will not antagonize, attack or do anything to provoke him. That meant no eye contact; no words and no gestures… just keep walking. If he attacked me, then and only then would I unleash my fury upon him but otherwise I would do nothing.

It wasn’t easy but I walked past him and since he was constantly screaming at me I could determine his location and the distance he was away from me without looking, pretty much at all times. I was relying heavily on my ears now. If I heard heavy hurried steps coming my way I would get into a more balanced position and be ready to throw a thrust kick into his face as he was coming in. I was so tense, my adrenaline was way up and my pride still wanted a piece of him but I kept walking. The temptation was surely there, I had to get out of there fast, but without looking afraid so my pride couldn’t complain.

After I was about 15 feet past him I began to make my way back to the sidewalk and continued down Elmwood. I could hear in his voice when I returned to the sidewalk that he was extra pissed that I came back onto “his” sidewalk and based on the slight change in his tone I thought he might come running at me from behind but thankfully I could hear the distance growing between us as he simply would not stop threatening, insulting and barking at me from that one spot. Now the priority was not stopping, not looking back because I felt like he would still take those as signs of escalation. Just keep walking, one foot in front of the other and with every step his voice grew lower and lower. He was not pursuing.

After I got a block away I felt like it was a safe enough distance to stop and look so I did. Once I crossed West Ferry and made a few steps past the corner I turned and looked and he was facing me, albeit all the way back in front of the pet store and still screaming away and making the same animated hand gestures from before. A little voice from inside which was probably my pride was asking me how I could let this guy “punk” me like that. Thankfully it was a little voice. I mean, if I had the little angel on the one shoulder and the little devil on the other both trying to influence me it would seem on this night as it is most nights the angel was 5 times bigger and 5 times louder than the devil. I walked the remaining few blocks down to Bryant with an occasional glance over my shoulder, still wound up real tight and ready to defend myself. When I got home, I sat down immediately and took a deep breath. A walk that started so joyful and excited ended so disgusted and tense. I hope the police came for this guy and stopped him from hurting someone else. I don’t know what could make a man snap like that. Was it booze? Was it a mental health issue? Was it drugs? Whatever it was thankfully it wasn’t enough to get me to snap. I may have lost the standoff but because I didn’t give in to my anger, I feel like I won.