Walk away.

As I stood in some crippled boxer stance in the middle of an asphalt parking lot not one block from my house, it slowly occurred to me. The potentiality was very real that I might get even more fucked up than I could possibly imagine. It shot through me slow, almost as if the delayed dusk had lowered its curtains around whatever stage the four of us wavered on. The hidden splint that housed a partial disconnection of bone in my elbow was burning from whatever Miyagi inspired block I had raised in defense. Where moments before the most perplexing assailant, a vertically challenged Puerto Rican child, had come running out of the bleak portal of a residential street like an illegitimate bastard en route to avenging his father.

There is nothing all that special about a person like myself getting jumped. The more I relay the story to people by rote, the more I convince myself of this. Would it not have happened, we would have been speaking about an earlier incident that was far more banal. Approximately eight days prior I spent most of the day working on cell phones for work on my day off while listening to my friend’s radio show. Ironically, in between calls with high-level admins I had spent the brunt of that day skating around Wicker Park. Sometime later after finally finishing the support documentation, I decided to take my garbage out and head for a late dinner.

I remember quite vividly the last thoughts going through my head as I slipped on a chitinous patch of black ice in the cobblestone alley. I caught the glint in the halogen off the street and thought quite fondly of it being something out of a Geiger painting. And then I heard the crack. That was the crack that replayed over and over as I sat in bed the next three nights writhing in pain. On Tuesday, I finally made it into the Orthopedic Surgeon to discover that I had sliced a clean fracture into the cap of my elbow much like a slice of ham on a deli slicer. On Wednesday, I finally procured a bottle of Norco by prescription, which amounted to almost five days without pain relievers. Incidentally, Wednesday being the last day I imbibed the 10mg’s of Hydrocodone after losing my keys in a heated battle over a credit card payment with a fuming taxi driver who implied that if I was so poor to use such devices that I should ride the bus like the rest of my kind.

Walking around in a sling had been the best thing up until that fateful standoff early Sunday night against a trio of gang bangers. Everyone spoke to you. And everyone asked you that same question. Well, everyone except for that random cabbie. But still, how did it happen? And it had become an opportunity of sorts. Because the answer to the question was Pavlovian at this point. I began reciting the answer in my head even before the lips parted. The ice broken by bone which left the rocky floes wide open for other topics of discussion. As painfully obvious as it were, I was the one who was weak with the clipped wing and the head full of endorphins. And suddenly, not so much of a threat.

This is to say I’ve never really thought of myself as threatening as funny or ridiculous as that might sound to some of you. People had said it often in the past. That I was intimidating before they had officially held more than a two second conversation with me. I’m not the happiest looking person and my features aren’t the most relaxed. But unguarded and miserable, interpersonal warmth felt as inviting as a sewer grate spewing hot air in the middle of a subzero ice storm. And so there I was high on the fact that I could finally go somewhere alone and not appear scared or awkward because someone would inevitably ask that question. And my mouth would move accordingly. And the answers would be predictable and soothing.

Good times.

The polar opposite became true as I swung the six-pack of PBR in a nondescript black bag at the taller youth’s foot who was draped in some bluish all over print hoodie that looked like it had been scribbled on with cartoon sperm. “Just take the beer, dude… and walk away.” And walk away. Like you had an option. Seconds before that little fuck came barreling down the sidewalk apparently unaware that I could hear his plodding feet like a little kid banging down the stairs Christmas morning. I had swiveled around and saw the look on his face contorted as he blurted out the words as guttural as possible. “Give me the fucking money.” And as if to either accentuate the point or simply follow the arc of intention he planned on in the first place as he jumped up and swung; only to hit the phantom plastic of the bent splint hidden underneath my jacket.

I stood there in disbelief. I mean how else can you stand in a situation like that. Stand in amusement. Stand and deliver. Stand and sit cross-legged on the pavement while spouting ancient Navajo proverbs. So I stood dumbfounded. And as if to answer with a slap in the face, they formed a trinity. And one of the newest additions to the group uttered the coldest words I never wanted to hear.

“Lets get this motherfucker.”

It was then I knew as the tendons burned in my arm that I was truly fucking helpless. That however cute or attractive it was to be that guy in the sling that you wanted to nurse back to health now was a liability. That I was ready to be left on the ground similar to my friend Matt who was beaten unconscious blocks away and left for dead only to wake up in an ambulance with a concussion.

“Where is the fucking cell phone?”

Chalk it up to being slow, I answered “I don’t have any” to both questions. And my body began to bounce in place, itching further from the sidewalk and closer to the open parking lot where I learned to skid two seasons prior and where my deck rolled back and forth in the spring air, trucks bending in the breeze. As I inched back, the look came across their collective face. A look of equal parts confusion and surprise. And that’s when I threw the beer at their feet like someone throwing meat to a pack of hungry dogs.

Just walk.

“Lets go.”

And with that I sprinted as fast as I possibly could. My pride dying in a chokehold in the middle of that parking lot. Twenty minutes later, I stood in front of a pair of cops far more concerned with the pot smoke emitting from the artist studios on the first floor than my narrow brush with further handicaps. And later, I sat on the floor of my apartment.

And yes, I fucking cried. For reasons beyond the unfair and for maybe a minute. But tears were shed. Tears of a cripple. Not tears of a bastard son. Not tears of a victim. Not tears of shame. Just tears. Because contrary to popular belief, even I have a pain threshold. And maybe in some sick way, they were tears of acknowledgement of how things may have gone too far. Or simply a realization of just how much luck combined with skill kept me alive for just one more day.

I like to think there is something kind of special in that thought at the very least because I can’t count the times on my hands that I just wanted to walk away and didn’t.