Sometimes the most obvious weblog material slips my attention. It didn't occur to me until recently that I had since past participated in possibly saving a friend from a great deal of peril. Generally, I write more of experiences that are one-on-one with my environment than one-on-one with another. I have told this story orally several times, and hope little is lost in literary translation.
When I was attending the Milwaukee School of Engineering, I returned late to the dorms one night to find several police officers participating in small talk with a student. The student had just given a report. The three cops were laughing it up and allowing the student to endear himself to them. I asked the security guard at the front desk what he had "spilled" to them, suspecting a misunderstanding or small scuffle. As it turned out, three white males had exited a van and demanded they give up the tacos they had recently purchased. The student who had given the report had refused, and had been pushed to the ground.
Two other students had been present for the taco-mugging. I knew one of them quite well, so I paid an immediate visit to see how he had handled it. He was pacing, talking about how he was going to "hunt" the perpetrators the next day. Understand a few things about this friend. Although he has knife-blade scars in patterns up and down his arms, he is no more tough, big and ugly than any slim Joe Cigarette you might meet. His demeanor is relaxed and slightly shy, and I could only guess by his claims to have plans for a "hunt" that he would like to have the pleasure of not taking any shit from anyone, no how. He had brought to school several knives from home, having grown up in suburbia and without clear expectation of what the city had in store. It was with these knives he planned to "hunt" the taco thieves. He explained, even if he didn't find them, it was the thrill of being armed on the streets of Milwaukee he was after.
I wouldn't stand for this. Visions of more cops, or my friend in a hospital bed came into my mind. I tried talking him out of it, but he stood firm. I frequented the outdoor seating area in front of the dorms every night. We often met there, and I knew I'd catch him on his way out the next day. I did, and did so on the exit for the hunt. I proposed a walk, to which he accepted. We first agreed we both needed to use the bathroom. The closest restaurant was a upscale Mexican joint. We entered to which I said to the host, "Necesitamos usar el baño. Dónde está, por favór?" The host replied gleefully, "Allá, allá!" and pointed to the rear of the restaurant. On the way back to the entrance I asked my friend if he wanted some tacos. He shugged off the joke, and we exited with many smiles and an "Adiós!" or two from the staff.
We had no destination in mind. Perhaps I had it in my conscience to detain him from the "hunting" he had planned for the evening. Finding ourselves near the top of an unfinished bridge with many of the accessories found in a construction zone, we had two options. We could turn back the way we came, or cross the bridge via two-foot by twenty-foot beams spanning over a churning current about two stories below. I turned to him and said, "I'll do it if you go first." Without hesitation, he ran to the other side. I followed, making each step precise. One slip and I'd be in water of an unknown temperature and needing to swim. The other side was not so much the other side, but a platform halfway between where we stood and the other side. Now, we had to run across a similar beam as before in one direction or the other. You might say we were committed to our dare. I ran across first this time, and looking back, my friend lept over the concrete barriers in victory. We had made it.
"Really gets your heart racing, huh?" he said. I disagreed, only the mind for me. Although, admittedly, there was and is a tick in my cheek and eye thinking of what might have become of one of us had we slipped. In any case, I was glad to get his heart racing in placebo for knifing anyone that night. That was the most part of our anti-hunting activities that night. We walked downtown to where many schizophrenics tend to gather, but there were none that night. Sitting on a narrow dock, we had a conversation in which he admitted he felt as though he was the Devil talking to God. Where I had previously explained my theory that I was, in fact, the higher power. The sewer pipes to the river let out a roar every thirty seconds or so, and I let it be my applause as I was delivering a monologue, though not a preachy one, about "hunting" in large cities.
I feel I may have saved my friend a lot of trouble, legal and health-wise. I'd walk the beams again if I had to prove it was more worthwhile than endangering oneself with sharp objects on the street. I'd even do it again if I had slipped.
