[cross-posted on LJ]
So my car won’t start after work, I have to get it towed to the local Chevron. Fuckin’ great.
I get home, the blank tapes I was saving for 24 are no longer blank. Fuckin’ great.
So I hie myself down to Cala Foods in hopes of a cheap, convenient dinner and some blank tapes. Whilst there, I notice some putz put something under his shirt. Since I used to work there, I figured I’d let someone who was working know, if only for the entertainment value. I give the description, the kid is caught, and all is well. Well, except for for former co-worker yelling, “Thanks, Jeff” quite loudly while the suspect was still on his way out the door. Thanks, Charles.
So I check out, walk out the door, do a quick scope of the doorway and its immediate surroundings, say goodbye to another co-worker who thanks me and a friendly homeless guy who’s dutifully at his post in the parking lot.
I cross the street, and I hear from behind me some yelling. “Hey,” “Yo, nigga,” stuff like that. Now, while in most of my life’s situations, I ignore problems until they go away, but I sense that this angry fellow is not going to fade to memory os fast. So I turn around oh-so-innocently, continuing to walk, and he continues to walk in my direction. I turn away, and continue to walk, once again serenaded with “hey, mothafucka” and the like. The voice gets closer and eventually right in my face. “Why you snitch on my homie?” I play dumb, ask him what the fuck he’s talking about. We start yelling a bit, all the while I keep my weak ass moving- I couldn’t kick ass in Street Fighter II Turbo, much less this guy and the other menacing guy catching up to him, who didn’t sound too cheerful himself. Meanwhile, the first young fellow dares me to raise my voice to him again, because, he offers, “I’ll put a bullet in your head right here.” Evidentially, he would “throw down right here” on busy Geary Boulevard. Luckily for him, he has “50 home boys right there ready to stomp” me. “There,” in this context, referred to a coffee shop which was approximately 60 feet ahead of me, where quite a few people seemed to start filing out and looking around expectantly.
I choose to avoid the coffee shop.
So I attempt to cross Geary, but there is no light at the intersection. Now, I like to be a safe pedestrian, since I like things to be efficient, but the approaching footsteps of several angry folks prompted to run like fucking hell to my local bar, Trad’r Sam’s, where I had though I’d seen my friend Marvin, the large angry bouncer. I duck in the door to hear the impending footsteps stop, and I run around behind the bar. I explain the situation to Demo, the bar owner (Marvin, alas, was not there). I crouch down, shaking, behind the bar for a few minutes. I call Cala, to see if Charles is still there. While I don’t think his advertisement of my name was a major spark for the cross-boulevard sprint, I figure he may be able to pull up to the bar in his SUV, pick me up undetected, and drive me the block to my house.
“Sorry, Charles left already.”
So I calm down a bit, and Demo hands me a cold Corona to chill out a bit with. I down it, and then a few guys enter the bar and sit down next to me. I don’t recognize them as being part of my pursuer’s group, so I ask them if there “happens to be a group of guys out front who look like they’re waiting for someone to come out of this bar.” Subtlety is overrated sometimes, in my opinion.
One of them goes outside to check the immediate sidewalk and the coffee shop, which in in clear view of the bar, and around the corner. He comes back and says there’s no one around. I ask Demo if the bar has a back exit, which it does, so he escorts me downstairs. I’m hoping my helpful fellow bar patron is right, since I know that any back door to the bar would be on a dark, quiet street, which is hidden from Geary because of a hill- so this will be a bit of a gamble, but i figure going out the front door will surely not be a good idea, and that going out the back door merely might be a bad idea. I give Demo $18 to get the helpful guys a round and I skip out. Didn’t see anyone, except one guy who was at the top of the hill, looking down at me from the end of the block, raising his arm. I figure it’s my lookout guy, but I’m not in a social mood. I take the long, hyper-aware way home and make it safely, and damn quickly.
I don’t think anyone ever threatened to shoot me before. I’ve been threatened with fights and such, sure, but those instances were either fine-I’ll-empty-my-pockets-so-you-can-be-$1.16-richer or all talk. It’s a good thing I was so comfortable with Trad’r Sam’s. I just hope these guys don’t hang out around here often- I live two blocks from Cala.
Oh, and I forgot the blank tapes.
I hope you got them a Scorpion Bowl for their efforts.