Part of a balanced breakfast.Last week, I was in a car accident. Some dip with a nice car decided he didn't want to traverse a patch of removed asphalt on a Chicago surface street, and subsequently came to a grinding halt.
The van behind him came to a grinding halt.
My car, negotiating rain-slicked streets and left with no time to react, tried to stop -- the wheels said "we're stopping", but the slippery pavement said "let's see those airbags go off when you strike the back of that Econoline.
CPD happened by, wrote up a report, and quickly discovered that I didn't have my proof of insurance in the car with me. The State of Illinois looks down on that. I was summarily told to gather my belongings, put them in the trunk of the squad car, and jump in the back for a ride to the police station.
Needs plastic sheeting for a windshield and some wax.I signed some paperwork and released shortly after arriving.
I had just begun to charge my cell phone five minutes before the accident, so my phone was dying. My parents, despite being told that I could return to Milwaukee via train, had begun to drive down from Racine to retrieve me. I couldn't make any more calls with my dead phone, and I didn't much care to hang around the lobby of the police station for two hours. I gathered up my two large bags and started my two mile trek back to the car.
My brisk evening stroll sent my wandering down Pulaski. As far as I can tell, the neighborhood didn't look that bad. Certainly not worse than neighborhoods close to where I reside.
I had walked a mile when I noticed a couple on the other side of the bustling roadway. An argument was in progress, with the man insisting that the woman return to his abode with the stroller-bound baby in tow. She was having none of this. Much yelling ensued, and it appeared that she was trying to wait for the bus. I dropped my luggage and simply observed.
He grabbed at the stroller. Now he had my full attention. The woman went off and quickly began striking him about the head, as I presume most mothers would when a heavy-handed man tries to abscond with their offspring. In response, he threw her to the ground and amplified his rhetoric.
Naturally, I found myself bounding across lanes of traffic, forcing cars to stop and bellowing
"BREAK IT UP!!!!!" as I charged. Of course. That's the only logical response when you're in another city, after being in a car accident and roaming the nighttime city landscape.
I now had their undivided attention. I got between the two, switched from attack mode to negotiator and started to clear matters up best I could. I didn't want to resort to violence if I didn't have to -- especially since this had all of the markings of a domestic dispute. Odds were, if I hurt this guy, she wouldn't press charges against him, and I'd soon by saying "hello again" to the same two police officers that escorted me to the station not 45 minutes earlier. Of course, I've had a similar internal debate during another incident documented here.
I've learned that the best way to resolve these sort of situations is to use a two-pronged approach. I let loose a loud verbal rapport, and make a dramatic display of force. I immediately follow that with close-range low volume eye-to-eye discussion. Something along the lines of "just tell me what's going on". Essentially, I was to demonstrate to any adversary how things could go combatively, then give them the opportunity to engage diplomatically. It's worked quite well so far, as recorded in this post.
Neither party in this case was thrilled, and the woman was still clearly agitated. The man... well, he was bargaining now. Bargaining with her, and trying to throw out comments for my benefit to try to illustrate how he thought she was being unreasonable. He was trying to work things out now. He obviously let things get out of hand, and it was clear that he no expectation of being disrupted during what now could almost be viewed as a tantrum.
In the midst of all this, as I played human breakwater, I looked down at the baby in the stroller. I really can't tell you if it was a boy or girl, bundled up as it was. November in Chicago, after all. All I recall with clarity was a set of beautiful brown eyes, slightly more comprehending than I was braced to see, looking up at me questioningly. The baby then looked back at the man, and proceeded to cover it's face with the blanket.
The conversation ebbed. Tempers cooled. Tension hung in the air, but repairs were under way. The two ended up walking back down the street from whence they came, and I departed, not wholly satisfied that all would be well. But I had done as much as I could, given the circumstances.
Chalk up one potentially raucous encounter that I entered into, running headlong and alarming sure of my perseverance. In reality, I'm goddamned fortunate situations like this don't end up worse. To be sure, I haven't blogged about them all. But I think that I walk away relatively unscathed every time might be emboldening me.
Pretty as an airport
I had just brushed my teeth, and I was winding down for the evening. For whatever dorky reason, I was watching a YouTube video of someone else playing the Ghostbuster video game (I don't own a game console, so I have yet to play it myself at length). In the midst of sound effects simulating a book Golem being smashed apart by proton streams, I thought I heard something.
A thud?
A pipe in the basement?
No, it sounded like something outside. Hit the mute.
I didn't have to wait long before hearing the tinkle of glass. I had yet to hear a car alarm sound, so I was sure what I was about to see. I had new neighbors on my floor, and it was possible that I was about to brashly investigate one of them stepping out for a smoke. I threw my boots on haphazardly, grabbed my MagLite, and headed for the backdoor of my building.
There are two residents that park their car in the patch of asphalt betwixt two garages behind my domicile. One belonging to a couple roughly my age, and the other belonging to my dear golden years neighbor.
Evidently, an industrious bloke had set about robbing both of their automobiles of whatever knick-nacks he could.
There he stood, looking up from a smashed SUV window like a deer in headlights. There I was, taking one second to process that this was not anyone on whom I had ever laid eyes.
"HEY!!!!!", I inquired with all of the subtlety of a semi truck smashing through a gas station.
I charged.
He panicked and threw a box of would-be stolen goods at me.
Our private episode of COPS began.
I pursued this man, not clear on if he was armed, on something or precisely what circumstances led him here. I ran at him like a rottweiler locked onto an intruder, and he fled with the proportionate response.
Now then, a word on the art of pursuit: tie your bloody shoes before you try it. Just do it. Throw your boots on in a hurry, sure... but make sure they're securely fastened to your feet.
I sprinted after this man, yelling such arresting dialogue as "STOP!!" and the equally persuasive "I SAID 'STOP', SHITHEAD!!". Amazingly, he did not halt and say "terribly sorry, old chap. Let us engage in meaningful discourse pertinent to the enforcement of justice". Simply shocking.
He changed course two houses up the alley, and we were now striding across the lawn of someones pleasant one-story home. By this point, I was straining to gain on the would-be burglar, as well as trying to keep my boots on my plodding feet. After the length of one block, it was abundantly clear that I would not apprehend this individual unless he fortuitously tripped. I noted that I should acquire velcro combat boots for future use, and returned to the smashed car window party.
He vanished into the night. I returned to my building to inspect the damage. He had broken out the small wing window in the back of my elderly neighbor's car. Surprisingly, he hadn't set off the car alarm. He had better luck than I, considering how my shoveling it out of snow or moving it for said resident would led to audible complications.
What did he try taking from her? Walker wheels. A box containing 6" walker wheels. They were lying on the ground about ten feet from the car. Apparently there's a brisk black market trade of geriatric aides going on out there.
As for the truck I actually caught him breaking into... Tony apparently hadn't properly activated his car alarm. But he had been broken in to before on numerous occasions, so there was nothing of value to loot inside of his automobile either. What the perp had thrown at me was a shoebox.
To review, I tore headlong into possible danger to recover walker wheels and a box of old shoes.
Does this shit ever happen to Batman?
