And, it happened in my own building as a bonus. This guy tweaking on drugs came up to me and was swearing and mad at me. He wasn’t about to move outta my way, and was at the driveway of my parking lot, kinda blocking me from going up to my building. He was mumbling in pidgin, “You f—— c—. Why you cough for?” and I was like, “I just said Hi.” (It’s true. I didn’t realize a crazy guy was near me, initially, so I’d said “Hi” very softly as I approached him. The he repeated it, and I was like, “What? I didn’t cough. I just said Hi.” And he was mad and shaky, and just looking at me… and I was holding my computer bag and wearing my backpack, and just standing there staring back at him. I was looking at this tweaker, thinking: Just do what you’re gonna do.

I felt oddly calm, but ready to respond to whatever. I thought he was either gonna start punching the shit out of me, or was gonna stab me or something. I was not willing to let this guy take my backpack or computer bag. And… I stood there and kept looking him square in the eye, with my posture erect… and was just waiting… almost wanting him to do something to get it over with cause, I was tired and kind of feeling like whatever happens, happens. And maybe this is destiny. And whatever. Just do something.

He then got weirded out, turned, and walked quickly away, to another apartment building across the street. I stood by my mailbox watching to see if he was going into their building. I wondered if he lived there. I was feeling kind of pissed off now. And I wasn’t gonna let this guy get away with threatening people in my neighborhood in the middle of the night. He walked behind the apartments. I stayed outside and kept staring at the building, looking for him, and got on the phone to call 911. As I was on hold, he quickly came out from behind the apartments, and jumped into a silver car and sped away too quick for me to get the make, model or license plate. His car was parked across from our driveway, on the opposite side of the street.

I am either really dumb, or incredibly bad-ass. I’m gonna go with the latter, but it’s probably a mixture of both.