One night as we crossed Van Buren, a street with a bad reputation for loose women, a commotion started to our right. I stepped between my wife and the commotion. A very large black man was following a small man who was walking fast looking back over his shoulder. I could tell that the big guy man was one of downtown's resident homeless. He was shouting: "Get outta here! Go back to India!" I shouted back at him to stop. The little guy kept walking, looked at me, tried to say thanks, and kept on going. I stepped into the path of the homeless guy. My wife was horrified.
I stuck my finger into the big guy's chest and growled, "If you don't stop, I'm going to have you thrown in jail." With the big guy distracted, the little Asian guy escaped into the darkness. The big guy stared at me mumbling. With his prey gone and a large angry guy in his face, the homeless guy lost track of what was going on, stopped and then drifted off into the night, too.
My wife was not happy. Jim, you could have been killed! Yes, you're right dear, I said, distracted and numbed by the adrenaline pumping through my body. What I was really thinking at the time was that I might ruin my sports coat if I had to actually fight the big guy. I told her there wasn't much chance of thatt. The guy was probably someone I'd worked with at the homeless shelter downtown, Andre House. Most of them are mentally ill people who have been abandoned to the streets. Some are loud and vent a lot, but completely harmless and easily distracted.
Nowadays the Dragon is retired, takes out a cellphone and dials 911 when there's trouble.
