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Ordinary Adventures Blog

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Rated R for Violence


simplybill

1,148 views

In the last five months, three of my coworkers have been robbed at gunpoint while walking to work in the early morning hours. Another coworker avoided being mugged by retrieving his concealed weapon when he saw two men wearing ski masks approaching him. They saw the gun in his hand and made a hasty retreat. Those were frightening moments for my coworkers; maybe 'traumatizing' is a better word. I had some similar experiences in my younger days, though I wouldn't say I felt traumatized; I was startled and stressed out, but because of the way the situations played out I felt that I had some emotional and physical control over the outcomes.

Both situations occurred while I was working for a warehousing company in Utah. I worked with a good crew and we had some good times. Thursdays were our easy night on the night shift: we worked five or six hours to finish up the week’s orders, then all of us single guys headed over to the Silver Cloud on 9th and State to shoot pool and listen to the band. I eventually transferred to the Produce division to drive trucks on the day shift. Late one Thursday night I was in bed when I heard a loud knock on the door of my tiny ground-floor apartment. I thought, “Uh oh, it’s the night crew wanting me to hang with them.” I ignored the knocking, and then a loud “Boom!” catapulted me out of bed. Why was the night crew breaking down my front door?

I have a certain voice that I call my ‘scary voice’. I’ve only used it four or five times in my life because it has a startling effect on people, probably because I look like Mr. Rogers but my 'scary voice' sounds like Godzilla. Anyway, I stuck my head into the living room and said “What’s going on out here?” (paraphrased to meet family-friendly standards).

Three young men I didn’t recognize were frozen in place, arms stretched out toward my television, stunned looks on their faces, backlit by the streetlamp in the parking lot. We stared at each other for a second, then all three bolted for the door. Their getaway driver burned rubber out of the parking lot, not even waiting for his buddies. The roar of the engine probably awakened the entire neighborhood.

I called the police, gave my report, and went back to bed, feeling a bit vulnerable because the door jamb was completely busted and I couldn’t lock the door. (The landlord fixed the door the next day.)

It was the roar of the engine that disturbed my sleep for the next six months. Every time a car with a loud muffler drove by during the night I instantly snapped awake, fully alert, listening for sounds of danger. Eventually I had to move away from that neighborhood just so I could get a good night’s sleep.

I moved all the way up to the East Bench where the rich people lived. In years past, my apartment had been the servant’s quarters in a beautiful home owned by a woman who, in her younger days, had been an internationally-acclaimed concert pianist. I had my own outdoor patio with a panoramic view of the Salt Lake Valley. It was quite a change in my environment.

Ah, but sometimes trouble follows.

One Sunday afternoon I got a phone call from Anzio, a fellow truck driver, asking if I wanted to go downtown and shoot some pool. Anzio was kind of a thug. He was a martial artist, and had taken 2nd place in judo competition in his home state of Washington. He had long hair, a small scar on his face, and that smug look that over-confident young men have when they think they’re invincible.

We played pool for a couple of hours, had a good time, everything was cool, but when we walked outside to the street Anzio saw someone he knew and the trouble began. Anzio walked up to the guy and said, “Where’s my money, bro?” and shoved him.

So there we were in downtown Salt Lake City on a Sunday afternoon with traffic whizzing by, and Anzio and the Bro are doing the monkey dance. I wanted nothing to do with it. I leaned against the building and pretended to be just another innocent bystander.

They had shoved their way half a block down the street when suddenly I heard Anzio yelling, “Help me! Help me!” I ran toward them and saw the Bro bent over in a fighting stance and holding a razor knife. Anzio was holding his right hand over his left bicep and blood was running down his arm onto the pavement.

When interrupting a violent attack, one must be prepared to go 'all in', and continue until the threat is eliminated. I yelled at the Bro, “Drop the knife!”. He remained in his stance, holding the knife firmly in his hand. I guess my instincts took over then, because I landed a solid kick to his solar plexus and he dropped like a rock. I’m not proud of my next move, but he still held on to the knife: I kicked him in the face, and then held him to the ground as I pulled his right arm back and up behind him. I told him that if he didn’t drop the knife I would dislocate his shoulder.

Right then a police car drove up to the curb. The officer got out and smacked his baton on the sidewalk a couple of times. Anzio and I retreated, I warned the officer about the knife, and then I started assessing Anzio’s injuries: he’d been cut seven times. His left bicep had been sliced nearly in half from his shoulder to his elbow. I took off my shirt and made a tourniquet to apply pressure and stop the flow of blood.

After a few hours in the Emergency room, Anzio and I drove back to his apartment and I gave him a good talking-to. “Man, you gotta quit acting like that! What if he’d hit an artery? You’d be dead right now!” I don’t know if he took my advice, because shortly afterwards he moved back to Washington. The Bro’s assault charges were dropped when Anzio didn’t return for the trial.

To add another perspective to those stories:

I had a health club membership at the Spa Fitness Center in Salt Lake City. Bodybuilding and steroids were in their heyday in the 70‘s, and sometimes I felt like I was walking through a minefield of ’roid rage' while working out. One club location attracted a lot of ex-cons. Greg Johnson, for example, (not his real name) had spent most of his life in and out of prison. He was the most frightening man I’d ever seen. When he was in the gym, there was a pall of fear in the room; when he was incarcerated, he ran the prison. One of his trademark fear tactics was walking up to a random inmate and knocking him out, just to remind everyone that he was the top dog. Believe me when I tell you that the man exuded evil.

I didn’t see Greg for a number of years, and then one day I saw him sitting outside the basketball arena downtown. He appeared to be waiting for someone. It was one of those unguarded moments when you get a glimpse of the real person behind the mask: Greg looked like a broken man. His youthful exuberance had faded, and he just seemed to be sad and lonely. Even the most violent of criminals may become contemplative in their old age. The people we were in our youth may be very different than the people we become as our conscience wakes up.

The Bible has a lot to say about violence and our reaction to it. I think there’s a difference between the “turn the other cheek” type of offenses, and the grievous offenses that cause injury and trauma: we want justice, reparations, and a show of remorse by the offender. Often we're left with only a helpless rage that threatens to consume us. When that happens, the only thing we have in our control, the only thing that has the power to break through the rage, is forgiveness. The answer is the same for any offense, be it a verbal insult or a serious assault with injuries: Turn it over to God, forgive, and continue to choose forgiveness with every remembrance of the violent act. Whether it takes just a few minutes to forgive, or the offense is so grievous that it requires years for forgiveness to finally take root in our hearts, always choose forgiveness. When all is said and done, forgiveness pays better dividends than bitterness does.

“Every warrior is happy when his enemies flee before him, but much more blessed is the man to whom his fiercest enemies can come with confidence, knowing beforehand they will be received with love.”

Richard Wurmbrand in “Reaching toward the Heights.”

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