Let's Not Meet Again

Always Use A Brick...

When I was around 14 a friend and I went with another kid to a outdoor night time street fest type of thing. It was on the main road of a small-ish unincorporated city, that was right in the middle of the actual big city/capitol of the state. We weren't great friends with the other kid and he ultimately ditched us when his dad came to pick all of us up. This was way before cell phones and we had no money to use a pay phone. Not that we wanted to because we both knew we were dead when our parents found out the situation. Neither of us were really supposed to be there.

At this point its getting late. The festival is over. All the booths are gone and the few stores on the strip are closed. This part of the city is also fairly shitty. I still wouldn't want to be out there at that hour and I'm a fairly good size guy who also happens to conceal carry now. We're scared shitless and getting a bad vibe from the locals. We stand out, badly. We try to assess the situation but realize there is almost nothing we can do. Its a very long walk to our area and the part of town we're in gets a lot worse before it gets better. We don't have a lot of option at this point so we begin to hoof it.

We're both so scared that we are visibly shaking. Everything is a threat to us at this point and its almost impossible to play it cool. As the area begins to get more and more rough we start paying more attention to our surroundings. At least three times we felt we were being followed. Once by a group of guys, once by a really old homeless looking guy, and once by a car. It seemed really obvious they were following us. They stop when we stop, they start again when we walk. Each time we try to pick up our pace and cut through as many alleys and side streets as we could.

We're more of less successful at shaking people until we notice a very scary looking guy has been behind us for almost the entire time this has happened. We both realize he's been there for a while. Even while cars where creeping slowly down the street behind us, this guy was there. We had been so focused on everything else that we thought could be a threat we failed to realize right away that this guy was the only real constant. We had zig-zagged and double backed so many times that it became suddenly clear, even if paranoia was fueling our thoughts about the others following us, he definitely was.

We tried to pick up our pace much more noticeably this time. Almost full on running. So did he. He eventually caught up with us and asked us to come with him. I say ask, but it was clearly more of a demand. Alarm bells are going off but in the situation we felt we really didn't have a lot of choices. We barely knew where we were at. I was well aware of what to do if a stranger approached us in my front yard. This was something completely different. I wasn't prepared for it.

We walk a few houses back and he invites us to sit on a porch. The whole time this is going on he's just staring at us. It was intense, like he was look right through us. We told him our story and then he got up and said "stay right here, don't move." He ran down to the liquor store a block away to make a phone call, we later found out. The few minutes he's gone we both discuss how every fabric of our being is telling us to run but we don't really have anyplace else to go for help, aside from the liquor store that he's currently in. It was a completely helpless feeling. I wanted to cry but this wasn't the kind of place you wanted to be seen crying. We ended up just sitting there. It felt like an eternity, waiting to see what would happen next. It was more like 5 minutes. He returned with a couple of 40oz beers.

He sits down next to us, cracks one open, and starts telling us really random stories. A lot of them focus on the various degrees of bodily harm he's caused people. We get a lengthy talk on the merits of using a brick to beat people with. "Always us a brick. Those edges will split a skull wide open if you come down hard enough!" A lot of discussion about it being hard to lift a print off a brick. The man was fond of bricks, and well versed in their lethal capabilities. The brick discussion goes on for quite a while. It also includes the names of people he's taken a brick to and their various offenses. He also shows off his gun. He was really proud of it. It was nickel plated. Throughout all of this we are dead silent. The only thing that either managed to get out was when my friend tried to make small talk and compliment his house. "This ain't my house." That freaked me out even more.

We're just sitting on the steps of a random house, in a neighborhood I avoid in the daytime, with a man more or less confessing to various possible murders. We've pretty much accepted that we're going to die, though it was a little easier as he was letting us hit his 40. Admittedly, that aspect was kind of cool as we were both 13-14 years old. This guy talks to us like this for about 3 hours. Its around 2am at this point. Its the longest 3 hours our my life. By the end of it he's sort of loosened up and is getting really animated and loud with his stories. Laughing a lot too.

I honestly don't know what scared me more, when he was really intense or totally relaxed. It was the weirdest feeling and hard to put into words. The night just kept dragging on and the longer it did the more uneasy we got. It was like pealing off a strong band-aid really slowly. There was a part of me that just wanted whatever was going to happen to happen already. Thats when the car pulled up. The woman driving is almost as scary looking as him. He suddenly gets really stone faced and serious again. He barks at us to get in. It was clear that he wasn't asking. We look at each other, fighting back tears, and just sort of resign ourselves to our fate.

The second he gets in the car he starts screaming at the driver. "I FUCKING CALLED YOU HOURS AGO BITCH, WHERE THE FUCK YOU BEEN?" She just kind of gives him a smirk like she isn't phased and then turns around and asks us where we live. She starts driving and I get as close to blacking out and I've ever been without actually blacking out. I don't remember anything from the car ride at all. I certainly didn't notice where we were heading.

Twenty minutes later we pull up to my street. We get out as quickly as we can, the guy leans out of the window, tells us to take it easy, and the car just drives away. Never saw them again in my life. We were speechless. You have to understand, at no point in the night did he even hint at his intentions. Didn't mention the phone call at the liquor store, nor the ride he lined up. Nothing. He was hands down the scariest guy I've ever met in my life, at that point and since. He basically ends up baby sitting us in a bad neighborhood that he knows we don't belong in and then has his girl give us a lift home. Part of me hates to say this, because he did us the most solid of solids that night. Still, Brick Man, lets try to never have to meet again. And if we do, maybe just give us a heads up as to whats going down.