How to be a Superhero
Jesus Christ, Supercop at the scene of the crime.
Since I wasn’t originally planning on going to Lollapalooza, I was planning on leaving Chicago by Saturday, so I didn’t have a bed booked. And of course, since it was Lollapalooza, everything was full. So, I slept in my car. Liz seemed adverse to it. But really, it’s no problem… I do it all the time. And this time, I think it was fate. My dad, God himself, caused this string events to occur because of the events to transpire in the morning.
I woke a couple times during the night, for various reasons. At some point, I sent Liz a text message to see what the status was. Sleep. Sounded good to me, so back to slumber I went, but it wasn’t a full sleep. I was half conscious from already being awake before. And in this state of half sleep, I heard voices outside my car window. A man and woman scuffling over something.
“Let it go. Just let it go. Drop it and walk away,” he said to the girl.
I didn’t look up at first, and assumed it was a domestic dispute. As I started to peer my eyes up, I saw the man start running with a bag in his hands, and a girl standing there. Immediately a car stopped in the road and asked if she was ok.
“That guy just took all my stuff. Everything I had.”
Oh shit.
Without thinking, I threw my shoes on and jumped out of my car. I saw the first street he turned on, but not after that. I was afraid I lost him. But there luckily there was another man. He was walking his dog with his wife and saw this guy looking sketchy and running, and stopped to see where he went. When he saw me chasing after him, he asked, “Did that guy steal something?”
“Yeah, he just robbed a girl over there.” And we both went down an alley. One more turn ahead, and there he was, now with a companion.
Fuck. At least it’s two on two. This other guy looks to be in pretty good shape… I sure hoped he could fight.
We ran up to them and asked them where they got that bag.
“I found it lying on the ground.”
“Bullshit. I saw you just jack that girl for it. Hand it over.” And what do you know? He did… Good thing, cuz it turns out he had a knife. If he had to throw down, shit could have gotten real ill. But for whatever reason, he decided it wasn’t worth it, and handed it back. And then they took off and jumped in a cab. The other guy ran after to check the plate number.
The cops were called by the guy’s girlfriend and showed up shortly. We started giving our stories, and before long the girl came back with the person that stopped and asked her if she was ok. She was grateful, and the cops were thankful and congratulatory for helping out.
It’s interesting, though… When the time comes, you don’t think about what to do. The thought that he was armed didn’t process before I started chasing him. The instinct was just, ‘Girl got mugged. Criminal is running away. Chase him.’ The knowledge to do what needs to be done just comes through. There were no thoughts of trying to be a superhero or anything. Or of trying to do something potentially, in retrospect, insanely stupid. The mind just told the body what to do, bypassing the thought process.
Good karma for me.
Good thing I’ve been practicing my ninja skills.
Tags: Chicago, Misc, North America, United States
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