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the_siobhanI think I posted this story to usenet when it originally happened.
I used to live in the Little Italy neighbourhood not too far from where I live now. These days the neighbourhood is actually primarily Portuguese, but it retains the traditional nomenclature. There are other groups in little clusters throughout the area, including a small Vietnamese section very close by and to the south.
I was going to clubs a lot more often back then. If![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
caspervonb happened to be out as well he would usually take a cab home, and since he was spending the money anyway he would regularily drop me off at the bottom of my street. I would walk the 10 to 15 minutes it took to get home from there, passing Portuguese coffee shops, Vietnamese kareoke bars, and the solitary strip bar. I walked down the street last night, and most of the same stores are still there, sandwiching the occasional new sprouts of gentrification. The strip club is still there.
On one particular night I got out of the cab, said good night to Casper and started hiking it north. I had made it about half a block when I heard a woman's voice screaming blue bloody murder.
The screams were coming from ahead of me so I picked up the pace, trying to scan for their exact location. They faded off into silence.
A man ran past me on the sidewalk. He was Vietnamese, dressed in the standard clubwear I usually saw around the kareoke bars at closing time. He didn't pay the slightest bit of attention to me, his face a picture of grim determination.
Another half a block later and a small group of Vietnamese people walked past me. In the lead were two men, not running but striding with a palpable air of purpose. Following them and moving a little slower was a gaggle of both men and women. Bringing up the rear was a couple, the woman talking loudly and steadily in Vietnamese. The man was walking next to her and completely encircling her body with his arms, pinning hers to her sides. Oddly enough (I thought) her body language didn't indicate any kind of distress. In fact she was barely paying any attention to him at all, her eyes and her monologue apparently directed in front of her. The two of them were walking more slowly than the rest because of their awkward positioning, but he was also staring intently in the direction they were travelling.
OK, something weird had obviously happened, but hell if I was going to be able to make head or tail of it. I kept my ears peeled for any more sounds of screaming but I didn't really expect to hear any. I continued on my journey towards home.
I had walked most of another block when a car went speeding past me. It braked suddenly and swerved over to the side of the road just ahead of me and the same two men got out who I had just seen leading the larger group. The car pulled away and sped off ahead of me and the two men walked past me in the direction they had come from. One of them was pulling his jacket closed and buttoning it up to hide the very obvious handgun that jutted out of his waistband.
I kept my Somebody Else's Problem field on high and walked right on past them, Not Noticing A Thing. For all the notice they took of me I was completely invisible.
I perused the papers for a couple of days afterward but I never saw a mention of anything unusual happening in the neighbourhood. To this day I have no idea what the hell it was all about.
I used to live in the Little Italy neighbourhood not too far from where I live now. These days the neighbourhood is actually primarily Portuguese, but it retains the traditional nomenclature. There are other groups in little clusters throughout the area, including a small Vietnamese section very close by and to the south.
I was going to clubs a lot more often back then. If
caspervonb happened to be out as well he would usually take a cab home, and since he was spending the money anyway he would regularily drop me off at the bottom of my street. I would walk the 10 to 15 minutes it took to get home from there, passing Portuguese coffee shops, Vietnamese kareoke bars, and the solitary strip bar. I walked down the street last night, and most of the same stores are still there, sandwiching the occasional new sprouts of gentrification. The strip club is still there.On one particular night I got out of the cab, said good night to Casper and started hiking it north. I had made it about half a block when I heard a woman's voice screaming blue bloody murder.
The screams were coming from ahead of me so I picked up the pace, trying to scan for their exact location. They faded off into silence.
A man ran past me on the sidewalk. He was Vietnamese, dressed in the standard clubwear I usually saw around the kareoke bars at closing time. He didn't pay the slightest bit of attention to me, his face a picture of grim determination.
Another half a block later and a small group of Vietnamese people walked past me. In the lead were two men, not running but striding with a palpable air of purpose. Following them and moving a little slower was a gaggle of both men and women. Bringing up the rear was a couple, the woman talking loudly and steadily in Vietnamese. The man was walking next to her and completely encircling her body with his arms, pinning hers to her sides. Oddly enough (I thought) her body language didn't indicate any kind of distress. In fact she was barely paying any attention to him at all, her eyes and her monologue apparently directed in front of her. The two of them were walking more slowly than the rest because of their awkward positioning, but he was also staring intently in the direction they were travelling.
OK, something weird had obviously happened, but hell if I was going to be able to make head or tail of it. I kept my ears peeled for any more sounds of screaming but I didn't really expect to hear any. I continued on my journey towards home.
I had walked most of another block when a car went speeding past me. It braked suddenly and swerved over to the side of the road just ahead of me and the same two men got out who I had just seen leading the larger group. The car pulled away and sped off ahead of me and the two men walked past me in the direction they had come from. One of them was pulling his jacket closed and buttoning it up to hide the very obvious handgun that jutted out of his waistband.
I kept my Somebody Else's Problem field on high and walked right on past them, Not Noticing A Thing. For all the notice they took of me I was completely invisible.
I perused the papers for a couple of days afterward but I never saw a mention of anything unusual happening in the neighbourhood. To this day I have no idea what the hell it was all about.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-24 05:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-24 06:32 am (UTC)Life sucks. Live it anyway. What else are you gonna do?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-24 07:57 am (UTC)You'll wonder about it for the rest of your life.
Just remember you have a rest of your life to wonder about it.
That may not have been the case if they took notice of you due to you intervening in something you did not know the story behind.
Even as "Knight in black leather armour" as I seem to reluctantly be ... I'd have put the S.E.P. field up BIGTIME.
"That's right. Do not notice the great hulking anglo-looking man."
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-24 01:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-24 11:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-24 01:43 pm (UTC)I have to admit that I'd be very curious as to what it was all about, though.