Gangsters

I don’t know if I ever bothered to mention, but I’m a big fella.  I’m right at 6’7”, I go just under three hundred pounds.  So, I’m a big guy.  I’ve been the biggest in my class my whole damn life. I’m getting’ a bit long in the tooth, but in my day, I was hell to have against you.  I’m not bragging or complaining, I’m just sayin’, “In My Day….,” ok?

So, a couple of days ago, I’m doing my morning stroll.  I do this because I’ve been lucky and good luck kind of makes you want to sit on your ass.  I’ve seen it happen to more people than just me.  It’s a phenomenon.   Anyhow, I’m doing my morning stroll of about two miles.  I end up at my daughter’s home to kick it with the boys, or bug Amanda and Kevin before they head off to work.   The walk takes me through a really large Shopping Mall area, across several (4,5,?) busy intersections, and just a few blocks through the “hood”.  I have walked, jogged, driven, and been taxied, across these same steps a thousand times.  Without incident, no problem, baby.

On this particular morning though, I had an unusual occurrence.  I noticed a gentleman walking toward me on the sidewalk just before I reached the shopping area.  He was in my age bracket, maybe a couple years older, maybe a few, but my bracket.  Anyhow, he stops me and says, “There are some ‘gang bangers’ at the Mall.  They told me, in no uncertain terms, that I couldn’t wear my red sweatshirt while passing through here.”  I gasped! I couldn’t even wrap my head around it. He goes on, “Your sweatshirt is red too, better watch it!”  I don’t think I said much to the dude.  I wanted to smack him, I wanted to comfort him, protect him, I don’t know, but I couldn’t say a whole lot.

Needless to say,  I quickened my pace.  I can be a real jerk when I am arguing some point, but when I feel like I’m on the good and right side of a noble endeavor, I’m an outrageous fool.

Sure enough I spotted these youngsters not more than a couple hundred yards past the report.  More importantly, they saw me.  They were already headed in my direction.  I pretended not to notice at first. There were three boys, two black, one white, all dressed up in blue. They were probably between 14 and 16 years old.  Just about the time the sun got completely out of their eyes, I made eye contact with the oldest looking young man.  I swear, I saw him realize that I wasn’t going to respond the same way the last guy did.  I saw it in his eyes.  I don’t know what caused that exactly but I saw it.  It was also obvious that he knew he wasn’t in time to stop his less observant cronies from running there mouth, he wasn’t near in time.  The white kid started to spit out some kind of spiel that began with “ Wassup, hey you need to start…...”  that was all that got out, I mean, I think.

I want you all to know that I would never get into a physical altercation with some teen aged boys.  For one thing, I’d be back in prison quicker than you can spit, and would deserve to be.  Second, there is a reason that we send young men to fight for us.  I just really am not into all that work.  Third, I’m a smart fucker, and I wouldn’t need a physical altercation to win this.  Hehe

I won’t go all into exactly what was said, I’d have to make it up all over again, but I know that I convinced them that old guys get to walk through there in any color sweater they want to.  I mean, it isn’t like we appear to be trying to claim they turf, right?

                                               Peace, LeRoi’