True Crime

Not too long ago, my True Love and I were in the drive-through lane at Braum's (an ice cream & burger joint, for you non-Texans). While handing over her rocky road / mint chocolate chip calorific treat, I noticed something alarming in the parking lot of the seedy apartment complex that backed up to the store.

He was white, lanky, dirty, and young, possessed of chronic bed-head and a wispy beard. She was fat, string-haired and sweaty, her obesity lending her the unfortunate squinty-eyed look of a spring hog. She was trying to get away from him; he kept grabbing her arm and dragging her towards the apartment.

As nobody was doing anything about it, I pulled over. Lacking both a cell phone to call the police and a white horse to ride, I handed my vanilla cone to my True Love and fairly leapt out of my silver Honda. There was 50 feet and a collapsed chain-link fence between us.

I'm sure I yelled something akin to "unhand that woman, fiend!" or somesuch. His momentary surprise was soon replaced with a hangdog look and a muttered "mind your own business." She looked at me, then him, and appeared even more upset than before. Now she had both the domineering boyfriend and the embarrasing do-gooder to contend with. He still was manhandling her.

When I told him to let her go or the police would be notified, I was alerted to the presence of The Neighbor. Wearing the unstoppable wife-beater-undershirt-and-baggy-shorts combo, this Mexican-American parolee was the avatar of all things tattoo. "Leave my friend alone, man," he yelled at me. At me!

The Neighbor was not swayed by my pointing out that his lanky block-mate was in the process of abusing his significant other. That really had nothing to do with it. I was invading his turf. "I'm gonna get my gat, man," he concluded.

It was obvious that I was outmanuevered. With both the ice cream and my True Love melting in the car, I decided to leave. As we were pulling away, I had to resist the urge to floor it and run every red light home. My hands were shaking. It was then that my True Love told me that a "gat" was urban slang for a gun, as in "gatling gun," one presumes. That knowledge didn't exactly lighten my foot on the accelerator.

Once home, I called the police, feeling equal parts nimwit and coward, ashamed by the fear I'd felt and cursing myself that I'd escalated a bad situation.

No one said doing the right thing is easy, or even natural. Sometimes we stand up and get smacked back down. I'll never know whether the police found the abusive man or his ex-con defender. Moreover, I'll never know if the poor, fat woman got away or even appreciated my efforts. I might have even made things worse for her. I'm sure the police would say to call them first and leave it to them -- and they're right, of course.

I'm still torn by the urge to be a moral actor in the real world; yet the fearful reality can quickly bring one back to a myopic world-view focused on self-preservation. It's made me simultaneously, and paradoxically, both more vigilant and cautious. I'm trying to pick my battles a little better, too. A week or so after the Braumfrontation, I was over it and promised My True Love to avoid unneccessary future acts of derring-do.

But I still think about it when I pass that Braum's.