21 July 2003 ~ Terrorizing mean people with a grin...

Yesterday, Jake and I went downtown to Lakefair. Lakefair is, I suppose, a big Olympia-style party to celebrate Capitol Lake. I'm not sure why people would celebrate Capitol Lake with rides and fireworks and junk food, but they do, and it's fun, so we went...

We parked in a nice little parking lot, and walked the ten or so blocks to the park for the fair. On the way, we saw many, many dogs, and cute children. And a fair number of ugly adults. It's funny, how many people in this world just really aren't attractive. Maybe ugly people just like fairs. Jake, who was born in the South, and who calls telemarketers "ma'am," and "sir," thought I was being rather cruel. I agreed with him, but it wasn't like I was yelling, "UGLY LADY TO OUR LEFT!!!" -- or anything like that...

Well, we were JUST about in the park, maybe a block and a half away, when these three teenaged boys come walking up to us... I thought they were just going to pass us, so I sort of stepped aside to let them go. Inwardly, I'm mean to people, but most of the time, I'm really quite polite as far as anybody can see.

Two of the boys started to walk around me. The third boy started yelling at Jake to get out of his way.

"Get the fuck outta my way!" yelled the boy. He was probably 17 or 18. He was probably from Lacey. He was probably on meth. I can tell Lacey-meth-kids from about six miles away, as long as I've got my glasses on.

"Can't you see where the fucken SIDEWALK is!?" The kid really didn't make much sense on that one. Both he and Jake were standing on the sidewalk, which was specifically designed so that many people could walk on it in different directions in relative peace, which was going on all around us.

For a moment, I thought the kid might take a swing. It occurred to me, somewhere in my gut, to get ready to take a swing back at him. It's very rare that I have a reaction like that. First of all, I'm small, and I tend much toward the "flight" end of the fight-or-flight spectrum. Second of all, I've rarely felt any instinct to protect anybody in that way. Oh, I've often thought, about various friends (well, okay, specifically one of them), "please, for the love of gahd and any self-respect you might have, PLEASE do not go to bed with this person ever, ever again..." -- but that's different from actively punching somebody to keep them from harming a loved one. THAT feeling has always been reserved for family alone: my brothers, my daughter, my friend Aaron, and... Jake.

But the next thought that crossed my mind was: oh fuck, Jake's going to beat this kid to a bloody pulp.

Probation doesn't like it when you do that.

Jake is an odd creature. He really is. He's just NOT average. He's the happiest man you'll ever meet, and the unhappiest man you'll ever meet, sometimes within a matter of hours. He's the sweetest, cuddliest teddy bear in the world, and the meanest, most vicious grizzly bear in the world. I've seen him cuddling his chihuahua for hours, just pampering her and petting her... I've also seen him send a guy to the hospital with a damn-near-severed finger. If you're nice to Jake, Jake will probably be nice to you. If you yell at Jake, or call him bad names -- or call me bad names -- Jake might just hurt you.

I was ready to punch this bastard kid. I was also ready to use my shirt as a tourniquet to save the poor shit's life, if Jake elected to hit him.

For one very intense moment, everyone was silent, wondering who would get punched first.

But Jake's reaction was priceless... All he did was tilt his head down, and peer at the top of the teenager's head. And he grinned. Jake is 6'2" and if he went to the gym or something, he'd look like a linebacker -- this kid couldn't have been more than 5'6", and had the scrawny look of meth.

The other two kids, the ones who had tried to walk around me, got REAL scared. They grabbed their friend, and tried to get him to just keep walking. "Dude, man, come on..." they said desperately.

The kid, who came up to the middle of Jake's chest, finally realized he had to tilt his head ALL the way back to glare into Jake's eyes, and decided to take his friends' advice. They all ran off.

Jake and I laughed. Jake laughed because the little shit had been scared off by a tall guy. I laughed because I was so pleased that Jake didn't just haul off and kill the little shit -- yet still managed to scare the hell out of him. There are times for violence, to be sure -- but why bother if you can just stare down at the top of your adversary's head, and make him run away?

"A year ago, you would have hit him, wouldn't you?"

"Hell yeah; I'd have killed him!"

"That's TWO assholes in two days that you've scared off just by staring at them..."

"Yeah, well, the guy yesterday probably also saw the other guys..."

"...And my boots!"

"And your boots."

"Jake and Helena, cleaning up downtown Olympia, terrorizing mean people with grins..."

"Heh!"

So we went to the fair, and didn't see any more mean people all night.

~Helena*