Blood and Snow
Mar. 20th, 2004 09:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jere7myI'd just posted my previous update when my employee, K., came into the office and said, in his usual laconic voice, "Ah, I think you'd better come see this. Someone is saying there's a fight in the theater."
I reached the lobby in time to see a thin man stagger out of Triplets of Belleville amid an eddy of alarmed patrons. His face was a mask of blood; a gash slit his right eyebrow. He looked at me and said, "Call the police. Now." He pointed to a heavyset, middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair: "It was him."
Someone got out a cell phone. I asked salt-and-pepper to stop, to wait for the police to get here. "No! I'm not stopping for anybody. He jumped me." I followed him and his wife down the stairs, asking him to at least leave his name and number. "You wait for me," he told his wife. "I'll get the car. If this bitch keeps following me, I'll kick his ass too."
So I kept following him.
Down State, assuring him we'd run across some police eventually. Up North U. "How do you feel about running tonight, bitch?" "Um...fine. But you know, my legs are a lot longer than yours, and I'm maybe twenty years younger." He bolted; we ran full-tilt through the Diag, with me keeping about twenty feet between us, and him continuing to threaten me; I pointed out that there were always plenty of bicycle cops patrolling the park. He changed direction at that point, cutting back toward State in front of Angell Hall, then into traffic and across the street; he was laughing, actually laughing maniacally, as he ran down the gap beside the Kelsey Museum. Finally, he reached his car; he got in and tore off, but I was able to get the license number and a description (dust-covered red compact). (Which led to the only cool moment in the whole experience. I met two officers walking down State as I was coming back, and gave them the license number. "Which way did he go?" they asked me. I pointed, and three cop cars raced off in a squeal of sirens.)
Fortunately, B. is working tonight, and he was more than capable of handling the crowd of people in my absence...which is good, because I basically abandoned my post to follow salt-and-pepper. B. got towels and ice for the thin guy's head, and dealt with the police until I returned. When I did, there were flashing lights everywhere, and the thin guy was sitting downstairs, being ministered to by police; a stretcher arrived soon after. An officer Lee interviewed me: who am I? What did I see? Was I the manager? I was concerned, at first, with my faulty memory; was the car really red? Did I remember the color of his jacket? As I was answering questions, though, my hands began to shake and my throat became dry; I realized that the experience had, in fact, had an emotional effect on me. (A patron, an older woman in a fur coat, actually interrupted us at this point: "Excuse me. Can you tell me what the letters in the pattern of the carpet mean?") The officer was thorough but friendly, and thanked me when it was done; I'd gone above and beyond normal civic duty, he said. I may need to go to the station to identify salt-and-pepper later tonight; I'm waiting for them to call. And I sit here, shaking a little, waiting to calm down.
So that bit of violence killed my springtime mood pretty effectively. We just finished wiping the clotted blood from the sink. And hey, what do you know? It's snowing again.
I reached the lobby in time to see a thin man stagger out of Triplets of Belleville amid an eddy of alarmed patrons. His face was a mask of blood; a gash slit his right eyebrow. He looked at me and said, "Call the police. Now." He pointed to a heavyset, middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair: "It was him."
Someone got out a cell phone. I asked salt-and-pepper to stop, to wait for the police to get here. "No! I'm not stopping for anybody. He jumped me." I followed him and his wife down the stairs, asking him to at least leave his name and number. "You wait for me," he told his wife. "I'll get the car. If this bitch keeps following me, I'll kick his ass too."
So I kept following him.
Down State, assuring him we'd run across some police eventually. Up North U. "How do you feel about running tonight, bitch?" "Um...fine. But you know, my legs are a lot longer than yours, and I'm maybe twenty years younger." He bolted; we ran full-tilt through the Diag, with me keeping about twenty feet between us, and him continuing to threaten me; I pointed out that there were always plenty of bicycle cops patrolling the park. He changed direction at that point, cutting back toward State in front of Angell Hall, then into traffic and across the street; he was laughing, actually laughing maniacally, as he ran down the gap beside the Kelsey Museum. Finally, he reached his car; he got in and tore off, but I was able to get the license number and a description (dust-covered red compact). (Which led to the only cool moment in the whole experience. I met two officers walking down State as I was coming back, and gave them the license number. "Which way did he go?" they asked me. I pointed, and three cop cars raced off in a squeal of sirens.)
Fortunately, B. is working tonight, and he was more than capable of handling the crowd of people in my absence...which is good, because I basically abandoned my post to follow salt-and-pepper. B. got towels and ice for the thin guy's head, and dealt with the police until I returned. When I did, there were flashing lights everywhere, and the thin guy was sitting downstairs, being ministered to by police; a stretcher arrived soon after. An officer Lee interviewed me: who am I? What did I see? Was I the manager? I was concerned, at first, with my faulty memory; was the car really red? Did I remember the color of his jacket? As I was answering questions, though, my hands began to shake and my throat became dry; I realized that the experience had, in fact, had an emotional effect on me. (A patron, an older woman in a fur coat, actually interrupted us at this point: "Excuse me. Can you tell me what the letters in the pattern of the carpet mean?") The officer was thorough but friendly, and thanked me when it was done; I'd gone above and beyond normal civic duty, he said. I may need to go to the station to identify salt-and-pepper later tonight; I'm waiting for them to call. And I sit here, shaking a little, waiting to calm down.
So that bit of violence killed my springtime mood pretty effectively. We just finished wiping the clotted blood from the sink. And hey, what do you know? It's snowing again.
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no subject
Date: 2004-03-20 09:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-20 09:20 pm (UTC)Do you have any idea what *happened*? I mean, movie theater, people usually just sit there...
no subject
Date: 2004-03-20 10:24 pm (UTC)Not really. The indirect information I got was that it erupted after one of them shushed the other for making too much noise during the movie. The victim had a broken nose and, possibly, some broken ribs.
Craziness. I haven't heard from the cops yet, but they have my home number.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-21 01:41 am (UTC)Well, I mean, at least it'll be a good story . . .
I'm impressed you had the presence of mind to tail him. I think I just would have been stunned, not to mention to slow to keep up.
I hope your springtime lift comes back ASAP. It can be really traumatizing to be even tangentally involved in a violent incident, not to mention being threatened.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-21 09:00 am (UTC)(Maybe the fight started because one of the guys couldn't stop humming along with that damn song, and the other guy couldn't take it any more.)
no subject
Date: 2004-03-21 09:27 am (UTC)Did anyone talk to salt-and-pepper's wife?
...What do the letters in the pattern of the carpet mean? Maybe someone's been summoning up Ancient Evil in your theater.
no subject
Date: 2004-03-21 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-22 04:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-03-23 08:47 am (UTC)crazy, crazy...
Date: 2004-03-26 09:55 pm (UTC)kinda makes me glad i dont work there anymore. you did a good job. i only made the paper when there was that riot during the sneak for blair witch.
Can you tell me what the letters in the pattern of the carpet mean?
and i had forgotten about the carpet. sigh.
(it's debbie, by the way...)