A Walk in the Park

Story time.

Have you ever been jumped in the park? In the suburbs?

Last night, I was feeling particularly shitty. Not just shitty like I needed some tea and a hug. I needed to get out, and my happy-go-lucky cynic of a roommate, Ally, proposed just the pill I wanted - a trip to a swing set, away from the house and my computer and agonizing wait. Never mind that it was late at night, we lived in the safe suburbs of motherfucking Kirkland (yeah, water bottle Kirkland).

Sarah, Ally and myself, inlcuding Kevin, Will and Josh, all share a two-story stand-alone home in what would be Suburbia akin to Bethlehem, PA, if all the houses were made by Sears. Except in this particular location, Rose Hill, it's suburbs that stretch so far, we can't reach anything remotely similar to a store for a mile. We live in a cul-de-sac hidden behind a small, inconspicuous road that stems from 132nd street. 132nd is the major road that connects to 85th street toward Redmond and Downtown (the real) Kirkland on one end and some train tracks and Lake Washington Technical Institute on the other.

Ally and I are close to the same age, I'm older by a bit over half a year. We're both Freshmen in our respective schools, and we both moved from far away without cars, which are integral to some good Suburban living. Needless to say, Ally and I both walk or bus everywhere, and we're about ready to move out of our Suburban mouse trap. But now even more so.

The park, Mark Twain, is about a quarter mile in the direction of 85th street from Lake Washington Tech and rests along the major road, 132nd St (don't Google it. Kirkland has 3 of these alone). The park is not lit - at all. Yeah, but we were in a Suburb called Rose Hill in water bottle Kirkland. Why the hell would anything go wrong? Ally and I swung on the swings for some five, ten minutes. I found a slide under the trees, ran over to it, but Washington's a wet place, so I didn't bother climbing up and embracing the screaming kid inside me. After swinging out the unwanted fuel a bit more, I slowed to a stop, walked out into the (rather massive) field in front of me, illuminated only by the city lights reflected from the clouds.

That's around the time when three scattered guys came up yelling 'who are you?'. Ally, the frail 105lb 14-year old waif, was ignored, but I came face to this tall fellow holding his coat over his mouth. (As I'm unable to recall specifics, I'll undoubtedly leave out some integral spoken lines.) I was tripped by the bloke, which resulted in my hearing system falling off to end up in the grass. All three boys came up close, and Ally, no doubt, performed the most intelligent act of heroism and protectiveness I could ask of her.

... "He can't hear you, he's deaf!"

After Ally found my hearing system, I received apologies from all three of them. God damn, I just didn't want to be mugged, so it was nice to know that these were the 'good guys', fending off men with weapons I pray never to come in the presences of. "I swear, dude, I was just over there.." - points to relative area where slide was - ".. and this guy came up to me with a gun. You can't be out here at night."

Look, I'll be blunt, I know the smell of weed. I'm not offended by it, I'm not put off by it. I just had a roommate at Rochester IT who smoked enough weed that it made the entire third floor smell bloody awful. The smell was bad enough that, had I cared more about my health than my ability to breathe, I wouldn't open all the windows at 7 in the morning in Rochester, because Rochester Institute of Technology is one gigantic wind/snow tunnel.

What this has to do with the story is that we talked for not only 5, but not quite 10, minutes, trying to end the conversation and get the hell out of the park as calmly, rationally, and in-one-piecey as could be. But, damn, I swear to god, the bastards introduced themselves over and over again, the entire time.

"My name is Zach. Zach Sherman. Where you from? Pennsylvania? Do you live here now? You go to Washington? Man, that's really not smart. Don't wear your Washington sweatshirt out here, man. People hate the UDub, Wazoo, everything here. You will get attacked out here. I saw a man with a gun, I swear. These suburbs used to be a nice place, but no, not anymore. There's nothing but gangs here now. By the way, my name's Zach. Zach Sherman."

"Did I get your number, Ben?" "What? Ha, this isn't my phone. What, do you really expect a deaf person to have a phone? It's my girlfriend's. Give me your number." Which, you know, he may have actually done, because I still have whatever number he gave me in my phone.

Zach looked over to Ally - "do you have a number? Can I give you my number, too?" "I have my phone on me, but it's out of battery." "Aw..."

Originally, I thought these.. conversations.. with the person who attacked me in the middle of a field was due to his intoxication, exponentially echoed by some short, bald guy with a nice fuzz who did NOTHING BUT INTRODUCE HIMSELF, and a bisexual emo kid who I flirted with.

After about 7 or 8 minutes, I noticed something a bit different. A little off and a bit dangerous. I don't react all too well when I find that someone who is clearly becoming more threatening and taunting by the minute sports a nice pair of bronze knuckles, which I never saw him put on. I grabbed Ally's gloved hand, squeezed firmly, and made the most important, eloquent segue excuse to leave. I responded to "This is a bad place, man. Don't be out here at night." with "We've got to go home and make dinner."

Actually, that was the first, failed, response. The one that worked, after he repeated himself yet again, was "Well, I'll take your word for it. In fact, Ally and I should really get out of here before we get attacked, you know?"

So, we walk out, calmly, and they seem to stay behind.

The End.




.. Yeah, you can see the scroll bar, you know it's not over.

Walking out of that park was absolutely horrifying. Zach's retelling of "jumped.. behind the bushes.. man with a gun.. gun.. gun" Gun's all that's floating in my head right now. Actually, the brass knuckles were, but I'd rather be smacked in the back than shot in the leg. Walking past them, putting our backs to the men who were readily armed, is one of the most foolish, asinine, and difficult experiences to go through, and it needs to happen for only fifteen seconds. We weren't far from the road, but walking with our backs to them, walking only seven feet away from the bushes in an enclosure of trees that gave no shrub or blade its luminance from the moon peering through the clouds, is not a feeling I ever wish anyone to encounter. Thinking that, at any moment, the man they spoke of, the man with the gun, would be there, waiting for us, and my little Washington sweatshirt, too. We made it out, though.

We made sure we were walking in the middle of the street, for the utmost protection and preparation for any other potentially dangerous people pining to leg sweep a deaf, ailing father or attack my 3 year old defenseless daughter, Ally. Halfway down well-lit 132nd street from the park to 109th street, I'm trying to get a call through to Sarah to save our frightened asses. I didn't have Will's, Kevin's, or Josh's number, because any of those would have helped immensely. But I had Sarah's number. She'd pick up for me, right?

Ally leaned over to me and said, "they're following us." That confirmed my worst fears. Just awesome, hunky dorey, and shit.

I glanced back, pretending to look down a street to my left. Yeah, there they were, shuffling behind us, also in the middle of the goddamn well-lit (but undeniably eerie and empty) street. No need to freak out. Just keep walking. Ally, in hindsight, brought up the really obvious point that they were probably just walking home.

.. and 'lo and behold, they were!

The End.




They followed us into our inconspicuously small street, inching closer, probably walking at the same paces as myself and Ally, but they had long legs. I'm short, in contrast. Ally looked back; I turned around and walked backward, watching them. After I turned around to walk forward, I looked back again to see one of them, hooded or something and moving a lot closer. (I can't remember at all, but I didn't see his face or hair in the far-better-lit neighborhood, in comparison to the field lit by nothing but reflections from miles away. I presume it was Zach, as he was about as tall, but it could have been someone else.)

I always hate to be the Worrying Nancy or whatever real terminology suits me, but I asked Ally which door we should go up to, and she simply replied "the next one." I'll end this paragraph here to let you analyze what the hell I could have been thinking to ask that question.

Taking her response with reassurance, we nudged ourselves in the direction of the nearest house, when the tall, mysterious joker ran up to us, passed Ally, and held out a small can of some-crazy-shit-or-another and aimed at my freaking face. This is where his intoxication served me best, as I moved out of the way before he sprayed - was a wide spray. If someone can maybe provide any information on what it could have been (Pepper Spray? Will brought up the idea of spray paint, as there have been sightings of Bloods around Kirkland.) - and I ran up to the house, ringing the doorbell as frantically as possible.

Ally didn't run up the door, but kept looking at me, then the door, then back to the street where the boys ran off, then back to the door. When she finally moved up to the door, an old asian guy who looked so freaking much like Gilbert Gottfried wearing a bathrobe finally showed up, and Ally took over the conversation saying that we only needed someone to run up to and help us get away from the attackers. In my mind, I'm thinking "are you fucking insane? I want out of the street.", but Ally knows better than I.

We skipped through the front yards of all the following homes, talking about how thankful we were that they weren't coordinated in the first place. We finally just fucking started running and made it back to the house without any problems.

And that's when my night began.