I have my back to him, facing four other people.
The brain slows for a moment whenever we aren’t sure what we heard. I hear what he says, but I can’t decipher it. My brain is frantically decoding.
I turn and, and then slowly step backwards off the curb as I see the knife held in front of his body glinting in the moonlight.
His tousled hair sticks up around his frowning face. His clothes are rumpled. He has a few days shaggy beard growth.
I look into his glowering eyes and ask softly, “What do you need, baby?”
He repeats gutturally, “Are you going to keep fucking with me?”
There are four men behind me, but they are farther away from him. He would be able to slice through me before they could stop him. Then he would slash at them. People often underestimate the killing power of a knife.
My martial arts training in Aikido of twenty years ended 8 years before, but the trained mind and body feel ready. Even though I’ve aged and suffered some injuries.
In my mind, I instantly see what to do physically if he comes at me. Whether I could move fast enough for it to work is the question.
My one advantage is that I am a curb step below him, which could throw him off balance when he lunges. Getting an opponent off-balance is the first response to an attack.
I grow oddly calm, thanks again to Aikido training. We teach to expect nothing, and be ready for anything, which leads to being completely in the moment, creating a state of near relaxation.
In these few seconds I keep my eyes on his. I can still see light shimmering along the edge of the large knife.
Without moving, I say calmly, quietly,
Silent, tense moments pass. He and I stay locked on each other’s eyes.
I see the microscopic downward movement of his shoulder that indicates a tiny release of tension. The knife doesn’t move.
He suddenly turns. He walks away, back to where he had been trying to sleep on a concrete bench.
Sometimes, maybe often, getting an opponent off-balance doesn’t need to be physical or aggressive.
Epilogue
I turn to the men behind me, and we lower our voices to whispers. We agreed they would call the police, while I drive home. Maybe I should have stayed, but it felt like I was done.
As I drive, I call a friend to debrief, but also to hear a familiar voice. Someone to drown out the threatening one from minutes before.
The police come, determined he was off his schizophrenia meds, relieve him of his knife, and let him go back to sleep.
Three weeks later, he is arrested for punching a young woman on a tourist-filled street, and knocking her to the ground.
—
This post was previously published on New Choices.
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