Last Saturday night, OtherSister invited Wife and I downtown to meet up with her visiting BritCousin, LocalCousin, and brother. Still lacking suitable transportation of our own, we happily utilized the brand-spankety-new Thornlie Train Station and headed into the city.
After speed-walking the length of the enormous platforms and climbing up the stairs to view from which platform we were to catch our connection, we stopped a couple of TrainWorkerFolks to alleviate our confusion as to which platform our train was on.
“Leederville? Yeah, it’s that one,” they replied and dutifully pointed to a train pulling away from the station.
“Oh… you mean the one that we would’ve caught had we simply continued walking another hundred feet? Awesome.”
The extra wait meant that we could empty our bladders and catch a smoke in anticipation of the evening’s drinkery and dancery. The former was taken care of, and the latter was in the midst of, when we heard sharply spoken words behind us.
A group of early-teen adolescents were clustered near a ticket machine, and the smallest, a tough-looking Asian kid, was bulldogging 4 of the other kids around with a couple of cronies at his side. He seemed so confident and in-control that I was left thinking that whatever was going on was being appropriately handled by him until I heard him repeat the command of, “Wallets and mobile phones… now.”
One of the kids on the edge of the group backed away a few feet and then bolted, dropping his Slurpee, and running as fast as his scrawny legs could carry him. The Asian Tough chased after and I was immediately and urgently aware of the increase of adrenaline in my blood.
The idea that a mugging is no reason to get killed was the only thing keeping me rooted to my spot, though my glare and posture surely revealed the difficulty in my doing so. The logical and analytical part of my brain also reminded me that I had no idea which members of the cluster were good-guys and which were bad-guys.
It also slapped me around with the fact that I had no clue what the bad-guys were carrying with the presumed intention of exposing my internal organs to the night air.
This was a quite a quandary.
Head Asian Tough came back slightly breathless, empty-handed, and even more determined than before. I noticed that, of the other members of the group, the ones that were more menacing than the rest were all Asian, and there were only 3 of them. I began to formulate a plan.
I answered the look of mild alarm on Wife’s face with, “Those kids are being robbed.”
The largest Tough, the one with his back to me, had something small and metallic in his right hand. HeadTough had a large bag hanging over his shoulder, and the third had nothing in his hands.
Knowing that I wouldn’t likely be able to rely on any help from the intimidated youths and that I would have to take down the Toughs in order of Immediate Threat Level, I moved slowly and casually towards the ticket machines.
When I was a few feet from BiggestTough, I angled just behind him, blocking HeadTough from my view. The cluster had the robbers mostly on the right, and the robbees mostly on the left, so I knew I could make a fairly clean sweep in that direction. I gritted my teeth, took a few short steps, lowered my shoulder, and blasted BiggestTough squarely between the shoulder blades.
I looked up in time to see his flailing body ram into HeadTough and focused my next move on LeftoverTough. He’d turned in surprise to see his two fellow ruffians in a pile and hadn’t yet turned his head back in time to see my fist rocketing towards the side of his head. He went down like your sister after a few Passion Pops.
HeadTough had recovered enough to scramble for his shoulder bag, and while I screamed, “RUN!” at the worthlessly startled innocents, I steel-toed the Slurpee cup right into his face, wedging the straw up his nose.
Unfortunately, BiggestTough had used this time to deploy his weapon, and was after me with it in a heartbeat. As I caught the blade of the knife between my hands, I angled my elbow into the side of his head, and pushed both our bodies into the ticket-dispensing machine, significantly stunning him.
As I gripped his hair and ran his face up and down the multi-colored buttons of the machine, I cocked a wry smile and informed his fading-into-the-oblivion head that he now owed $15.10 for two adult’s and two children’s train fares.
I was right in knowing I couldn’t rely on help from the mugging victims, as all they’d left as evidence of their appearance were vapor clouds. The previous cluster of humanity was now an open area, and HeadTough and I were the only ones standing in it. He’d recovered himself enough to square off with me, and was pulling from his satchel something metallic and extremely killyou-looking.
As my brain struggled with the decision to either duck behind the ticket machine for cover or charge him while screaming like a madman, I realized that I was frozen to the spot, waiting for some external force to prompt me into saving my own ass.
That external force suddenly took the form of Wife, who appeared to be hanging in mid-air like a rope-climbing acrobat at the circus, yet was moving in slow-motion, with one leg cocked and the other extended, towards the side of HeadTough’s body. She delivered a kick that knocked the weapon from his hand and sent him sprawling.
Somehow he managed to maintain enough of his faculties to once again reach into his bag, but Wife was too quick for him. As I stared mutely, she grabbed his soon-to-be-armed-again wrist and pulled it from within his bag.
A mobile phone clattered across the concrete, surely not the item he was seeking, but it didn’t stop Wife from grabbing it and shrieking, “Dial this, BITCH!” and ramming it violently into his mouth. As he struggled, she braced one hand on the phone and pounded on it with the other, and the gurgling noise emanating from his throat slowed with the same frequency as her blows.
As she climbed off him and began sauntering away the phone began ringing, and Wife turned to casually say, in a very answering-service voice, “This mugger is not available, he’s been pummeled into the floor by petite little WifeHole.”
I handed her back her fallen handbag, lit myself a smoke, and we high-fived lovingly as we wandered off to catch our train.
This vigilante-whup-ass-couple deserved a beer.
Aw, be honest, it wouldn’t have been anywhere NEAR the quality of story if I’d written that after pointing out the robbery, Wife grasped my arm and we hurried off to find the nearest copper.
I’d never let the fact that she reminded me that I am not allowed to do crazy-beat-em-up-protect-the-innocent-shit now that I have a wife and two kids stop me from fantasiz… um… telling a good tale.
Wife did do me terribly proud during the course of the evening though, as she danced and drank herself into DrunkenHole prominence. The train ride home consisted of Consciousness and Unconsciousness warring alongside The Battle of the Belly for my poor li’l Aussie Wife. She lovingly and tenderly left herself at the mercy of HusbandHole in the belief that she’d end up happily and safely home in bed.
She did, relatively unmolested (heh… she’s really, really hot… what can I do?) sans OrangeJuliusTechnicolorYawn, of course.
She’s not a puker like her goofy hubby.
But she is a JackieChanNinjaMobilePhoneAssWhupper, trust me.