I Chased Him Away With A Bat

Alaska Taught Me Action First, Clothing Optional

Image of the author, courtesy of Dr. Brinkley Jr.

Sound asleep on a Therm-a-Rest, still wafting camp smoke from living in the woods of Canada. My girlfriend and I met gutting salmon in Alaska and decided to stop in Portland.

The sleeping bag was thrown open from the heat in the city, and I could smell fried food somewhere, mixing with our humble dinner of Rice-A-Roni.

I had peeled my shirt off in a fit of pique because the air conditioning relied on an ambient breeze from an oily parking lot.

We had finally procured a place to live. It was a 100-year-old building in Old Town Portland, near the warehouses and train yards. The city was all-night noise compared to the woods, and I hadn’t learned what sounds to ignore. The furniture was sparse, and sleeping on the ancient wood floor made for the worst sleep in a bag.

Give me the woods any day.

We lived adjacent to CalSport. A bar that is mysteriously named for California and Sports, but panders to neither. One ancient TV ran old MTV tapes on a VCR that whined like a hamster. There was a pool table that drifted down to one corner.

This bar appeared to be on its last year of life.

The mixed drinks were all “well” and “meh”, but on a crappy night coming home from a 14-hour shift at the steel mill? I was okay with whatever I could toss down my gullet to get the wrinkles out of my spine. At least it wasn’t a strip bar. I couldn’t afford to tip the entertainment.

There were frequent fights, the occasional hook-up in a car, you know, general shady shit you only see in poorly lit scenes of shows on HBO, or Cinemax.

The police tended to ignore our building because we were across the street from an armored car company. Those guys were next-level armed to the teeth, so the riff-raff avoided that 24-hour booty bunker.

Image of my bottle cap collection courtesy of the author. Yeah, some part of me is always at uni somewhere.

This particular Friday night, I had just landed on the old Thelma-rest after throwing my shirt on the single chair in the bedroom. The weighted sash windows were open, and the occasional cigarette smell would waft up from the alley. We were on the second floor, just above the fray.

“Night, Dr. Brinkley,” I mumbled, trying to hold still enough to feel the whiff of air on my sticky skin.

“Night, Knucklz.” My girlfriend was drifty on her bag, her blonde hair splayed out on a flattened pillow. We’d both been working brutal jobs to save for first-last-deposit, and the hours showed.

The sounds of the city shifted when the bars closed at 2, and I could hear people staggering out into the parking lot, through the alley and down the street, singing, the occasional laugh, and then I heard it.

Someone sounded like they were struggling just below my open window.

“I said NO. Get off me. Get off…” A woman was crying, and I heard the sound of a muffled scream and the sharp crack of a hand on bare skin.

Nope.

I launched off the floor, leaned out the window, and hollered.

“Hey, You! Get the fuck off of her. I’m coming down.” I grabbed the Louisville Slugger stashed by my mountain bike, and ran down the stairs in my bare feet, still wearing black cargo pants from the steel plant.

“Come on out, you stupid motherfucker! I hollered, tapping the bat on the ground with a bright metallic ching. sparks**

I was well versed in expedience after the whole Alaska fiasco of women outnumbered ten to one, and I wasn’t about to wait.

Shit happens in less than a minute.

I could hear the woman crying as I rounded the corner into the alley. I slammed the bat into the brick, hollering in my lowest, most commanding alto voice at the man hunched over a woman on the ground.

“Get the fuck out of here before you become a PRISON BITCH you sack of SHIIIIIIIT.” I was growling as I raced forward.

“You wanna hit a woman? Here I am… let’s go.”

He looked up. I could barely see him, backlit from the sodium street lights.

His eyes got wide, and he fell a couple of times, scrambling to his feet. He ran into the darkness.

From what I could tell, he was a slight man, more pencil than dick.

“Hey, it’s okay, we can call the police.” I lowered my volume and looked down at the woman. Blonde in her early 20s, dressed up for a night out. Lil’ pixie sprite of a thing.

I knelt and offered my hand. “Do you know that guy?” I asked, and realized she was shaking. I stuffed the question down as I helped her to her feet.

Her nose was bleeding, and her face was a bit mottled in the orange glow, I assume from the slap. I turned her chin up a bit to see that her nose wasn’t gushing.

She sobbed, wiping blood on her arm. I smoothed her shoulders and looked her over to see if she was seriously hurt.

“It’s gonna be okay. He’s gone. Do you want me to call the police? Ambulance? Are you good to walk?” I asked softly. She seemed scared.

She blinked several times, rubbed her eyes, and blinked again.

“Where’s your shirt?” She asked when she finally found her voice.

Shit.

Huh. There wasn’t time. I shrugged.

“Upstairs.” I aimed a thumb to the open window. I walked her to the front of the building, gave her my cell, and went to retrieve appropriate coverings from my apartment.

I rushed to explain the situation to my girlfriend, who met me at the door, pulling on her work boots. Evidently my shouts had rousted her.

“Jesus.” She laughed. “You ran out like that?” She giggled. “You’re my hero.” She put her hands up, interlaced next to her cheek, and flapped her eyelashes. “Your jewelry is fine, but you missed the part in the middle.” The mirth in her eyes was followed by a snort.

“Stop it.” I flushed from my elbows to my eyebrows. “You know I am sick to shit of this, right?” My adrenaline started to taper off. “I swear to fuck if I have to listen to this every night again, we’re moving. I’m keeping the heads.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s been a year.” She shook her head. It wasn’t long ago I had chased some asshole off of her in Alaska. I had learned that most of them are cowards.

Most, not all. But one horny little wiry dude? Burger baby. Lunch.

Thinking back, I can’t imagine what the guy saw. My black pants must’ve made me look like a torso apparition. A rabid, hollering topless woman, smashing a metal bat on the bricks in the darkness.

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