My faithful readers may well remember my “Being Mugged” cycle of
stories (
I,
II,
III and
my brother's turn). Daring tales of a swashbuckling English teacher in Rio de
Janeiro, with a devil-may-care attitude, who would be damned if she'd
let any mugger take anything from her. And yes, that's how I usually
think of myself.
It couldn't possibly take too long before it happened again, right?
After all, I'm a danger magnet!
It was a beautiful Saturday morning; the sun was bright, the birds
were singing and I was going to work. Life was full of promises.
But every promise can go awry, and
that Saturday was no exception to Murphy's Law: as I turned around a
corner a guy bumped into me, pressed a knife against my stomach and
demanded my purse, with no one around to see it.
(On my dying bed, when I see my
life flash before my eyes, all I'll see will be guys demanding my
purse.)
I immediately said “no!”, and
as he tried to jerk the purse away from me I jerked it back, in a
very dangerous thug of war, one might say. He pulled the plug on our
little game trying to stick the knife into me. Quick as a cat I
swerved, but that moment was all he needed to grab my purse and walk
away. Yeah, he WALKED away.
Would pretty little me let him WALK
away with my purse? I strode after him without a second thought. It
didn't take the mugger much time to realize I was going after him,
and he broke into a run right away. I mean, I may not be much of a
threat, I'm pretty tiny (I'm 1,58cm or 5'3'' tall, and weigh 48 kg
or 105lb), but I wasn't going down without a fight! He ran, and I ran after him. And I
swear that dude wasn't normal. When he saw I was chasing him, he
threw his knife away. Seriously,
he just tossed in on the ground and kept on running. What the flying
f**?! I ran even more, I wouldn't let a complete ball-less moron take
my purse.
But of course, since I'm as
graceful as a platypus and as good at running as a peacock, the
inevitable happened: I fell. Hard. One of my shoes went flying
across the street, and when I stood back up my hands were bleeding,
and my pants had two huge holes out of which my knees, covered in
blood and pain, could see the world. A weaker being might've given up
then – not me! I continued my chase in my newest identity: Lady
Limps-a-lot. Believe it or not, I kept on chasing him limping on
both legs. After I'd picked up
my flying shoe, of course.
Now the tiny little limping girl was not
a threat, and the mugger simply walked on. He had a thousand heads' start over me,
and I could see him becoming a teeny point in the distance, with
a burgundy blur on his back – my purse. He got further and
further away.
I'm not ashamed to tell you that at
that point, though I did not stop walking after him, I did start
slowing down. I was far from home (I'd chased him for a long
while), my knees hurt like hell and he was getting away with stealing
my stuff. The world was a horrible place to live in, and my head was
hurting because of the fall. As I prepared myself to finally
quit that foolish chase and shake my fists towards Heaven, a strong
tall man was jogging by; when he saw me, he looked at the guy
disappearing in the distance, then back at me again, like in an Old
Spice commercial. He stopped.
Jogging Man: Did that guy mug you?
Shaky Me: Yes...
Jogging Man: Does he have any kind
of weapon?
Shaky Me: No... he did, but he threw
it away...
Jogging Man: He threw it away?!
Shaky Me: Yeah, he had a knife, but
he threw it away while running...
Jogging Man: Ok, I'm going after
him. Go home, don't stay here, you're hurt!
And Jogging Man, with no further
ado, sprinted after the mugger.
A little befuddled, I watched him
sprint for a while, then decided to take his advice. I arrived
home and screamed for my husband (the keys were in my purse, of
course, and the door bell was out of order). Hubby wore a question
mark on his face as he opened the gate and that was when I finally
burst into tears.
After I'd explained everything
between sobs and tears, and he'd given me some water, he started
taking care of my battle wounds. I called my work, explaining why I
wouldn't be able to go that day (not only did I have to go to the
police station, but I also could not go anywhere with both knees
swelling up to the size of a basketball each). When I was done, the telephone rang: my father. With flowers in his voice:
My Happy Dad: Good morning my
beloved daughter! How are you?!
Angry Me: Awful! I got mugged!
My Happy Dad: Really? Well, worry
not!
Angrier Me: “Worry not”?! What
the...
My Happy Dad: Worry not, because the
guy that went after the mugger actually got him, beat him up, got
your purse and found my number in your agenda as “emergency
contact”! He's got all your stuff back for you!
No Longer Angry Me: … How...
*burst into tears again*
The story: Amazing Jogging Man
finally reached him (I was not surprised: Jogging Man was
huge and, well, a jogging man! The mugger was much smaller and not at
all athletic), gave him a mighty beating as if he were Chris Brown
and the mugger were Rihanna, took off his clothes, threw them away
and warned him to never go back to that neighborhood ever
again. And left him there, bare naked for
other people to lynch him (because at that point there was a mob
watching, holding forks and torches).
We talked some more, I thanked him
a gazillion times and went home, for my unexpected day off from work.
To this day, people keep telling me
that I was crazy to chase the mugger; well, my answer to that is:
hadn't I chased him, Jogging Man wouldn't have bumped into me and
thus saved me. You know what they say: “Faint hearts never won fair
ladies” (“fair ladies” meaning “their purse back”) and
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained”.
Also, we now refer to my savior as
The Jogging Avenger.
To be fair, my Jogging Avenger looks nothing like him. But Chris Evans is ALWAYS an eye candy, am I right girls?!