Most of you who live in Baltimore have heard this story in one form or another by this point, but for those of you who have not, Cara and her friend Leah got mugged on Friday night, right the hell in Cara's doorway. Normally, this would have been a great opportunity for me to fulfill all the chivalrous/sexist fantasies I have of battling in the defense of my beloved, but I was off at TaxLo giving dooriya an up-close view of Baltimore scenesters in their natural habitat. I got a phone call from Cara at about 1am, and it took me forever to find a place where I could hear her over the music, and I was pretty drunk, but nothing creates instant sobriety like hearing "Some guy followed me and Leah home and attacked us and tried to force his way in the house, but we fought him off, and we're okay, but he got my purse, and my house keys were in it and he knows where I live so we're barricaded inside the house right now and the cops are on their way."

Dina and I bolted Sonar and took a taxi back to the place, right as the cops were leaving. According to the police, they were already looking for a man who fit the description that Cara gave them, because such a man had raped a girl in the same area earlier that night. This was somewhat unsettling news. After the cops left, we blocked up the door again with bicycles, bookcases and file cabinets, and all grabbed various weapons. It was sort of like a surreal LARP. Leah's character had a +2 Bike Lock. Cara's character had an enchanted Baseball Bat. I was not fucking around, and chose the Butcher Knife Of IKEA, and sat at the front window watching the gate (there's a small enclosed courtyard that leads up to their front door, which created a convenient early warning system) while Cara made various phone calls to cancel cards, inform landlords and contact locksmiths.

It's odd how such things awaken primal protective instincts. I have had friends of both genders get assaulted and/or mugged before, but never before somebody I was in a relationship with. I was fucking mad. There was a significant part of me that was actually hoping the guy would be stupid enough to come back and try to force his way in, because he might have been big but I am fast, and fast is more useful when you have a big nasty knife. After about an hour, I was upstairs talking to Dina, and somebody came to the front door, and I could hear Cara and Leah shouting "Who's there?" and I came rushing down the stairs with the knife thinking "Holy shit, I could be 30 seconds from putting this in somebody's throat." However, it turned out to just be mr_chair and messy_hair_girl coming to bring us cigarettes, and it would have been impolite and counterproductive to kill them.

I think perhaps the oddest thing about the whole experience was that I always considered Bolton Hill to be one of the least sketchy areas of Baltimore around -- probably second only to Roland Park. I do a hell of a lot of walking around the city, and I'm pretty much always on my guard unless I'm in Bolton Hill, because I suppose I always felt that rich homosexuals and art professors exuded some sort of protective aura that surrounded the neighborhood. It seems that such is not the case.

Normally, having such a thing happen to your significant other would be a reminder of how important they are to you, and how terrible it would be if they were hurt in any way. However, I did not particularly need any damned reminders, as I was plenty aware of these things already. You can keep your wake-up calls to yourself, world.

Music: De La Soul - A Roller Skating Jam Named "Saturdays"