Stuart Dances

today I was chased down a lane that I can see from my apartment by three boys shouting “give me your F☠☁KING money” and “don’t F☹☃KING run away” to which I replied “I don’t have any money” and “why are you being like this?”

there were five of them in total, I guess two of them were just backup or something, maybe they were on the bench, or maybe they had sore feet, I don’t really know how it all works, maybe they have a roster.

the tallest of the three pushed my chest, trying to push me over. in my jacket pocket I had a pack of 16 double A batteries, I considered offering the boys the batteries, but then I thought that they might use them to throw at me, also I wanted to keep the batteries.

to be honest, I wondered if I should fight them. I’ve always thought that I’d be pretty creative if ever put into the situation where I had no choice but to street fight. I think I’d invent some pretty fancy specialmoves.

my satchel was laden with some rather hefty weaponry too. I’d just been to the library and I was packing heat: bukowski, sedaris, some portugal travel books and the penguin portable beat poetry reader, I could’ve really messed these kids up.

earlier, just before I rounded the corner onto that lane, I smiled at a man in the park on the corner, who was telling his son “it’s not a good idea to roll in the grass, because you’ll get wet”.

a minute later, as I retreated back around the corner into the open, the man and his wet son saw the boys chase me for a bit. he saw them quickly give up, hurl a few swear words and rude gestures at me and recoil back down the lane. he and his son watched from the middle of the park. I signaled to him not to go down the lane, but I think he’d already worked that out.


I stood by the park in the open for a bit, relieved that I still had my batteries. 


I went the long way back to my apartment. my kitchen overlooks the lane, I didn’t want them to see where I live so I peaked around the corner. secretly I watched them for a while, the sun went down so I turned off the lights and watched them from the dark. they felt big down there, but from up here they looked pretty small. After about an hour and 3 glasses of whiskey I got bored and had a bath with the door open. My apartment filled with mist like a shitty magical fairytale. all the windows in my apartment fogged up and finally I forgot about the lane and everything.