No big. Just that I’m totally a hero… and maybe an almost accidental kid runner overer, but let’s not think about that.
So I was leaving the gas station when I heard this ungodly scream, and since I live in Hawthorne, I was just going to keep driving because that shit is regular occurrence in my neighborhood (in fact, people are yelling at each other outside my window right now and I don’t even know what about), but then I remembered I wasn’t in Hawthorne, I was in Redondo Beach, and that sort of thing is abnormal in those parts. Which is a really good thing, because about that time a 15 year old kid came sprinting out of the shadows and tripped on his face right in front of my car in the gas station driveway. This is the part where I might have run over him if I had even a shadow of a reaction time. But, since the first thing I do when stressed is freeze dead in my tracks, a boy in Redondo lives to flee another day.
At first I thought someone was trying to car jack me and doing an extremely poor job of it… or an extremely excellent job of it, and the whole point was for me to think they were doing a poor job of it. I’m not really sure how a car jacker would benefit from a wacky double bluff like that, and this kid didn’t look old enough to pull an advanced con, but then again, maybe that’s just what he wanted me to think…
Anyway, being the thoughtful, altruistic, paranoid pessimist that I am, I locked my doors, but intended to open my window so I could figure out that the fuck was going on. Unfortunately, reflexes being what they are, I locked the door and then unlocked it again whereupon the kid opened my drivers side door and begged me to let him in the car. Which is kind of silly since I was sitting in the only seat he could have conceivably got to from the door that he opened.
It was pretty obvious that he wasn’t a car jacker, he only had on one shoe, but I told him “I don’t know you, so I’m not going to let you in my car, but I’m not going to leave you here, so stand right there.” Then I called 911 (the first time I’ve ever done that) and proceeded to talk to the operator, the kid, and then a second operator all at the same time for about 5 minutes, at which point the police arrived.
Apparently some other boys were trying to take his skateboard and they were hitting him, and pushing him into the dark behind the gas station. So, even though I did less than I think your average good Samaritan would have done, I’m just glad I didn’t run him over, and that I was able to call the police.
Also, it may be bad karma to say something like this, but I’m pretty glad I didn’t act like twit and let a strange kid in my car when I didn’t know him and it would have served no purpose to do so.