Large Fierce Mammal

Approaching me in a dark parking lot while I’m strapping my child in their car seat is a REALLY stupid move. Don’t you know that a mother protecting her young is one of the most dangerous things to tussle with? ~ Mrs. LFM

At approximately 18:30 Atlantic Time on the evening of Monday, 30 November 2015, Mrs. LFM and I had a brief and ultimately uneventful encounter with a young male of questionable intent. “Uneventful”, at least, to any onlooker beyond the three of us involved, and with “questionable intent” limited solely to the young male, because speaking for Mrs. LFM and me, nothing was open to question. You will not be surprised to learn that much water had passed beneath the bridge beforehand that contributed to nothing outwardly visible happening, so that someone else’s misguided son could realize continuance of the simple pleasures of breathing, and a functioning circulatory system.

We were returning to our vehicle with our two boys – two year old Viktor, and five month old Lukas – after grabbing a quick snack and some much needed caffeine at the MacDonald’s in the Dartmouth Crossing shopping district. I had parked backed up to the rock strewn downward slope that formed the boundary between the MacDonald’s parking lot and that of the adjacent Tim Hortons coffee shop, and as we left the restaurant, I noted that the state of things was as it had been on arrival – no other vehicles parked for at least three spaces to the right of it, and forever onward to the left. Approaching our late model Ford Escape, which in itself may or may not, by its very appearance, contributed to the events under discussion, we could see no human presence in or around the cars parked to the right of our vehicle, nor on the rock strewn slope that led down to the all but abandoned Tim Hortons lot below.  Their customers seemed more interested in lining up at the drive through window than parking and even briefly exposing themselves to the late Autumn chill.

Halfway to the car, I remotely opened the rear cargo hatch and unlocked the other doors. I was carrying Lukas strapped into his car carrier as I ensconced the diaper bag in the back, Mrs. LFM by now strapping Viktor into his seat in the rear driver’s side position. All the while, we were heads up and vigilant, as is our way.

One more casual look about – nothing – and I had Lukas locked in the rear passenger position almost before the rear hatch had closed and latched.  Standing up and scanning again as I walked toward the front of the vehicle preparing to open the front passenger door for Mrs. LFM who was just finishing with strapping Viktor in (toddlers are more work than infants, who travel essentially in bondage). It was at the beginning of that scan that I spotted the subject of today’s commentary.

Mrs. LFM was aware of him first as she saw him exit Tim Hortons and head toward the slope leading to MacDonald’s. She reported later that he appeared to be attempting stealth as he clearly spotted her and noisily dislodged several rocks mounting the slope in her direction. She made adversarial eye contact with him but he seemed unaffected. It was as he crested the slope that he came into my view – tall and rail thin, about 17 years old, wearing a knit touque and a capacious parka in  the pockets of which he had his hands firmly planted, out of sight. All I knew about him at that point was that he was less than 25 feet behind my Wife, clearly focused on her, and approaching fast.

I moved, one hand filled with a compact high intensity flashlight, the other with my working knife, and eyes locked onto that one who now qualified for the title of “target”. My mouth opened for a challenge as the light came to bear and the opening stud of my knife pressed into my thumb. Neither was necessary.

Suddenly aware of my presence, the miscreant looked into my quickly approaching eyes, clearly understood my purpose and changed direction at high speed – first straight for the side of a car that was idling in the drive through lineup, and then veering left through the same MacDonald’s door we had just made our egress through. We stood a moment watching his retreat, I for my own part feeling a swelling anger that only the presence of a Man changed this creature’s mind, whatever may have been festering in it.

We remounted our vehicle and did not pursue. He may have been nothing more than a homeless panhandler with ill advised to nonexistent social skills after all, and children don’t you know. We drove home without further incident.

Lest all the references to scanning, awareness, preparation, and equipage in this account leave the uninitiated reader with the impression that we are paranoid and in a constant state of fear, I would add that this was nothing more than long practiced awareness coupled with preparation and a severe dose of all out nasty awaiting anyone who won’t take no for an answer. Remember, if it comes to “FIGHT ON”, then it’s all in, the way every other animal in Nature does it. To the degree that either can muster, a Bee is dangerous, and a Bear is dangerous, but neither seeks conflict. Be dangerous. As often as not, that will prevent the fight altogether, just so long as your own contribution isn’t mere bluff lacking commitment.

I’ll leave you with the words of an excellent article titled Time to Fight, posted yesterday to the unfortunately named but always informative Gun Nuts Media blog:

The dangerous person is often able to win fights that on paper they should lose, usually because the person who picked the fight with them wasn’t expecting to encounter the kind of violent tenacity that the dangerous man/woman can summon. Bad guys want victims, not opponents.

Fighting isn’t just your only option…it’s got a much higher chance of success than you might believe. Say you have the foresight to carry a small knife on your person (an item legal to have on you in most jurisdictions) …. I guarantee you that opening a few of that bastard’s favorite arteries is going to screw with his game plan something fierce. Killing a person offering no resistance is one thing. Killing a person determined to fight to their last breath as they busy themselves working a knife into your anatomy like a Singer sewing machine is another thing altogether.

To have a hope of fighting that hard, though, you have to create that mental parking spot to employ the level of violence necessary to prevail. Like ol’ Josey says:

The person who can get “plumb mad-dog mean” when attacked is very dangerous. The dangerous person is often able to win fights that on paper they should lose, usually because the person who picked the fight with them wasn’t expecting to encounter the kind of violent tenacity that the dangerous man/woman can summon. Bad guys want victims, not opponents.

As the good guy you don’t usually get a say in whether or not some catch-and-release felon tries to make you a victim…but you do get to decide that there’s going to be a fight. You do get to decide that if this bastard wants to end you, he’s going to have to earn it. There’s a time for deescalation and even for running away as fast as possible. There is also a time to fight. A time to summon every ounce of malevolence you can muster and unleash hell on the bastard that is trying to harm you and yours.

I’ll remind you once again of this:

“You are fundamentally a bio-machine shaped by 17,000 ‘stupendous bad-asses’, as Neal Stephenson once said. Seventeen thousand times, your ancestor survived the famine that killed his neighbor, survived the wolf attack, survived the battle, survived the fall, the injury, the disease, the conflict. Seventeen thousand times, your ancestors survived to reproduce. You may feel like a weakling as you sit in your bean bag chair and play Candy Crush Saga, but you are an apex predator by birth.”

Having police, fire, and emergency medical response a few minutes away is a good thing and we’re better for having them…but it’s never going to be a substitute for a person at ground zero who has a plan and some useful tools.