Guys, what we did last night was not cool. We owe someone an apology. Yes, stupid shit often happens on Capitol Hill. I had seen running punks trying to ram hapless cyclists with their body on many occasions. But I had never seen a hipster try to ram six ill-tempered cyclists with his body before. I thought colliding against a 25 lbs steel frame would be punishment enough for him. But not all of us thought so. The dude was already writhing on the ground in pain after the impact, but may he deserved the beating he got when B started pounding him on the chest with his twisted up bike frame. B was probably just trying to straighten out his frame. It didn't seem excessive when J slapped the dude's girlfriend in the face to get her to stop screaming. She was out of control, after all. When she didn't stop screaming, I thought it odious that J chased her away by beaning her with cans of Rainier. Rainier's shitty beer, but we were all thirsty, and we could have used some cold ones after a ride up Cap Hill. J, it was really slick how you ripped the chain off your bike and started whipping the dude. That was awesome. It looked like you had done it before. I cringed a little when R pulled out his knife: i thought he was really going to hurt the dude. But the dude kept laughing at us, at how he had managed to take down a cyclist with his body. But R just cut off his pinky and his index finger (both disposable appendages). That got the guy to laugh less, but it didn't shut him up completely. I felt a little guilt when I urinated on the dude's bloody hand "to disinfect the wound, trust me, i'm a doctor, asshole." But I really had to pee right then, and the guy rammed us far from any open bars that would have bathrooms. Still, the guy wouldn't explain to us why he rammed us, and I understand, Scott, that you needed an explanation, anything to give you closure on the matter. I don't understand, however, why you started chewing his severed fingers in front of him. The only explanation you offered was "so he would get the message." But C was stomping his foot on the guy's face and the guy couldn't even know you were chewing his severed fingers. Maybe it was an inside joke? At the time, it felt perfectly reasonable to slash the guys' gilrfriend's roommate's tires. But later, I realized that was three levels of separation from the guilty party, and the wrong people would get the wrong message. Was that really worth it? Probably. We felt good. And those cars looked really stupid parked on the street like that. But what I can't get over, what makes me feel really guilty, is the puddles of blood the guy left on the street. That was a lot of blood. And some pieces of flesh. Some poor street cleaner is going to have to clean up that mess tomorrow. We just created extra work for someone who didn't do us any harm. We owe the street cleaner an apology.
I feel ashamed.
