Bad Actors

When I was 16 I had a job sacking groceries at Trahan's Lucky Seven on Lyon's Avenue. After 12 hours of work, with a pocket heavy with tips I stopped at the Venus Theatre for a movie. The movie was Coogan's Bluff.  My '58 Dodge was parked behind the theatre. Leaving the theatre and going East to Gazin and my mind going to the Easter animals that were seasonally sold at the shop on that corner I watched another teen step off the bus and three men coming the other way stopped and began ro beat him. He handed over his pay packet and then one of the men stuck him three times in the chest. There was a large man standing next to me on the corner and I said "Let's get them". In the middle of the street as the man who had stabbed the teen swung the same knife at me I realized I was there alone and decided the better plan was to run. I was wearing new shoes with leather soles and as I ran they slipped on the gravel and in my mind I prayed "Lord, don't fail me now." As I turned the corner into the parking lot I saw the red and blue light bar and turned to see him tossing the knife down and another red and blue light bar was coming north on Gazin The were caught right there and arrested. The teen went by ambulance to Memorial Hospital downtown which it turned out is where he worked and where the pay packet was from. A Sargent came and took me there as well. The teen had a collapsed lung and was in surgery when we got there. He lived. I was told that at trial when the man was asked why he had tried to cut me he said it was because he was afraid of me.