So I never told anyone from my family this story, and I don’t know why. It happened at the end of a semester. I was probably just worryign too much about getting the hell out of there to remember to tell anyone not with whom I had immediate contact with on campus. I think that it does say a lot about me, the guy I always wish I can be. I would do anything for anyone; I’d give my life to save another. You know those dumb questionnaires? The ones that ask you questions that are supposed to lend insight into your personality? Like, where do you see yourself getting married? (I’ve always wanted to be married on the beach) How about the question, “If you could choose, how would you wish to die?” People usually answer, “Painlessly in my sleep”. My answer has always been “Saving someone else’s life.”

I don’t know what this says about me. Do I not treasure my life, to the point that I would almost want to give it up for someone else? Does it mean that I am selfish and want to be honored in death? What does it mean? Could it be that I have just been brought up that way? That, I cannot answer. What I can say though, is that THAT is me. And THAT is the theme of this story.

So it was sophomore year at Penn. I was in a class called Persuasion and Communication. Our assignment was to create a campaign for something, anything. It was supposed to be a persuasive argument for or against our statement.

*Someone did theirs trying to convince the world that Milk was bad for you*

I decided to do a campaign on Ecstasy Use Amongst Teenagers. I had Annie’s and Billy’s friends fill out questionnaires at the St. Denis Fun Fair, as I was targeting high schoolers and pre-teenagers (eighth grade) who I felt would be an easier-to-reach target. I gave them Snickers in return for their answers. I used this to design a campaign telling them the negative side effects of taking Ecstasy. I came up with two television commercials, and wrote a 52 page paper about my research and the questionnaire results. The other part of the project consisted of an oral report telling the professor and class about your campaign. (Just a side note, an exact duplicate of my advertisement appeared a year after I suggested it to the class). It was a huge final project, worth something like 70% of our grade. So, obviously I was nervous about the paper, but even more nervous about the Oral Report. Not because I am not good at speaking in front of people (I’m pretty descent), but because of the massive amount of information that I would be covering. Sorry, that was the back-story.

So the day of the Oral Report, I leave my house 15 minutes earlier than I would normally leave, simply because I was nervous and didn’t want to be a minute late for this thing. I lived on 42nd and Spruce Streets, in Philadelphia at the time. As I rounded the corner of 42nd, I hear a commotion, and I see that cars are stopped and the passengers are looking toward me. Because there were huge shrubs on the border of the property at the corner of 42nd and Spruce, I couldn’t see what they were all staring at. Confused, I watched as they stood still at the green light. I added hustle to my step and rounded the corner.

I would have never expected what I saw next (or even how I reacted). A 6′ 4″ bigass black man was repeatedly pounding his black (for description’s sake) girlfriend’s head into the brick sidewalk. She had blood pouring down her face, and was crying really loudly. Rather, she was making loud noises – they weren’t exactly cries. They weren’t exactly words. She seemed less than conscious. It looked like she was covered completely in blood. I didn’t skip a beat. I dropped my presentation and ran to the guy, took him by the biceps (he had freaking rocks for arms), and somehow managed to tear the guy off the girl. The minute I touched this guy’s arms, which seriously felt more solid and larger than granite, I feared for my life. What was I doing tearing a guy with the physical size and muscle of an NFL linebacker off of this girl? No. No. That’s not it – HOW in the HELL was I able to do this? The guy was a beast.

“Yo! YO! Dude! Think, man. What the HELL are you doing?” I shouted in his face louder than I have ever shouted before. He tried to force his way back to the girl by knocking me to the right. Before he could do that, I grabbed him with a bear hug, *just* barely able to link my arms around the girth of his chest, and wasn’t about to let go.

No one was getting out of their cars. What the hell is wrong with people?

I stood there, with my arms wrapped around him, my fingers interlocked to prevent him from breaking free and stared him down, eye to eye. Yeah, I had to look up, but I’m sure he saw the red in my eyes. I was talking in a calm but firm voice, literally centimeters from his face. I was staring slightly up, into his eyes and would not look away. He was fuming. “Calm down, man. Calm down. You don’t want to make matters worse.” No one was getting out of their cars; I was stuck there with this guy by myself. What the hell is wrong with people? This could have been a mirror image of the Kitty Genovese tragedy every Psychology 101 students learns about, where there were dozens of witnesses that watched Kitty’s murder but assumed others would deal with the problem. But then, almost in the nick of time, “I’m calling the cops,” came a voice from an apartment above. This guy was watching the whole time, or at least I felt his eyes watching the whole time. The agressor let his muscles go a little less taught. But he wasn’t done. He tried once more to get at the girl, and was able to break free from my grasp and knock me out of balance (which, believe me, is not *that* hard to do — at least on any day when I don’t have these superpowers). I regained balance quickly, and luckily, my temporary 300 pound roommate was just walking up the street.

“RON! RON! HELP ME!” Ron was in the Israeli Army or something of that sort. He was living on the couch on the first floor of our house for the semester. I really don’t know who this guy was; he claimed he knew one of us. But no one in the house claimed ownership of him. But we let him live with us anyway, and he was a godsend this day. Just in the nick of time, when the agressor was somewhat back in control, my angel appears. But Ron had just been to the dentist, and had completely been under anesthetics. He didn’t know what was going on; I could tell from his face. So I placed him between the girl and the guy and asked him to hold his ground. “Ron, just don’t let him past you” He did a great job as a barrier. I tried to comfort the girl and told her that the cops were on the way, with an ambulance. She really didn’t seem to know what was going on. I told her to stay still, to lay on the sidewalk and not move (if TV has taught me anything, ER showed me not to move people when they are hurt). She was in obvious pain, and I felt so badly for her (while fearing the man behind my wall at the same time). I watched her squirm in a pool of her own blood – she had lost a bunch of it. She seemed to be regaining some sort of awareness, but just then Ron called to me; the guy took off, running into West Philly. I told him to try and watch where he went because the cops were on their way. He watched.

During that split second I talked to Ron, the girl got to her feet and started wandering away. I followed her and tried to comfort her by giving my hand and offering a place to sit (the curb). I told her that the cops were on their way, and that she would be able to get a ride to the hospital. She stared at me, and I thought she was giving a blank “I was just beaten to a pulp” look, but then she opened her mouth. She screamed at me. I didn’t get it. She was trying to yell something. I couldn’t make out a word. Ron watched the general direction that her boyfriend (assumed) went, and then he came to help me out. Both of themwere wearing bright yellow shirts, as if they were in a group or tour or something. She opened her mouth again, and BLURG… blood came pouring from her mouth (right onto my dress pants – I had a oral project, mind you) .

As I tried to figure out for what she was yelling at me, she continued to walk into Philly and I followed, trying to settle her down. It turns out she didn’t want her boyfriend to get into trouble with the cops and she was mad at me. Yeah – that same boyfriend who was beating her head against a sidewalk. I didn’t understand that. I assumed it was some sort of state of shock and pleaded with her to stay where she was… for her own safety. “What happens if your boyfriend tries this again? Is it worth your life to not get him in trouble?” She complained even more, and tried to get away from us. Luckily, the cops came at that moment. I flagged them down, because we were a block from where the fight had happened. As they came up, I glanced at my watch and noticed that I was 16 minutes late for my damn presentation, and my nerves were shot, my pants bloody, and – oh shit… where were my visuals for the presentation? Then I turned to the cops, who Ron was talking to and we pointed to the direction where the guy took off no more than 5 minutes ago. We told him what he was wearing (besides the girls blood), and that car took off. The second and third cop cars pulled up to us, and I told them I was in a rush, and that Ron would tell them what happened. They told me they could take care of everything (thankfully so I didn’t *completely* fail). In haste, I did not leave my contact information, but Ron was there and he knew where I lived (obviously).

I ran back to get my project — it was covered in dirt and small amounts of blood — and ran like hell to the auditorium. I left the girl and the situation in the hands of Ron, the cops, and the ambulance I saw speeding down Spruce as I ran 10 blocks to give my presentation. I ran. (Now add sweat to the mix of dirt and blood, and you can imagine how I looked). I walked in 25 minutes late for the presentations, and my name had already been called. In fact, because we were doing the presentations in bunches of 6 per day, they were on the last presentation. My nerves were shot to hell, and I looked like ass. I sat in the back until the presentation was over. Oddly enough, the presentation was on spousal and relationship abuse. It talked about how people often times do not report abuse because they do not want to hurt their “loved” ones. I did not understand why people do that. Why, if you are not being treated the way you should be treated, you would stay with that person. Why, if your significant other did not show you love every day, you would stay with them. Why you would put up with physical or verbal abuse at all. It’s a very interesting psychological issue that can be seen everywhere. I sat through the presentation, which was (sadly) perfect for my situation. After the presentation, I raised my hand and addressed the class. I explained to them why I was late — the whole story — and how it relates to this girl’s campaign presentation. And how it boggled my mind what the girlfriend was saying to me. They looked as shocked as I was. It allowed me to make a case for my jitters and shit, as I was up next to speak (by default and because I was late).

Well, my presentation was awful. I couldn’t remember any of what I needed to say, and it was painfully awkward. Luckily I had a petty safe excuse, and the professor (who is normally a hard ass) got a heart and called me to make sure I was okay later that day. And, yes, I ended up with a B+ in the class, but that’s the least important thing about this story.

I never found out what happened with this girl, and I wish I could have found out more. Ron said that he just helped out the cops for another 10 minutes and then they took the girl to the hospital. Neither of us were ever contacted. I got too caught up with the end of the semester and almost being out of school that I didn’t even think to call the cops myself. Oh well. I pray that she is alright and no longer with this asshole. Wanna know something weird? I felt this girl could have easily been killed by this man. He was *that* big and *that* vicious. But this wasn’t the only time that I was faced with soem sort of injury or brutality and took the high road. I will have to share another story with you later.