The next afternoon, as I returned home from Bryant Park after meeting Uncle Raghu, a narrow alleyway beckoned. I lived in the Murray Hill area of New York, a place usually bustling but now quiet enough for the faint sound of angry voices to drift from the shadows. Normally, I'd have ignored it, kept my head down, and continued on my way. But for some inexplicable reason, a flicker of curiosity—or perhaps something more, a nascent sense of responsibility—compelled me to investigate.
I crept closer, pressing myself against the grimy brickwork, peeking inside. The alley was a concrete canyon, smelling faintly of damp refuse and stale cigarettes. Three figures, their silhouettes bulky and menacing against the muted light, were huddled together. These were amateurs, certainly—a cut above the bumbling goons I'd encountered in Nepal, but still painfully, laughably amateurish. They were wannabe gangsters, and they were surrounding a blind man. One of them, a bulky figure with a cheap, flashy chain, was foolishly brandishing a knife, its blade catching what little light penetrated the gloom. Seriously, stupid punks. What's the point of wielding a knife in front of a blind guy? He can't see it, so he won't feel fear. And if you accidentally hurt him badly or, worse, kill him, you'll end up in jail purely because of your own idiotic incompetence. Amateurish beyond belief.
"Stupid punks," I muttered under my breath, the words barely a whisper. But the blind man, his head tilted slightly, seemed to have heard me. His head snapped subtly in my direction, his sightless gaze somehow finding me with an unnerving precision. This, in turn, drew the attention of the trio, their heads swiveling towards the alley's mouth.
With my cover blown, I walked out into the open, a casual stride belying my sudden appearance. "What are you stupid punks doing? Let that guy go." My voice cut through the stale air, confident and unwavering.
"Boy, did you just call me stupid?" the leader, his knuckles white around the knife handle, snarled, stepping forward, a vein throbbing in his temple.
Was that really their main takeaway from my words? "Yeah, I mean, you're stupid for threatening that guy with a knife," I said, my voice dripping with feigned concern as I pointed at the blind man. "It's just… idiotic."
"Why, is he some big shot?" asked Punk Number Two, a scrawny guy with nervous eyes that darted between me and the knife.
"No, man, look at the sunglases and the stick in his hand. He's blind!" I stated, as if explaining something painfully obvious, sighing dramatically for emphasis.
"So what?" the punk leader scoffed, clearly still missing the point, a bewildered frown creasing his brow.
I looked at him incredulously, a silent challenge in my gaze. His two friends, however, exchanged weary glances. The light seemed to dawn in their dim minds.
"Idiot," the leader's own friend chimed in, a groan in his voice, rubbing his temples. "Since he's blind, he can't see your knife, so it's useless to scare him with it. And if you accidentally hurt or kill him, then bam, you've got police chasing you for a blind victim. Now do you know why he called you stupid?"
The leader spun around, his face a mask of disbelief and dawning humiliation as he saw his friends staring at him weirdly, their judgment clear. Even the blind man offered a faint, amused smile, a silent testament to the absurdity of the situation playing out before him.
Embarrassment quickly morphed into a furious, crimson rage on the leader's face. He pointed the knife at me, its tip glinting, a desperate attempt to regain control. "Even if he isn't afraid, you should be!" he bellowed, his voice cracking slightly.
"Of you?" I chuckled, rubbing my arms mockingly, as if warding off a sudden, absurd chill. "No, I'm more afraid of your stupidity. It might be contagious. God, just imagining myself acting like you gives me the chills."
"You brat!" He roared, his face contorted into a snarl, charging forward with the knife held high, a blur of clumsy aggression.
I watched him come, a slow-motion unraveling of bad decisions. From the corner of my eye, I caught a blur of movement from the blind man—a swift, almost imperceptible shift—and then the muffled thuds of his two companions collapsing to the ground, out cold before the leader even reached me. As the knife-wielding punk closed the distance, he swung his blade in a wild, diagonal arc, aiming for my gut. I sidestepped his clumsy attack with effortless grace and, in what I considered perfectly justified self-defense, delivered a swift, hard punch directly to his nuts.
He dropped like a stone, collapsing in a heap, curling into a fetal position, whimpering as if I'd dealt a death blow. His face was a contorted mess of agony and shock. Seriously? I barely put any force into that. Such drama.
I turned my attention back to the blind man. He stood calmly amidst the unconscious forms of the other two punks, faint, almost imperceptible smile still on his lips, as if he was entirely unbothered by the situation though the faint raise of his eyebrow conveyed a slight surprise his sunglasses failed to conceal.