I once stayed in the red-light districts of Paris on my own. They were crowded, scummy and scary even during the day with shady-looking strangers offering to trade you cigarettes and packets of tissues for some change. At that particular time, riots of a nationalistic flavour were flaring up over the FIFA World Cup. I remember stepping out of the worst hotel I have ever stayed in and immediately being flattened against a brick wall as a stampede of people scrambled through the streets with panicked shouting, followed by a battalion of policemen armed with shields and batons marching slowly and carefully on after them.
I was scared then but Los Angeles was scarier. Like most major cities, there are good and bad areas. Call me strange but I have grown to prefer seedy areas over tourist areas. I call it "Real America." My friends and I had just come from a sun set bike ride along the board walk at Santa Monica Beach. It had gotten dark and cold quite quickly, and in a complete YOLO moment, we decided to hop off the bus early in West Hollywood so that one of the girls could fulfil her dream of getting a tattoo at Kat Von D's High Voltage Tattoo (from LA Ink). Just the night before, my parents had found out that I had been straying from the group and exploring LA on my own and had sent a long text about "sticking with the group for my own safety." So, I followed them off the bus to the tattoo parlour where one of the girls got her dream tattoo.
There was no bathroom in the tattoo parlour so at 10pm, one of the boys and I hit North La Brea Avenue aiming for the closest McDonalds 263 metres away. As soon as we stepped out the door, we could tell we were in a seedy area. Roaming the streets were men with a crazed look in their eye and there were echoes of clinking of bottles and mad cackling laughter ringing in the air. Stupidly, I suggested we run... for two reasons: 1) We'd get to our McDonalds safehaven faster; and 2) It might warm us up because while those Winter days in California were hot and sunny, the nights were too chilly for our shorts and t-shirts.
So we picked up the pace and started jogging in our thongs (flip-flops/jandels etc) which I admit, must have looked and sounded very suspicious. Two people running in thongs down a seedy street late at night. We had gotten maybe 50 metres down the road when I swore that I could hear a third pair of footsteps running behind me. I could tell Luke could hear them too and we looked at each other nervously. I was sure I was about to get attacked and mugged and I remembered that I had only $2 on me and felt a little relieved.
Together we looked around and sure enough, we saw a tall man in the shadows carrying a backpack chasing us down. It all happened so quickly, I don't remember what I was thinking or feeling, if I was thinking or feeling anything at all. Instead of tackling us though, he slowed down to halt when we locked eyes and started to talk manically to us. "Why did you guys stop running? I was just trying to run wit y'all." Stunned, we just stared at him stupidly - probably like this:
"Well Happy New Year!" he yelled cheerily slash manically, before he let us walk off. We hurried across the street into McDonalds where he followed us in and took a seat at the entrance. We snuck out through the back exit. We still don't really know if that guy was intending to mug us. We didn't ask. Maybe we should have.
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