“You can’t smoke that in here. Outside.”

I gave a look of confusion to the bartender. He repeated himself-

“I don’t give a shit that it’s an electric cigarette, get it out of here. Other people will think it’s real and light up actual cigarettes, I’m not getting fined.”

Seriously? Fine.

It was 2010, I had been smoking an e-cigarette for about three weeks in an effort to kick the habit. I enjoyed them, even though nobody else did, and this was the first time a bartender had kicked me out for using one.

I made my way outside, electronic device dangling from my lips, and proceeded to witness a robbery.

My first instincts were to run back into the bar. I’m no hero.

All I heard was,

“That’s a fucking toy gun!”

Then I saw a white, skinny, crackhead running for his life…from a large, angry black man.

“Call the cops, that guy just robbed me!”

I started chasing after them both, and dialing 911.

“911 operator, what is your emergency?”

Some dude just got robbed! We are down by Silver Peak on Virginia, please send a-

“Sir, who is getting robbed?”

It was at this point, that I didn’t realize who was the victim between a crackhead and the large, black man; and I have never felt more racist in my entire life.

Um…???

“Sir, we have patrol cars on the way.”

I’m still running, nearly out of breath, following this situation and giving the operator a play-by-play, all while having no idea what’s going on. Things started to get interesting when the black man leaped with all of his might, and tackled the crackhead hard on the pavement. It was quite a jump, but again, not racist.

“Sir, what’s going on?!”

I think this guy got robbed and just tackled his assailant. He’s got him pinned down! Wow! We’ve got him. (We’ve? WTF did I do?)

Large black man was pissed. He started screaming and clobbering the frightened crackhead.

“Rob me with a toy gun? A fucking toy?”

He started bashing the plastic gun into the crackhead’s face. Harder and harder, the gun exploding into a thousand different pieces, meanwhile the crackhead was covered head to neck in blood. The gun breaking didn’t deter the man and he proceeded to keep rearranging his face with his bare fist.

It was at this point that my voice changed on the phone and I told the dispatcher, “Get police here now, I think this guy is going to kill someone. Hurry up.”

I was stunned and in a trance at that moment. I couldn’t move. The rage that this guy was in was one of the most intense things I have ever witnessed, and I wasn’t about to jump in the middle of it. I happen to like my face and the last thing I am going to do is put it in a situation where it may get beaten like a Jackson child.

Holy Rhianna this was intense.

Wait though, it gets better:

Black guy stops beating the crackhead and holds his bloody fist in mid-air to say,

“You gonna rob someone again? Huh, motherfucker?!”

Crackhead is sobbing in a mixture of tears and blood, “No! No!”

The bloodied man only gets in those few words before taking another fist to the face.

“You better not have AIDS! You better not!”

It was at this moment I saw the funniest thing in my natural life.

The gods of comedy froze time and right before the scared crackhead was about to take another beating to the face, managed to get out one glorious line, sputtered in blood and loose teeth-

“Um, uh…um…er…I HAVE AIDS! Yes, that’s it, um…AIDS! Groan!”

It was delivered in a way that would make Keanu Reeves shudder.

While I had to contain my laughter, black man delivered another blow to his brow.

“You stole $300 of mine, I’m gonna hit you for every dollar you took!”

“Sir, Stop” is what I wanted to scream…but didn’t. Luckily, the cops finally showed up.

It gets worse.

Like I said, we were at a bar when all this took place.

Cut to- My girlfriend, who was enjoying the night with our friends and getting pretty hammered. It was about 5 minutes after I had went out for a cigarette when she noticed I was gone. This worried her.

While she is searching for me, I am talking with police about what I witnessed.

“Would you mind filling out a witness report, sir?”

Absolutely.

As I am filling out the document, the officer then says to me,

“It’s cold out, you can fill that out inside the patrol car if you want, we have the heater on.”

That would be awesome, thank you officer.

As the officer is placing me in the back of the cop car, my drunk girlfriend stumbles out of the bar to witness it.

Initiate drunk, crying, over-reactive girl in heels in 3….2….1….

“What are they doing with my baby?!! STEVE!”

Oh no. Oh, no, no. Pay no attention to her, I beg you.

“What did he do, officer!? I know my rights! What di-”

-”Ma’am, shut up. Your boyfriend is just a witness to a robbery, he is actually helping us out”

“Oh. Really?”

It was at this moment, my drunk girlfriend said something to the officers that I will never forget, as long as I live:

“Um, then can you officers take pictures of me inside the cop car while he fills out the paper work? Woo!”

It was even more of a surprise to hear the officer say:

“Yeah, sure.”

Initiate drunk girlfriend slide show-

I later would find out not only did the guy get robbed, but when the crackhead was being chased he decided to throw the money in the river. $300 cash in the Truckee…in March.

I normally have a point, or a moral/lesson at the end of my writings, but I decided against it for this one.

This was just a plain-old, funny story.