Prequel to Willy's Accident

Willy's sister Ann invited him to go out with her and two of the young ladies she works with for a night of dancing at a local Disco Club. "I'm game says Willy! He had a great time, too, being back home, relaxing with family, and simply enjoying being himself for the first time in a while. They all went out to eat breakfast after the club closed at 2 am. It was a small mom-and-pop restaurant in a strip mall in Clinton, Maryland.

They paid their bill and headed out to the parking lot but could not get to their car because a huge crowd had gathered in the lot, blocking their access to the car. Willy went through the crowd to the front to see what was happening. There were two scraggly-looking, long-haired hippies, one of which was holding a man down on the hood of a car while the other one was hitting that man with a baseball bat! And no one was saying a word! Just watching! This is crazy, Willy thought to himself.

Hey, Willy yelled, you guys need to cut that out! Then the thug with the bat looks directly at Willy and yells back, well, who's going to stop us?! Willy paused briefly to gather his thoughts when a man sprinted from the crowd and jumped on the thug with the bat. Then, the thug holding the man down on the hood jumped on the man from the crowd, trying to help. Willy jumped into action and grabbed the second thug from behind and tried to get him into a choke hold with his right arm and used his left arm to keep the thug from squirming out of the choke hold. Suddenly, Willy's right arm fell limp and started falling backward.

Not sure what was happening, he struggled hard to keep his balance and not fall on his back by taking fast, short steps on his toes, which wasn't easy since he was wearing "pointy-toed" cowboy boots. As he started to steady his balance, he was able to see the thug's right arm moving toward him quickly in a circular motion, and that's when Willy saw a knife in the thug's hand! Instinctively, Will took a quick hop backward, which caused him to get off balance again. As the assailant wildly whipped his knife across Willy's abdominal area, which left the assailant unguarded and open to attack, Willy stretched out his right leg as hard and as fast as he could and kicked the assailant right in the "drop the knife button" with his pointy-toed cowboy boots! And it worked! The assailant dropped the knife and fell to the ground, gasping for breath. Willy had now fallen on his back.

But he sprung up and crouched into a boxer's stance, ready to continue the fight. Once the assailant was down, several guys jumped on him to keep him on the ground. Will glanced over at the other thug, and he also was subdued on the ground by guys from the crowd. Relieved the fight was over,

Willy just stood there to catch his breath and tried to relax, but the adrenalin was still raging in Willy's body, so he was twitching a bit, seemingly waiting for the next fight if needed. Just then, a young lady rushed up to Willy, grabbing his right arm tightly while screaming, "You've been stabbed"! Willy looked down, and his yellow button-up shirt hid none of the blood oozing from his wounds that were soaking into the fabric. "Wow," Willy thought; I didn't feel a thing and started to do a quick self-assessment. "Well," he thought, "I'm breathing ok, I'm not dizzy, so I'm probably ok. Besides, it might not even be my blood anyway". But he let the young lady guide him to the sidewalk and sat down momentarily.

He noticed a police car in front of him with two police officers sitting there. So many people were standing around that he couldn't see anything more than a few feet in front of him. Then, a middle-aged woman ran up to him, saying, "I'm a nurse; please lay on your back while I look for injuries." Willy did what the nurse instructed him to do. The nurse said, "Well, looks like you have two knife wounds, one on your right side and one under your right chest. I'll keep pressure on them to slow the bleeding until the EMTs arrive". "You also have a scratch across your belly, but it is superficial." Willy felt relieved at that news. Then he thought, "Hmm, right rib stab wound? Maybe that's why my right arm went limp".

Another young lady came over and tapped Will on the shoulder, asking, "Do you need anything?" Willy said, "Please find my sister Ann." Within a minute or two, Ann was at Willy's side. He asked, "Are you ok?" "Yes, I'm fine, don't worry about me, replied Ann," which relieved Willy greatly. The EMTs arrived within a few more minutes. The nurse told them what she thought, and they loaded Willy into the ambulance and drove him to the local emergency room. The doctor on duty approached Willy from the front, asking what he was doing. "Fine", Will replied. "OK then, let me take a look at your wounds." as the doctor spread apart the skin, a jet stream of blood squirted out and splattered on the doctor's glasses! The doctor quickly glanced up at Willy with a shocked face, to which Willy said, "Don't look at me; I didn't do it!" The doctor chuckled a bit and said, "We'll take care of this quickly and have you out of here in no time".

One wound got two staples, and the other was stitched. A police officer came by to interview Willy. Willy told him how it started: "I can't recall very much because it all happened so fast. Besides his scraggly long hair, I don't even know what the guy looks like." The officer asked Willy to come down and look at some mug shots once he was released from the hospital. Which Willy did? But now it was around six AM, Willy was a bit hung over, very tired, and looked over a set of six mug shots. One or two pictures looked familiar to Willy, so he said, "Sorry, officer, I just cannot be certain of the face."

Then Willy went to his sister Ann's house and slept the rest of the day. Even now, when people see the odd scars on his right chest and upper rib cage, he misdirects the questions by saying, "It was an accident." If they press him more, he tells them the truth while trying to be humorous.

"I 'accidentally' met a stranger with a knife that wanted to kill me," he tells them with a smirk and leaves it at that. This is another story to tell at different times. Willy knew where this "gift" came from.