THE BLIND DATE

 THE BLIND DATE

I applied the lipstick with care and precision. I wanted to look my best tonight. I hadn’t been on a date for a long time. It wasn't easy to start dating again after my divorce. I was feeling lost, raw, and vulnerable, and my trust in men was at an all-time low.  But my friends and co-workers encouraged me to get a babysitter for my nine-month-old son and two-year-old daughter, and actually have some adult time in my life. I spent my days working with children and my nights and weekends as the sole support and caregiver of my children.  

It was a blind date, probably one of the scariest kinds of dates. You might spend some time talking on the phone ahead of time, but you never really know what you are up against until you meet face to face.

The doorbell rang, he was early. I liked that. Being early was a habit of mine and I appreciated it in other people. I gave one more quick check in the mirror and hurried to answer the door, the kids were already sleeping.

He wasn’t tall, he wasn’t short; he wasn’t fat, he wasn’t thin, but Gary had a friendly smile that reached his eyes, I liked that. We had already discussed our careers, he was an elementary school principal, another check mark in his favour since I worked within the school system myself. He liked music,  movies, and the theater, check, check. 

As we prepared to leave, my front door suddenly flew open, and a neighbour screamed my name and rushed up the stairs to my living room. Karri’s eyes were wide with terror and her hair a tangled mess. She told us how her boyfriend had just beat her up and she had run out of her house but her two sons were still in her home. She asked me to call her oldest son and see if he and his little brother, who was a student of mine, were okay. I quickly called the number and spoke to her oldest boy, and he assured me that they were fine. They lived in the same group of townhouses, one row over. The family had little in common with me other than the fact that her youngest son was a student of mine. So although I probably saw her regularly, we were just acquaintances. I never knew why she chose to come to my house and not to her closer neighbours. I guess it was a case of any port in a storm, and I guess I was the lucky port. Yeah me!

Minutes later, my door flew open again, and Karri’s boyfriend entered unannounced and started yelling.  He was a rough, unkempt excuse for a man,  with a dark menacing demeanor. When my date stood to face him and heroically called for calmness, the boyfriend hauled back and gave him a right hook to the jaw, splitting his lip. Never before had I seen violence like this firsthand.

I instinctively went into mother tiger mode. You have no idea how fast this can happen, in less than a blink of an eye. “You can't do this here,” I stated,” This is my house …  get out.”

With those brave words, he pulled out a knife from his pocket and waved it in front of him.

 We were all standing at the top of the stairs and I  turned and reached towards the World War One cannon shell that my Grandfather had brought back from the war. I used it as an antique umbrella stand but it also held his WW1 cavalry dress sword. Grabbing the sword handle I pulled it from its sheath, brandished it on high, and reiterated, “This is my house, get out.”

If hell has no fury like a woman scorned, you have no idea what kind of fury a woman has, whose home and sleeping children are threatened by the presence of a lunatic who has just invaded her home and attacked another person. 

The fury was one of an eerie but totally deadly calmness that descended upon me almost instantaneously, and where you might consider that panic might be the emotion of the moment, you are wrong. Those few steps to grab my grandfather's sword were fraught, not with chaos,  not with fear, but with deliberate attention to detail and precision. 

 I can still see each step towards the sword, the precise way I grabbed its hilt,  and I can still hear the satisfying sound of the long sword sliding out of the sheath. My words still echo in my mind as I, with not one thought for my own safety, raised the sword on high.

 A startled look came over the perpetrator’s face and he turned to exit down the stairs, however, as he passed Karri, he grabbed her by the hair and dragged her down the steps and out the door. I called the police and we heard the sirens shortly after.

 After applying ice to my date's lip, he insisted that he was well enough to go out to the restaurant as planned. The babysitter who lived next door was summoned, and we proceeded with our plans for the evening.  My date was ever courageous enough to stand up to the foe and gallant enough to continue our journey to the restaurant despite his injuries, even though he was definitely not successful in his attempt to sway the madman. As you can imagine there was a certain amount of tension in the air for the remainder of the date, and deep regret on my part, probably on his part too come to think about it.  After all, he was the one with the split lip.

 I never did have a second date with him, and I can’t say that I blame him one bit. I would have done the same. A year later, we met again, but that was as witnesses at the court appearance of Karri’s brutal ex-boyfriend. My student's mother recovered quickly and probably went on making poor choices with the men she dated. 

To this day I find it hard to grasp the events of that evening; it was like something out of a movie, and my behaviour and subsequent actions were so far removed from who I am or who I thought I was. Was I a mild-mannered Sunday school teacher, a loving single mom, a dedicated educator, or was I a sword-wielding ninja?

I guess one never knows what they are capable of until they are affected by a touch of darkness in their lives.