I guess they could have been B&Ts from Metuchen

(Photo: Christopher Anderson/Magnum Photos/New York Magazine) http://nymag.com/news/features/housing-projects-2012-9/index3.html

Two black guys were one step above us on the escalator riding up to the movie theatre on the top floor.

They were big. Big with baggy pants, ink on their fingers, and baseball caps pulled low. On their hoodies were some words in that graffiti typeface I can never read. I thought about these dudes being in the darkened theatre with us.

And I felt so relieved. 

After all, it's always some white guy who shoots up movie theaters. 

Tom went over to get popcorn while I created hypothetical scenarios in my head. Let’s say these guys are from the worst project in the city…  what would I think if they had a weapon jammed down their pants? 

Certainly not ideal. Not even good. But it’s probably more likely they'd be the ones to save the lot of us than some vigilante suburbanite who has never been in the army or any other well-regulated militia, never been in law enforcement, never tangled in a street flight and has had exactly zero training or experience learning how to not freak the fuck out while getting shot in a crowd.

It’s always strange to me how it's always the scrawny ones or the flabby ones who don't live in a city who seem to be the best at vividly picturing the scene where they save the women and children like they spent every day of their lives in Jason Bourne combat training. 

But instead of going to fight club or self-defense class, they ride around on their John Deere riding mowers and fantasize for hours.