What the Hell are Street Smarts?

There’s something to be said for street smarts. I don’t know exactly what is to be said for street smarts though because it’s one of those smarts that is hard to define and I’m just not that good a writer.

I do know a little about luck, though.

Luck is a friend who’s a badass.

Many people will tell you stories about the most badass fight they have ever seen. I probably will too, but not today. Today I’m gonna tell you about the most badass non-fight I ever saw. If you don’t understand yet, you will soon. Unless you're stupid... and I doubt you are. Computers are a little complicated, after all.

When I was a teenager, I went to downtown St. Louis with my friend Brewball (nice name, huh?). Brewball was, for lack of a better term, in-fucking-sane. He had been thrown out of a rather reputable military academy after five years of learning how to kill groups of people, and had ended up moving in with his parents in St. Louis. We met through mutually undesirable friends (long story) and are still close to this day. Since I was much younger than him, Brewball gave me one of the few nicknames I had ever had in my life. He called me Way Cool, Jr.

I kind of liked it.

Anyway, we were in downtown St. Louis very drunk and out of money, when Brewball got the idea to go to the ATM (he called it the Mac Machine, but what the hell ever, right?). As Brewball started punching in numbers, a rather slight looking gentleman eased in along side him. When the money came out, the man (and yes, he was black—you racist assholes) removed a sharp looking handgun from his pocket and said, “Give me the money.”

If we weren’t drunk, we probably would have seen this coming.

Brewball nodded, turned to the man and said, “Look, I can respect that this is what you have to do to make a living. I’ve seen a lot worse and I’m not upset. I just want you to understand that I am choosing to give this money to you. This is my choice. Are we clear?”

The man nodded and Brewball handed him the money, which he slipped into the back pocket of his blue jeans.

“Give me that ring, too,” said the man, apparently unimpressed by Brewball’s explanation of the previous exchange.

“Here’s the deal,” said Brewball. “I worked very hard for this ring. It is irreplaceable. I will kill you if you even try to take it from me. Now get the fuck out of here.”

The man put the gun in his pocket, turned around and ran away.

Brewball took out another two hundred bucks.

“That was interesting,” I said.

“Hey man,” said Brewball. “We all gotta work.”