NM has long heard stories of his father’s escapades as a so-called “vigilante” while in high school. The excerpt below is comprised of one of the NM’s favorite stories from his father’s (apparently many) stories of ethically dubious neighborhood watch. The following is paraphrased for clarity, while trying to maintain the story structure.
Father was a “neighborhood vigilante” back in his high school days. He would see a hooligan carjacking a car for example and would proceed to chase them around (noted he carried around a baseball bat specifically for this purpose) and beat the shit out of them…one time in high school he chased a guy (keep in mind, a fully grown man) carjacking and kneecapped him (almost breaks leg). The guy gets back up (miraculously) and keeps running with the dad still chasing…man runs into street and while looking back in fear of father, runs dead into the bed of a truck going down the street (STILL MOVING) and clocks himself (knocked out cold)… fast forward, police get called, guy is (mostly) fine besides a pretty shattered knee. The father when questioned what happened to the man’s knee says “must have been the truck.”
This story, while an intense and very violent story of NM’s father assaulting a grown man while only in high school, still brought about pride in NM about his father’s actions. While NM (hopefully?) doesn’t condone the level of violence he heard while in the legend of his father’s vigilante days, the willingness to step up and defend their morals in the most literal sense is an ideal that NM strives to achieve. An unrelenting pursuit of one’s goals, while physically happening in the story, can represent the metaphorical pursuit of perfection, no matter how daunting the obstacles in the way appear. To a high schooler, being able to step up to a challenge that seems bigger than oneself is nerve-wracking, yet NM’s father was unfazed by any such opponent. Additionally, a story of this caliber instills serious intimidation in a younger NM that commands respect, confirming the father’s role as a hero.