2 / before the fight

Yesterday after snow tubing we ate an early dinner in a mountain town. Our preferred restaurant was closed as were many others. We settled on a local town tavern.

As we were leaving—literally, walking out the door—an explosion of shouting, shoving, and cursing happened around us. Three men wrestled an enormous drunk man toward the door where I was exiting first. They crashed toward my 7-year-old daughter. I snapped her out of the way and jumped outside just as they shoved past me, glass breaking, things falling.

Had I been one second slower, my daughter would have been run over.

I’m going to kill you! You’re a dead man. The drunk yelled at another man.

He threatened me with a gun. One woman said.

A broken cellphone lay outside the restaurant, thrown by someone. The police came.

We left. Went off looking for a certain store that might sell African shea butter. Never found it.

While everyone huddled in a pottery shop, taking shelter from the 30 degree temps and slices of wind, I hustled for the car.

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I took this self portrait in the restaurant five minutes before the fight began