Fleeing For My Life
[Adventures in Faith: England; 1992] In downtown Birmingham, I went into a public bathroom. I soon had to flee for my life.
Trigger Warning. This is the story of a real-world sexual predator situation.
Our four-person missionary team was in downtown Birmingham.
After our missionary work, we ate supper. Then we found a stealthy place to sleep. It was in the open-air market.
We had never slept in an open-air market before. We hid ourselves as best as we could. We slept underneath some leftover tables, laying on the concrete flooring. We were surrounded by leftover cardboard boxes.
We hoped we were hidden. We hoped nobody would find us.
Laying on the concrete, my hips and shoulders became quite sore, just like they did back in Kamagasaki.
Even now decades later, my hips and shoulders and elbows still get quite sore, every night. I think of it as a souvenir of my missionary work overseas.
At about 4 am that morning, I had to pee. I really had to. I had to do something, and I had to do it quickly.
I got up.
I walked away from our makeshift campground in the open-air market. I tried to be as stealthy as possible. Then I started scouting the area for restrooms.
After several urgent minutes, I spotted my destination.
Down a slope, there was a public restroom. Over its door, a light was on. That had to be a good sign, right?
I walked as quickly as I could. I couldn’t waste time by walking slowly.
But I couldn’t walk too quickly, or my concentration would be lost and I’d pee the only set of clothes I owned.
I opened the door and entered. All the lights were on, and it was bright.
Right away, it felt weird.
Looking around, I saw about ten men. Some stood at the urinals, but at a distance, their male members exposed. They were not peeing. Others leaned against the perimeter walls.
Some wore sunglasses, even though it was 4 am and they were indoors. Others had shaved scalps.
They appeared to be in their 20s and 30s. From what I could tell, most were bodybuilders. They were very well muscled, and “cut.”
At 4 am in a public restroom, they were scary.
One of them, the only skinny one of the bunch, walked up to me and welcomed me. He asked me what I needed. I told him I needed to pee.
He moved and acted like he was a teen-age girl. But he was an adult man. I didn’t understand at all.
He walked me over the urinal and invited me to do my thing. I had no choice. I did so.
He stepped up to the urinal next to me, leaned over the divider toward me, and examined the view. He unzipped his pants. He held his own member in his hand.
It took forever to pee it all out of me. Finally, it was done.
Right then, my new “friend” tugged at my arm, telling me to come over by the toilet stalls.
I figured I needed to go along with whatever it was that he wanted me to do, until I could somehow get out of there.
So I played along. I walked over to the toilet stalls.
He bent low, looked under the stall partitions, and giggled. He was quite excited that the men in the stalls had their pants down.
He stood up and urged me to take a look. I ducked low, pretended to look, then nodded.
I said I had to wash my hands. I went to the sink right next to the door. My new “friend” accompanied me.
I ran the water at the sink and lathered up. He did the same.
Suddenly, before finishing, I turned and bolted through the door and ran.
Behind me, I heard the door slam open. I heard shouts. And I heard several sets of footsteps running.
Super-quick, I turned to look. Three of those tough men were in hot pursuit after me. They weren’t far behind.
I fled for my life.
They stayed right behind me for a long time. Once in a while, one of them would shout expletives at me.
After maybe a mile, they gave up. Their muscles were probably too massive to be able to run very far.
By the grace of God, I was quite slender. Plus I had been a distance runner.
Eventually I could no longer see the scary men.
I didn’t go back to my missionary colleagues at the open-air market for a few hours, lest the scary men were covertly tailing me.
What would have happened if the scary men caught me?
I never found out.
ADVENTURES IN FAITH
NOTE. Names, dates, and locations may have been changed.
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