Butch

Butch was an aptly named guy who lived in my neighborhood in NW Portland around 1980. He was maybe in his thirties, big and rough, but he would say hi as he walked by the porch.

Alan, an itinerant basement-dweller in our apartment house, had adopted a stray dog, but was hardly able to take care of himself, so Butch re-adopted Waldo. That opened things up a bit between us, so I would talk to Butch sometimes on the porch. He was a bouncer at a go-go bar out on Powell in Southeast, and when I mentioned reading in the newspaper something about a raid there, Butch obviously did not want to talk about it, so I dummied up.

He told me once that he was having a hard time getting unemployment or some such; when the clerk didn't seem agreeable to giving him what he wanted, "I told her I'm liable to do anything!"
The way he said it to me made it clear I would not want to cross the guy.

One night I was coming around the corner driving my van, and it was apparent that I interrupted something happening on my usually quiet block. Butch and a guy I didn't know but had seen around the neighborhood, a quiet guy, a husband and father of a youngster, broke apart from whatever they were doing because of my arrival, but in the headlights the look in Butch's eyes was fierce as he followed the other guy in the street, staying close. The other guy wasn't trying to get away. He just looked like he was trapped. There was a very weird vibe.

I parked the van and went up to my porch as if I was going inside, but then doubled-back to behind a tall hedge bordering the next property, and while hidden I took another look at the scene.
I saw Butch had grabbed the back of the other guy's neck and pushed his face toward the guy's own pickup truck. Then he smeared the guy's face around on the windshield, saying loudly, "Clean them windows! Clean them windows!"

The guy was not resisting. I figured he owed Butch money, couldn't pay up, and was just bravely taking that which he felt he had coming to him. It was ugly.

I went into my apartment, called the cops and told them someone was getting roughed up out on the street, please send help.

I didn't talk with Butch anymore after that.