Lee is 30-years old amateur athlete and self-described comic book geek who stands 5’ 9” and weighs in at 170 lbs. He works until close at a Baltimore county deli and then stays over to restock. On this particular morning he was walking toward town down a primary street while reading his new superhero role-playing game.

Yes, the killer martial arts hardliners and combat athlete mutants are all screaming, “Die! Let him die!”

And the Liberal Criminal Apologists are saying, “How dare he tempt the poor victims of oppression who would otherwise remain undecided muggers if not for his flagrant enticement!”

Of course the Nut-job Survivalists, and Darwinians [my own fraternity] are saying, “He deserves to be mugged for reading anything while he should be at Def Con Four! Get him out of my gene pool!”

I would respond to all of you people, and I know who you are—I do—that since you claim that we reside in an at least nominally civilized realm, that this poor overworked and underpaid geek should be able to read his comic book without being attacked!

As Lee passed the pizzeria and the bar & grill, and then approached the liquor store he was in a mixed residential/business neighborhood. Even on this main drag most of the buildings on this side of the street are houses, occupied by middleclass families. On the other side of the street is an exclusive waterfront community. I retraced his steps and believe that his attacker stalked him from the grounds of a church, or at least gained access to this street from the parallel main thoroughfare by way of the open church grounds.

Lee was holding his comic book in both hands as he walked and read. Without warning he was punched in the back of the head from behind. He staggered forward. The attacker then grabbed the back collar of his sleeveless shirt with his left hand and began punching him in the right ear with hooking blows.

Lee struggled sideways to his left, keeping a “death-grip on my comic book” as he reached into the front left pocket of his cargo shorts with his left hand. He succeeded in dragging his attacker, still unseen, punching him in the ear and the occipital lobe from behind, out into the street. The attacker said, “Give me all of your money!”

Still taking shots as his shirt tore and he began drawing his folding knife with the tanto point, Lee responded, “I don’t have any money!”

The mugger, who was still holding and hitting from behind, retorted, “You better run. I’m gonna kill you!”

“He had the jump on me and I was going to even shit out. I eat and sketch with my left hand but do most physical things with my right, so I guess I’m kind of ambidextrous. It had been years, a decade, since I’ve been in a fight. I was really surprised. When I was in school and this was a bad area I got attacked all the time. But now, my shirt is coming off my back—a crappy eleven year old shirt—and I’m thinking to myself, ‘So this is where my morning went?’

I know I’m on public transportation at a bad hour, walking miles to get to the bus [line that is still open]. I need to be prepared, that’s why I carry the knife. I really like this particular knife, and for a while, when it was lost, I was not feeling particularly safe. But what kind of moron jacks some guy in a raggedy shirt on a Thursday morning? Sometimes I don’t even have bus-fare by Thursday morning! On this particular day I had a dollar-sixty for the bus, so I guess I’m guilty of lying to the mugger.”

Lee managed to drag his attacker back onto the sidewalk as his knife came free and the last punch smacked his ear. By this time he had the knife down in a low ready with the blade deployed as it flicks open easily, not requiring the thumb-post. The mugger said something else [He could not recall.] and Lee could now see that the guy was in his early twenties, about his own height, and probably 20 pounds lighter. The mugger hesitated and Lee momentarily feared, that now that the mugger had let go of the torn shirt and it was down around his ankles, he would be bum-rushed and grappled. He flipped the knife to the ice-pick grip and kicked away the shirt.

When the shirt was kicked away the mugger turned and headed in the direction Lee had come from. Lee said that his ear made “that seashell sound” until later that night. When I examined him about 40 hours later the bone beneath and behind his ear was bruised and there were fingerprint bruises on his right tricep.

He gave his attacker a high score for initiative but disparaged his lack of punching power. He was of the opinion that he was punched six to eight times in the ear after the initial hard punch to the back of the skull. His final thought was, “I really like this knife.”

While Lee’s awareness leaves something to be desired, he showed excellent blade instincts, especially considering he was not trained with his weapon. The draw to a refused ready posture [not brandishing but obscuring and protecting the weapon] and his transition to an ice-pick grip demonstrated a practical and versatile use of the two most successful postures for blade versus empty hand. He is one of only a handful of knife users who switched grips. Lee admitted to knowing nothing about knife-fighting beyond reading comic books. When I asked him about his choice to switch to the reverse grip he smiled, “I didn’t even know there was a name for it. I just like the way it feels in my hand when I hold it that way.”

So Lee, here is your belated induction into The Logic of Steel Rogues Gallery.

Recognizing and Surviving the Condition of Anarcho-Tyranny