Lamppost in the Dark

The Night at Scoops & Swirls.
The night a shield was formed, thanks to the Lord, Alex and Sabomnim Kim.

The street fights I’d survived taught me how gangs work. But a flash mob was new territory.

The Tae Kwon Do training and Sabomnim Kim’s voice in my head kept my stance balanced and my breathing steady.

Alex’s “Enough” kept me from escalating. For the first time, he was not in my orbit — his social influence and shield 20 miles away, in another life, another school.

All the times I’d been jumped and learned to keep my head back and my eyes forward gave me the muscle memory to walk through instead of freezing or fighting.

It was well after midnight, a Friday in ’84. The church dance had let out and we — three church kids and me — had wandered into Scoops & Swirls for ice cream. They were the kind of friends I’d always envied: born into the life I wanted, safe Newhaven families, born in the covenant, never living in fear of gangs. I was the transplant from the streets, the one who still carried keys between my fingers out of habit.

At the next table a group of teens started in on us — things were said. One of my friends answered back first. Then more words were exchanged, I didn't catch everything that was said because of my partial deafness. They went quiet, paid, and left. I thought whatever it was… was over. I asked my friend what that was about; he shrugged.

We paid a few minutes later. The store was closing and we were the last to leave. When we stepped outside, they were waiting and not just two or three kids — a mob of kids, I didn't even count how many, back up from Nova (a night club for teens) next door. They had numbers, they had momentum, and they had weapons. I didn’t know that last part yet and if I had…

My three friends froze. Real fear on their faces — the kind that comes when you’ve never been jumped before. Inside, I was filled with terror. In my head I thought, Oh boy, this is going to go very bad — it was déjà vu from Canyon Ridge. I was resigned: if it came to it, we’d get beat up, maybe worse, but we were getting to the car.

I zipped my Members Only jacket up, closed my fist around my keys, lifted my head, and walked straight into them. No eye contact. I looked through them like they were furniture. Head up, shoulders relaxed, forward motion only. No words, no challenge, no flinch. They parted. As far as I was concerned, they weren't there. If they said anything, I sure didn't hear it in my good ear.

My friends followed. We reached the car. One of them — adrenaline dumping, bravado? — unknown to me he grabbed a steak knife from the table we’d just left and threw it from the car window at the crowd just after we got in and closed the doors. That’s when the butterfly knife flipped open and the nunchucks started swinging and I heard a thud on the car. But by then we were already inside, doors locked, engine turning, pulling away fast.

“What was that?” I asked as I heard the thud, thinking someone in the mob threw a rock at us. “That was the knife I threw at them! They threw it back.” One of my friends said. My hands were locked on the steering wheel. …everyone seemed to have weapons at hand but me… “DUUUDE!!!????” as I squinted my eyes.

I was mad at my friends the whole drive home. Sparking a fight over words? That throw was stupid — it could have started the very thing we’d just dodged if the mob knew he was armed. But mostly I was just glad we were safe. I dropped my friends off at their homes. Made my way home, climbed into my bed and collapsed thinking about what had just happened, slapping my forehead. Eventually, filing the memory away. I would realize he committed a felony, granted, no one was hurt but….

Years later — decades later — I finally understood what I had actually walked into while writing Lamppost in the Dark. That wasn’t just a crowd of angry kids. That was a Tri-Cities after-dance mob with blades and improvised weapons hidden in jackets, sleeves and pockets. Butterfly knife, nunchucks, the works. In that parking lot, at one a.m., with no adults, no cameras, no witnesses who would talk and Scoops & Swirls had just locked its doors behind us. It was hospital-or-worse territory and there was no going back. If my friends had been alone, or if I had shown fear, or if I had tried to negotiate, or if I had swung first — any of those normal human reactions — four people probably don’t go home that night.

I never saw the weapons until after we were past them and a friend in my group did something very stupid. That ignorance was grace. Because I didn’t know how lethal it was, I didn’t panic. Because I didn’t panic, my face and body gave them nothing to feed on. No fear, no submission, no challenge — just calm forward motion. That broke their script. The freeze spread. They hesitated long enough for us to pass. In Canyon Ridge there was always a threat of being stabbed, but in this case, for whatever reason, weapons were not on my radar. I walked right into a potential stabbing.

Newhaven wasn't known for gang activity like Canyon Ridge was. I should have known better than to assume safety.

Everything that had ever happened to me lined up in that moment: I wasn’t brave. I wasn’t heroic. I was simply the only one there who had been trained — by a hard life I never asked for — to do the one thing that worked: refuse to play the role they expected. And perhaps the Lord placed a protective shield around us. It is only through hindsight that I now know the gift of the Holy Ghost was active, and I somehow channeled Alex and Sabomnim Kim. They were with me and they saved lives. My friends went on to serve LDS missions and have families.

Maybe four people lived because a kid from the gangs, who had spent years learning how not to die, happened to be sitting at that table with three kids who had never had to learn that lesson. Sometimes the hardest things you ever go through aren’t for you.

Sometimes they’re for the people standing behind you when the moment comes.

You don’t have to know the full danger to stop it. You just have to be ready — quietly, faithfully ready — when the Lord puts you in the gap. I wonder how many gaps I’ve missed?

I didn’t know I was part of a shield being formed that night, years in the making.

Don’t mark this up to a brag — it isn't. I look back and see the Lord's fingerprint clearly. I wasn't meant to be born in the covenant or live the life that my brother and sister had. Wasn't meant to go to school with other LDS kids. I was sent to another type of school. Maybe in the pre-mortal world I was weak, maybe not as valiant as I should have been.

I may never know in this lifetime why we weren't attacked, but I do wonder if the Holy Ghost made the mob see something other than me pushing forward that made them pause. Maybe angels standing nearby?

Perhaps if I were never there, the Lord would have found another way to guide them through? I'm just glad to have experienced a small miracle.

I only knew I had to walk my friends through — and somehow we made it home.

I never went back to Scoops & Swirls. Tempting fate was not something I wanted to risk. I only knew I had to walk my friends through. And somehow we made it home. I don't know if my friends were responding to things said about me. What I do know is that comments about me happened from time to time back then, and my friends were kind people who cared. If something was said and someone defended me, that would have been true to who they were.

Either way, the night unfolded as it did. And I’m still just grateful we all made it home.

— Robyn C. Stark

Reader’s Note: Names, places, locations, and some identifying details in this chapter have been changed or fictionalized to protect privacy and safety. The events and emotional truth remain unchanged.