I met the Saints once. I can't have been more than sixteen years old, visiting some family in New York. I didn't intend to get into trouble, it just happened.
There were a couple of drug dealers on the street corner that I was walking past, but I paid them no mind. That was mistake number one, I suppose.
Mistake number two was letting them surround me.
The guy in front of me had really long hair and a tattoo on his forehead. He stood there with two guys next to him and I guess it was then I knew I was in real trouble.
"Can I help you?" I asked. I heard someone say that you always want to talk to your attackers or something.
"Oh I think you can," the guy said, with a wicked leer.
Two hands grabbed my shoulders, holding me in place. Some guy picked up my bag and was rifling through it. He pulled out my wallet and tossed it to the long haired guy.
"Amy, is it?" he pulled out my driver's license.
"What do you want?" I asked again.
"Money and fortune," the guy said simply, tossing my wallet to the ground and stepping on it. "But I really want you. You got a right pretty face."
There can be all kinds of classes that teach you what to do with rape or muggings. There can be help books and motivational speakers, but let me tell you this, none of that changes what goes through your head when it actually happens. No amount of prep can stop the blind panic from taking over.
His hand was on my cheek, tracing down my neck and to my chest when it happened.
Muffled gunshots, no louder than a cough, rang through the air. All the surrounding men fell over, dead. The long haired guy in front of me lifted his hand and backed away.
Then I saw them.
Three men, dressed all in black. One was older, with curly gray hair, gun in hand still raised. The other two were younger, probably ten years older than me, a gun in each hand. The grabbed the guy, put him on his knees, and said a prayer.
I don't even remember that prayer. I just remember Irish voices and a heavy promise and three gunshots.
One of the younger guys, the one with lighter hair, came up to me.
"Are ya alright?" he asked, a hand on my cheek.
I couldn't even speak. I had just seen men murdered all around me. I'd almost been taken by these men for who knows what.
"Leave her be, Connor," the other guy said. "She's had an ordeal."
"Wha... who?" I managed.
"Don't worry, dear," the older man came up. "Just run on home. Go back to your peaceful life."
"But... I..."
"Trust us," the one called Connor said. "It's better that you live on without remembering us."
"Who are you?" I asked.
"We're the Saints," the darker haired guy said. "Out to destroy all the evil in the world. Mob, Mafia, drug dealers, and pimps alike."
"We are here for the salvation of folks like you," Connor said. "To keep living safe for the good and peaceful souls of the world."
"Run along quickly now," the older man said, "or else you'll be in trouble too."
I nodded and ran back home. When I turned to see them one last time, they were gone. Nothing left but dead bodies with pennies on their eyes, arms crossed.
The news came by the next day, asking for witnesses. They found my wallet and soon came after me, asking questions about the Saints and my connection with them.
And two weeks later, I was accosted by the news crew again when the Saints executed Poppa Joe during his trial. I told them the same thing, each time they asked.
"They saved my life," I told them. "They didn't have to, no one else would have. How can I not stand by them?"