Haunting story, Peter. All the more so because back in the 1980s I had friends that spent time with the ladies of the evening in the Combat Zone. Thankfully, nobody was killed but the younger brother of one of our gang had his innocence slaughtered there. Being from a big Irish catholic family, it really put a hex on his head. I recall walking into a party a few nights later and he was standing on a table urinating at the people nearby while yelling "Women are the root of all evil!"

I said to the guy I was with, who was the guy that took him into the Combat Zone to lose his virginity, "You're gonna be lucky if you did not turn this kid into a serial killer." as we waited for him to finish his business and then we dragged him out of the house before anybody beat the living hell out of him.

On another adventure in The Zone, a gang of guys attempted to mug two of my friends. One ran fast enough to get away untouched, the other as he was running got smashed in the side of his face with a hammer shattering his lower jaw. He ran into one of the Chinese restaurants and hid in the bathroom spitting blood all over the place until we found him and got him to the hospital. Youth is full of close calls and not all of them end well.