I hiked out to Baker Beach this afternoon. As I was navigating one of the little trails on the backside of the Presidio, lost in my thoughts, I heard this bird squawking, which inevitably you do on a hike, but this one sounded angry and rather close. I still wasn’t paying attention, though, enjoying the isolation and the beautiful weather, when I felt something scrape across the top of my head. I turned. There was this hawk suspended above me. 

It swooped again with its talons out, only this time I was able to get my arm up  (I imagine in the most effeminate way) and it retreated,  just out of reach. I grabbed the first branch I saw, one big enough to give a good smack, and when the hawk came down a third time I swung and missed. It flew away.

Had this thing just attacked me? 

Really?

Had I intruded on its nest?

Was I hallucinating?

Once I snapped out of it my first concern, before I even checked to see if my head was bleeding, was whether anyone was watching. I noticed a couple hiking 200 yards below, but they were playing with their dog.

Cool.

I tuned back to the bird, now perched in the tree above. It stared down in a menacing way, yet it was high up, and with the stick I started to feel a little swagger. So I said, what are you looking at, motherfucker? – and sure enough, on cue, the hawk pounced.

I took off running.

A few minutes later I came barreling out of the forest into the parking lot of an apartment complex. I was in full sprint. A 37-year-old-man with a stick, running. There were kids playing in the street. They stopped to watch. I ran forty yards past them, then turned.

The hawk was gone.

When I got to the beach it was packed, filled with college students, vulgar, hairy men with their penises out, and German tourists in fanny-packs.

On the walk back I kept hearing birds.

I am certain they were taunting me.