Part 1 of a 2 part series looking at Travis Jensen, formerly known as The SF Masher….

10+ years of lurking These Mean City streets certainly can change a person. Case in point: The SF Masher.

I first met The SF Masher (from here on referred to as ‘Travis’) in 1997 during a Gang Starr concert at the long since closed Maritime Hall. Back in those days we were both working low-paying jobs at a couple of high-powered law firms in EC4. The nights were long and the hangovers even longer. Together we pulled off quite a few All-City capers in our younger days; but over the past decade — much like The City itself — we have outgrown our delinquently juvenile ways. To be more specific: I grabbed a camera, while The Masher picked up a pen and paper.

I recently ran into Travis outside of Schroeder’s and we stepped inside to have a couple of Frosty’s each. I asked him to tell me about one of his most crazed “Tales of The City” — and this is what he had to say…

“I’ve told this story to a couple of people, but not many. Here’s a short version:

It was the night before Thanksgiving of 1999. I was over at a friend’s apartment working on an article for the City College newspaper. I didn’t have a computer at the time, so I wrote all my stories at my friend’s house.

The doorbell rings a couple minutes after I finish the story. My friend and I look at each other like, ‘Who the hell’s that?’ I remember feeling all sketched out, you know, like I knew something was up. You see, some stickup kids had tried busting into the apartment two months beforehand, but my friend somehow managed to fight them off. My friend’s former roommate was an herb pusher, so I guess they were looking for money and weed.

So anyway, my friend gets up to see who’s at the door. A couple seconds later, I hear all this scuffling and commotion, and then my friend yelling, “Yo Trav! Help! Help!”

Terrified, I leaped up off the couch and peered down the hall. I see this dark-skinned brother dressed in all black almost entirely in the crib. He has a .38 Special in his hand, finger on the trigger. My friend is struggling hard trying to keep the dude from coming inside. It turns out that we forgot to lock the door behind me when I came in.

Without really thinking, I charged at the door as fast as I can and plowed right into it, sandwiching the robber between the door and the frame, so he’s now only halfway inside the apartment. I then remember seeing the dude waving the gun around at us, trying to get a clear shot. He kept yelling, “I’m gonna bust a cap in yo’ a–!” The whole situation was seriously surreal to me. Next thing you know, dude pulls the trigger at point blank range. The gun was pointed so close to me and my friend that the bullet was bound to hit one of us. Everything went in slow motion for me at that point. I saw the gun flash, the sound pierced my ears and I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to die!” A split second later, I realized I wasn’t hit, then looked to my side and saw that my friend wasn’t hit either. The bullet missed us both by mere inches.

The robber, thinking he had for sure blasted one of us, got spooked, pulled his body back through the door, and made a run for the stairs. Unarmed and running off pure adrenalin, my friend takes off after the guy. I thought he had lost his damn mind. The robber, seeing my friend is now on his tail, turns around once he reaches the first landing, aims the gun at my friend’s face and pulls the trigger. Miraculously, the gun jams, no joke. Keep in mind I’m standing at the top of the stairs watching all this, damn near pissing my pants.

Both my friend and the robber pause for a second after the gun jams. My friend then tackles the dude and they roll down the bottom of the stairs to the ground level. The robber quickly jumps to his feet; pistol whips my friend three times in the face, and then takes off running out of the building.

My friend, with blood streaming down the side of his face, comes back upstairs, grabs his gun, and takes back off after the dude. I remember him saying, “That’s the same dude the busted up in here last time. I’m gonna blast that stupid f—.” Nothing I could have said or done would have persuaded my friend against going after the dude. Luckily, he never caught up with the guy. Otherwise, we’d probably both be sitting in the clinker right now.

Also, surprisingly, the cops never showed up either, which is odd considering the neighborhood my friend lived in was relatively quiet. Not to mention, there was a police station less than two blocks away.

After s— had settled down a little, my friend and I then spent some time trying to locate the bullet. It took us about a half-hour, but we finally found it lodged deep into the carpet near the living room.

The robbers never made a third attempt at breaking in.

My friend went on to live in that apartment for another three years and never bothered removing the bullet from the floor. I really admired his courage for not moving. I’m not even gonna front, if that were me, I would have moved without even thinking twice about it, for real.”

Flickr set here.