If one were to take a superficial glance at your life, they would ignorantly call you one of the unluckiest bastards to ever live. They would say that bad luck follows you like the stink that follows Pig-Pen from the Peanuts comic strip. But I know better, Rodney King. I know better.

Up until tonight I too thought that you were living on borrowed time, and that it was only a matter of time before fate finally decided to give you a reprieve from this ill-fitting life of yours and send you to a better place — heaven or hell may qualify in this instance. But I read about what happened to you yesterday and now I know that you are not living on borrowed time. For you, sir, have all the time in the world.

I am now of the opinion that when those four cops were beating the shit out of you sixteen years ago, they were unknowingly beating immortality into you. With every baton blow, with every kick and taser, you were actually being pummeled into permanence. I equate you to the Tom Hanks character in the movie The Green Mile. You will out live us all, Rodney King. I hope you have a circus mouse to keep you company.

How did I come to such a preposterous conclusion? Well, it seems to me that over the years since the beating, you have several times called upon death to go mano y mano and each time you walked away the victor:

In 1991, two months after the beating, you were pulled over for having an excessively tinted windshield. Basically, you were like a man driving with his eyes closed. You knew then, didn’t you, Rodney King? You knew that death was your dreidel. You could play with it as you wished.

In 1992 you were arrested for driving while intoxicated. Another instance of you laughing in death’s face.

In 1993, while under the influence, you drove straight into the wall of a nightclub. What’s metal and concrete compared to immortality? Once again you scoffed, Rodney King.

You were again arrested for DUI in 1995 and for using the drug PCP in 2001. You taunt death, don’t you? Because you know. You and God have some kind of weird deal going on. You know why too, don”t you? Because no amount of money or fame can give you back the dignity four men and a videotape took away.

The run-ins with the law continue after the 2001 incident, but I think my point has been proven. You’re a ghost. Maybe I always knew it, but after what happened last night, I was convinced. You were shot, Rodney King. A shotgun went off and you were hit, and what did you do? You got on your bicycle and rode home. And not around the corner home. You were in San Bernardino and rode nearly five miles to your home in Rialto — on a friggin’ bicycle, Rodney King! Most would categorize that as the act of a dumbass. Most would have wondered why an ambulance wasn’t called at the scene or how a man who won $3.8 million dollars in a civil suit has to ride a bicycle home after being shot about the face, neck and back instead of jumping in his luxury car and driving to the nearest hospital. Most people would wonder if Dick Cheney was in any way involved. But not me. Cause I now know you are a ghost. Death is your bitch. And when I’m old and gray and the lights are growing dim, I will hear over my television how a 90 year old Rodney King set his nursing home on fire while drunk and high on angel dust, and gently wheeled himself out of the building and into the nearest bar.

Keep fighting, brother!