Never let it be said that I only post flattering pictures of myself.
I've been coming home late recently — having forgotten that my computer is not only where I check e-mail but also my TV, DVD player, connection to most of the world, etc., I should have realized that I might need to use it after work hours. Now, I've lived in poorer neighborhoods before, but they've always been fairly lively — if someone wanted to attack you on E. 187th St., they'd have to deal with hordes of people betting on the outcome. Now, I live on one of the few Manhattan avenues you can feel safe about crossing without looking both ways at any time of day. The streets are nearly empty at night, and that makes me wary. I look in car windows, judge the threat potential of everyone I see, and track the footsteps of an old man walking a block behind me. As I walk, I plant each foot in the right way that I can launch a backward thrust kick. I am not going to be easily surprised.
Last night I didn't do any of that.
I don't know if it was because it was earlier than normal (about 11 p.m.) or because I was coming from 125th St., which is busy, because I had actually thought to myself that muggers wouldn't want to stand around out in the rain, or just because I was deeply lost in thought, but other than idly looking down the street ahead of me, I didn't do anything to prepare myself. In fact, a made a fatal error — the twin white trails of iPod headphones dangled from my ears. Not only did this make me a valuable target, it made me totally oblivious to the five black kids, about 16 or 17, running up behind me.
*BAM*! White flashed as the lead kid jumped and punched me on the side of the head. I turned around, saw a kid yelling "C'mon! You want a piece of me?" and my first thought was that they were joking. In the adrenaline of the moment, it didn't feel like they had hit me that hard. *BAM!* another kid hit me in the mouth from the side.
Now I had my bearings. I circled around the lead kid — who was wearing a black sweatshirt, jeans, and a three-quarter-inch thick gold chain, and considered my options. Now that I was alert, I could see that these kids couldn't fight worth a damn. A heavyset kid kicked at my groin and I blocked it without thinking; another kid punched me in the arm and I barely felt it. They were already getting jumpy — they'd clearly thought that their punches would have knocked me down or at least put me off-balance, and instead I had barely moved. The leader was standing near the curb now, and calculations flashed through my mind. Given how he was standing, a front thrust kick would have knocked him about eight feet back on his ass (just last week I knocked a karate partner about 10 feet back into a wall with a side thrust, and he'd had heavy padding). A couple of kids were heavyset, but I had about 25 pounds of muscle on any of them. If none of them kids had weapons, I could probably take them — but that was a big if. Ok, what do I have on me? Just my iPod. No computer, no camera. Screw it, it's not worth it.
All that went through my head in less than two seconds as I tensed -- and then relaxed -- my front leg.
So I didn't fight, but I'd say martial arts still helped a great deal, since the idea of having people who were trying to hurt me wasn't alien. I stayed perfectly calm and made no threatening motions. I backed out into the road so they weren't flanking me and hoped for a car to come by. Even when they continued to attack me, I deflected their awkward punches and more awkward kicks just by twisting my body, not lashing out.
"OK, fine, it's ok. You want the iPod, fine, let me take it out." The cord was tangled on my backpack.
At this time, a woman called out from the window. "Hey you kids! I'm calling the cops!"
Between her yelling and the fact that their attemped beat-down wasn't even affecting my demeanor anymore, they got nervous. "You're stalling, man, you're stalling!" The leader reached under his sweatshirt and into his pants. "I'm gonna shoot you, man! You want me to shoot you!"
I figured he probably didn't have a gun, but that was the last thing I wanted to risk. They didn't have me someplace where they could have their way with me, so as long as none of them pulled out any weapons, I knew I'd leave in about the same shape I already was. And if you were headed out for a night on the town with an option to mug, wouldn't you bring at least a knife? I decided the speech I gave the redneck who pulled a knife on me a few years ago — "Is this really worth going to prison over?" — would likely just infuriate these kids, so I tried to keep them calm.
"Look, man, I'm not stalling. The wires are tangled. Get it yourself." He grabbed into my pocket. Once again I wished it were just him or with one other guy, since the idiot had just left himself defenseless. But he grabbed it and they started running.
I gave sort of a resigned sigh and went to grab the umbrella Christina had lent me — a big square one with Shakespeare's face on it.
A heavyset kid in a puffy olive coat — the one who'd tried to kick me in the crotch and failed spectacularly — yelled out, "Leave the umbrella!"
I was trying to stay calm. I was trying to keep my personality safely out of the way. I failed. "That's a Shakespeare umbreallla, man. Do you really want that?"
"Just leave it!" He grabbed it and ran away. Obviously he was trying to celebrate the Bard's birthday, which it was.
The cops arrived only four or five minutes later and we sweeped the neighborhood, but we couldn't find them anywhere. That first punch had hit me in the eye and cut me a bit with his bling, and eye cuts bleed profusely, so they were skeptical of the guy with blood rushing down his face saying he didn't need to go to the hospital. Fine. They transferred me to an abulance and I chatted with two cool EMTs on the way to St. Luke's.
I was admitted pretty quickly. My doctor was young and attractive — maybe 29 — so I flirted with her a bit. She asked what I was reading. "Master and Margarita — I guess they weren't too interested in 1930s Russian fiction." She gave me a wry smile, "I don't think many people are." I decided I was going to ask her out, a) because it would be a fitting end to the night and b) because how many times do you get to use the line "I'm not usually this bloody"?
That was before they kept me sitting on the hospital bed for four hours, waiting for five minutes of work to be done on me. Try reading a book right after you've been assaulted. It just don't work. I had been pissed at the muggers before, but after the mind-numbing boredom they subjected me to, I was murderously angry. So when she came back I … well, fine, I flirted a bit more, but she wasn't getting coffee out of me!
Along the way I left messages for a number of people telling them I'd been mugged. Thanks to my cheap phone and fat lip, Missy called me back this morning: "Dude, did you call and tell me you have mumps?"
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