I'm doing 2 things
Last night around midnight I was walking home from a potluck at my friend’s house in Mankato, MN. I was carrying my guitar and a plate with two burritos wrapped in tinfoil. I had a can of soda in one pocket, and my wallet with about two hundred dollars in cash in the other. I was writing a song in my head, “Heaven’s for Everyone.”
Heaven’s to Mergatroid, Heaven’s to Betsy,
Heaven’s to everything that jumps out and gets me.
Heaven’s forever and Heaven’s for fun;
Heaven’s for free, and Heaven’s for everyone.
I live in a residential area, “historic” and a bit run down, with a liquor store, a gas station, a train yard, and a coffee shop, which I live above. I was a block and a half from my apartment when I saw three or four guys in my periphery.
“What’s up, cuz!” I heard one of them say. I kept walking, not really knowing if he was talking to me. I heard it again.
“Hey, cuz, what’s up wit’ you?” I stopped and turned around. The guy was walking toward me, and his companions were staying behind him. He was black, in his late teens, early twenties. He had on a clean white and yellow shirt with a collar, and clean white tennis shoes.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Oh, you want to know what’s up, do ya?” I didn’t say anything. “You got any cigarettes, man?” He looked sober, which I took to be a good sign.
“I don’t smoke.”
“Where you goin’, What’s you name?”
“Ocho”
“Ocean?”
I pointed to my shirt, which conveniently had my name printed on it—one of the benefits of being a self-promoting singer-songwriter.
“Ocho, see? What’s your name?” I held out my hand, and he didn’t shake it. I put it down. The guy was standing pretty close, and it was clear that he was confronting me. He seemed to be trying to escalate the situation by asking me a lot of questions, and not answering mine. He wasn’t listening to the answers to my questions, either. I figured he wanted something else. I didn’t know what he wanted, but I could see that he was trying to get a reaction out of me. Being a little guy, I was picked on a fair amount in my childhood, so I’m pretty familiar with macho domination patterns in people’s faces, bodies and tone of voice. I figured he wanted to scare me, but I didn’t really know why.
“How old is you? You an older guy?” He cocked his head.
“I’m 28. How old are you, man?” He looked at the stuff I was carrying.
“You think you play the c’tar, huh? How much is this cost you…what’s this?”
”...I made some burritos.”
“You HUNGRY, man?” The questioning had become absurd by this point, but I was more than willing to hang out and participate. I was intentionally slowing down my tone of voice to set the tone of the conversation.
“No, I just ate. How about you? You can have them, if you want.” Apparantly, he didn’t want them, because he brought his hand down on top of them hard, knocking them out of my hands and smashing the plate down on the sidewalk. I half-anticipated the move, and released the plate. I was confused and a bit scared.
“I don’t really understand what’s going on.” My voice got higher pitched and less even. He was getting up in my space.
“Oh, you want to know what’s going on?” He tore my guitar out of my hand and threw it in the street. I let it go, too. “You thik I give a FUCK if you play the c’tar, dude!?” I looked around at everyone.
“Hey, I’m gonna go.”
“You think you’re gonna go?” He punched me in the face, right in the lip, and I felt that “punched-in-the-face”-type of feeling that I could really go my whole life without experiencing again. I heard a loud white noise and felt a sickening amount of adrenalin released into my system. I tried to run, but the guys rushed me and knocked me down.
I got back up and started running. I was screaming my fucking head off.
“HEELLLLP! HE-E-EELLLP!!!” I ran into a backyard. I was trying to plan my moves, but didn’t have time. The guys caught up to me and knocked me down again. I got hit in the side of the head. I scrambled up and started running again. The other way this time, toward home. I tripped and rolled in the street and kept running and screaming.
I realized that I could hardly run at all at this point, since my breath was so accelerated. It had also been several seconds since I had been hit by anyone, so I turned around. The dudes were heading away from me.
I made it home, and made sure no one was watching. My phone was dead, so I ran inside to see if my sweetie’s phone was plugged in there. It wasn’t, so I ran back out to my van to charge mine. I decided to drive to the police station.
I drove past the location of the incident. No one was there, but my guitar was still in the street. I jumped out and grabbed it and kept going. I picked up my sweetie and drove to the grocery store to get some peroxide and some bandages, then to the police station.
The cop was really helpful and easy to talk to. He seems to think the guys were trying to rob me.
“You must know there are a few crackhouses in that neighborhood.”
I knew that there HAD been crackhouses. I heard about one across the street from me that got busted, but I guess I’m not really up to speed. Pardon the pun.
“This town didn’t used to be like this.” I told him. I have lived here off and on for seven years.
“I know. Part of change is learning to adapt.” It sucks, but he’s right.
I don’t know if they were trying to rob me or what. I don’t know why they didn’t, frankly. I would have given them my wallet if they had asked for it. I’m not going to try to take on four guys who demand my wallet. We could’ve foregone the fat lip and the pieces of gravel in my skin (Email me if you want pictures—seriously, they’re pretty cool.).
I am sore today, and tired. I’m scraped and banged up and it’s hard to stand up straight. Of course, I feel really lucky. Blessed. Haloed. All the money that I have was in my wallet, and I own very few things but my van, this computer and my guitar. It might sound weird, but I would rather get beaten up like that than have my wallet and my guitar stolen.
And that’s what I got.
I say that now, but, I also know that my actions were taken for my own safety, and not for my possessions. I left my guitar in the street. I think that surprsied the guys. Abandoning my guitar and screaming were probably the things that got me off in the shape I’m in, which is probably the best thing that could’ve happened, considering the other possibilities: breaking my skull, losing my guitar and all my money and my teeth…Maybe I should abandon my guitar and scream more often. I’m thinking on stage, maybe?
I still wonder if those guys were robbing me for crack money. Before I talked to the cop, I thought they were just trying to prove their macho superiority, or take their anger out on somebody. Like I said, they were clean cut and sober-looking, with relatively nice clothes on. I don’t really know anyone who uses crack, but I get a picture of someone dirty and ragged and shaking. Maybe they were crack users. Maybe one of the symptoms is speaking only in the form of a question…
Anyone have any experience with crack?
What do you think?
Peace,
-Ocho
eg: “You think I give a fuck if you play the c’tar?”
