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4:50 am - Tues 12/25/07
My First Mugging

My First Mugging

Well, how's this for a Xmas present?

On the way home from work tonite, I got mugged.

But here's what I wrote in the email I just sent to Jane (Cause I have to go to bed, and I'm too lazy to tell the story all over again).

Hello Jane.

Well, a holiday season that wasn't feeling very festive just got quite a bit LESS festive--I was MUGGED this evening.

Or at least ATTEMPTED-mugged.

On the way home from work, sometime after 11:00, I was riding on the sidewalk down Santa Monica Blvd., and a young Hispanic guy in front of me quickly took a step in, then SWUNG something (A belt, it turned out. Luckily for me), hitting me in the head and knocking me off my bike.

I don't know exactly what happened next, and I don't know what he said to me, if anything (No "Give me your wallet!", or "You've got to give up the bike, Homes...", or anything like that, that I recall). All I know is next thing we were on the ground, wrestling around and exchanging punches (Leaving me wondering afterwards how I got disentangled so fast from my bike, or how he ended up down on the ground WITH me. But I don't know--We were just suddenly IN it, if you know what I mean. But anyway...).

At one point, I actually had the better of the guy--I was on top of him, with a handful of his hair in one hand, smacking his head against the sidewalk, while squeezing his throat as hard as I could with the other hand--and that's when he wanted to start playing "Let's Make A Deal" ("Okay, you let go of ME, and I'll let go of YOU...!").

But at that point, I really wasn't sure I trusted this guy to keep his word. Cause, you know, I really had just MET him. Besides, I was kind of busy yelling at the top of my lungs "HELP! This guy is trying to MUG me! Call the POLICE!", etc and so on.

He somehow wrested free of my vise-like grip (Being younger, faster, and more energetic), but then I grabbed his crotch, seriously hoping to pull his NUTS off (Which, it turns out, is harder to do than you might imagine; I think I got the "frank", but not the "beans").

Finally, a car pulled over, and two guys got out.

Basically they treated us as if we were having a little friendly scuffle, not like I was the victim of assault and attempted robbery (Which I want to lay off to racism--they were Hispanic as well--but could also have had something to do with the fact that we WERE fighting at the time, even though I was giving a very vocal report of what had transpired). They were like, "Okay, you go THAT way, and you go THAT way...", and seemed actually upset when I got on my cell phone (After I picked it up from the gutter), and called 911.

(One of the guys wanted me to give him my phone, saying he could "tell them what happened", but I thought I had a pretty good IDEA of what had just happened to me, and was paranoid that he were going to throw the phone away or something. Back to the racism thing; I just had a sense they were not so racist as to help my attacker attack me, but racist enough that they didn't want me to get him in trouble. But who knows? Maybe they just didn't want to get more drawn in than they already were.)

Weirdest part of this whole thing? After my attacker walked off down the street, the guys in the car had left, and I was waiting for the paramedics (And theoretically, the police), when my attacker came BACK, apparently just to say he was SORRY.

Not being in a terribly FORGIVING mood at that point (And afraid he had grabbed some makeshift weapon in the interim), I had my pocket knife out--more threatening than a Swiss Army knife, less threatening than a switchblade--and said "Back the fuck AWAY from me, or I'll fucking KILL you!"

Anyway, paramedics came, looked me over, and asked if I wanted to go to an ER (Cause I had the bike, and didn't want to lock it up right where someone had just ATTACKED me, I declined).

The paramedics were pretty pessimistic about the cops arriving anytime soon, but I ended up flagging down a squad car that passed by, and told them my story. For all the good it was going to do.

And I could go on (And I'm sure I will in days ahead, in Diaryland). But long story short--I was mugged, I'm a little marked up, but basically okay, and I still have my wallet, and my bike.

And HIS belt (Nobody was interested in it "as evidence", so I took it home with me as...I don't KNOW what. A SOUVENIR?).

And I can't be 100% sure - the blood I saw afterwards on the sidewalk could have been MINE (The belt buckle put a gash in my head) - but I think I made him BLEED.

Obviously, this could have gone so much WORSE than I just described. If that belt had been a baseball bat, if he'd had a knife or a gun, I'm not here writing this entry. Clearly, this was a "crime of opportunity", and I was dealing with a young mugger-in-training.

Hopefully, if that was the case, this maybe dissuaded him from his life of crime (Though I'm afraid all it did was make him sure to use a bat or a knife or a gun NEXT time, or else choose smaller TARGETS).

Well, I'm waffling on whether to go to work or not tomorrow - I didn't want to go anyway, and now I'm all sore, and kind of unsightly, and I don't want to leave the house (I don't look like Quasimodo, but I definitely look like I've been in a fight. Though weirdly enough, my FOREHEAD seems to have sustained the bulk of the damage) - but if I AM going, it's way, way, WAY past my bedtime, since I'm supposed to be there at 12:30.

I'll write more soon.


 

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