Thursday, November 24, 2005
#388: TUESDAY WAS A GLO-BALL WAITING TO HAPPENTuesday night was like one of those yo-yos on retractable elastic string that were popular when I was in elementary school in the early 1980s. I loved that thing. The Glo-Ball was a hard, clear, plastic ball with a neon orange and green plastic shape inside obscuring the mechanism within that doled out and wound in the elastic string. Basically, they were yo-yos for the yo-yo impaired, and they also glowed in the dark, solving the long-suffered problems encountered when one needed to yo-yo safely with the lights off.
I remember that at one moment I would be in perfect control, managing to release and catch the ball, affecting the look of a seasoned yo-yoer with a normal yo-yo; the next moment would find the ball hurtling wildly in unreasonable horizontal and diagonal archs on its elastic string, ricocheting off walls and furniture only to retract and collide with my body, which was doing its own dance of self-preservation. Those were difficult days, the Glo-Ball days.
By the previous two paragraphs, I mean to illustrate that Tuesday night felt wild and unpredictable. Between the Fiery One and I, we have experienced more than the necessary amount of work-related stress lately, so we were excited to go and pick up the mystery package at the postal outlet on the way to have supper out. The mystery package we picked up at the postal outlet was full of books! from Ladyloo! that I could not bear to part with, so we decided to take them to the restaurant with us. Who doesn't want to go out for supper with a Henry Miller trilogy?
The weather was incredibly warm for a mid-November evening in Saskatchewan. We did not even have to wear gloves, so we were walking along just past our apartment building on our way back from picking up the package, fingers interlaced. I am not sure what we were talking about, but I remember we were talking softly to each other, giggling at each other's jokes.
I was leaning in toward the Fiery One on my right side, because it feels so good to be near him, when I was suddenly jostled a bit by a cyclist who was passing us on my left between me and the drugstore on the corner.
I felt a tug on my handbag, which I had looped over my shoulder. I instinctively tried to get a better hold on it, thinking that it was merely sliding from my shoulder, but the next thing I knew I was watching it slide down my arm. My animation suspended during that moment in which I was both confused as to why my purse was sliding all the way down my arm and aware that the cyclist was pulling my handbag from me. Both thoughts hung together in my mind, weights of equal measure, until the handle of my purse hit my hand, but it was too late. I tried grabbing on, but it slipped easily away from me.
Instantly, as though the touch on my hand threw time into sharp focus, everything was moving so fast. The cyclist was peddling away with my handbag twirling out from his side where he still held his arm perpendicular to the pavement. We started running.
FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING FUCKERRRRRR! rolled out of my chest in a hoarse yet magnificent boom. Even in my state of surprise, I was impressed with this new sound I could make, so I made it again. FUCKING BASTARD! FUCK YOU! I FUCKING HATE YOU!
To me, my voice was a cannon. Boom boom boom. I wanted my words to hit him bodily, I wanted him to be surprised at my strength even as I fell further and further behind, my legs no match for his bicycle. The Fiery One continued to chase him for another block until he turned and disappeared into a network of alleys and apartment buildings.
I had stopped running in the middle of the intersection and stood there shivering with my hands over my face. I didn't know what to do. I felt like something else should happen, that he should loop back or I should have a weapon or a car should hit him or that this should be a vivid fantasy in mind like every other day. None of this happened, of course. The cyclist was just gone, and the street was quiet.
It was all so fast that I remember it in snapshots. There is the Fiery One, little in the distance with his red scarf waving. There is the flash of reflector on a bike's wheel. There is the stranger handing me the cell phone with the confusing buttons.
After that was all the follow-up stuff. A lady stopped beside me in her car and let me use her cell phone to call the cops. The Fiery One and I waited for the police at the drug store on the corner, where I realized that I had been clutching my three Henry Miller books so tightly that my arms did not want to straighten and ached when they did. The cop who showed up came with us around the corner to our apartment, and we wrote out our statements while the cat played around the guy's feet. After that, we gave up on good food and opted for pints of beer and mediocre food, because getting mugged makes you reprioritize like that.
During all of that I was most aware of a burning sensation in my hands and kept returning with fascination to the memory of myself sitting on the sofa, convulsing subtly with a parkinsonian shudder while I ate a banana.
And now it is Thursday evening, and I am typing this in our living room. I am more scared today than I was when it happened. The thief took my purse and my wallet and my keys, and it was before 7:00 pm on a weeknight outside an open business on a travelled street when I was with my husband.
Now there are no rules to follow. Was it late? No, it was early. Was it dark? Just barely. Were you alone? No, I was with my husband.
The Fiery One is not yet home from work, and since the bathroom is in the dark back half of the apartment, I stay in here, stuffing my hand into my crotch and dancing on my chair. The one guy on the bicycle blossoms into a they, and I wonder if someone is watching the apartment, if they know when I come home at night.
I am scared to run down to the store on the corner for a tin of soup. I am scared to walk to my bus stop in the morning, and so I caught the later one today when the streets were busier. I was late for work. I did not leave the office for lunch. I left a party early tonight and did not go out to see my favourite band play, because people might stand close enough to touch me.
And I do not know how to be angry about what happened, because he did not look back as he sped away. We never saw his face.
E.E. Cummings: Complete Poems 1904-1962
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18 comments:
It seems like coping with an event as sudden and traumatic as having your purse swiped is hard enough, without having to deal with the open-ended threat of some continued violation.
I'm sorry. I hope it all gets straightened out soon.
Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. This just makes me want to beat somebody up! I remeber always feeling so safe in that town! I'm so sorry schmutzie.
I feel like tracking him down and beating the living shit out of him. Nobody messes with my friend Schmutzie!
So sorry to hear about that sweety, I hate that you feel so unsafe.
Motherf%§ker. He stole your purse, that's bad enough, but the way it screws with your mind afterwards is much worse.
Hope you feel safe again soon.
Schmutzie dear...
I think you are in need of a wee bit of post traumatic stress help. Could be speaking with a victim counselor or a therapist - or even some anti anxiety medication to help soothe your emotions. I'm sorry - but yes, I am advocating away over here. You need to be pro-active about feeling better about this bad thing. I am hugging you.
Having something stolen can leave you with an incredible feeling of being violated and feeling as if you've lost a little bit of innocence after the initial burst of adreline drains away. It will pass as well, just not as quickly. You have such incredible spirit, so don't let this consume you. Don't think of me insensitive if I say to take advantage of this and find yourself a wicked new purse, as I have been in your shoes.
Maybe you can take up the yo-yo again and use it as a weapon against any sorry soul who dares to look at you cross-ways!
I am so sorry that happened, I can only imagine. I now feel lucky that I was wandering around here after dark alone. Hugs!!!
My mom and sister were the victims of a home invasion robbery in February 2004. They were tied up and my sister's fiance (now husband) was forced at gunpoint to show the robbers where expensive things were kept. They're doing better, they're just leary in the dark or by themselves. Sending many happy thoughts your way.
unbelieveable.
i'll track the muthafucka down and give him the beats if ya want. (you know i'm tough like a paper cup.) that sucks. i'm in love with my job this week. and i wish i'd hung out with ya over the weekend. i'm just getting my head together for the first time this year though.
Here from The Fiery One. Horrible, horrible, horrible. I know exactly how you feel (having been through something similar), and I sincerely and truly hope you feel better.
More than anything I think you should be looking at the fact that you were not hurt. Let this person live with his gulit and not allow this wrong doing to change who you are or your way of life.
What a nightmare. Look at it this way: sooner or later, something shitty like this happens to everyone. Be thankful it wasn't worse and nobody was hurt, I guess. I've lived in a big city for 10 years and nothing like that has happened to me -- yet. But I know it's only a matter of time, based on what I see on the news every day. How can these people live with themselves? What makes them think they have a right to the things you worked so hard for? Grr.
Hey! That sucks.
Stuff of that kind has happened to me on and off. A few months ago, I walked out of my then-apt to see a guy in my car parked on the street! in my car! I ran out after him yelling. He came over to show me that he had just taken my parking meter change, but I was not mollified, and continued yelling. He ran off. With my change. Grrrr. Several weeks ago, some jerk tried to intimidate me when I was parking, for no reason (he didn't want the space). He tried to trap me in the spot. I kept yelling at him until he left. Then I called the police with his license plate (I am sure they did exactly what they did in all these instances - bupkus) and also called the pollution hotline and reported his car as a polluter. I am not very sensible sometimes, I guess, but I feel that I have to do SOMETHING, and yelling helps. Yelling is not always appropriate, though. A few years back I was working at a hotel and got robbed w/gun to head and everything. I very politely gave him what he wanted, and he left. I think you did an EXCELLENT job with the yelling. Way to go! post a comment ~ Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] ~ main page
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