Blue Skies are Falling. Part 2.

DIARY, EVENT: CONNOR

Several long posts ahead, but I'll try to keep them interesting.

Also: keep in mind I'm not the only one posting here right now. If you see EVENT: GEMMA, WOLFBARONXYLO, SKYBALLS, or ELISABETH, then someone else is posting...

MUG SHOTS

I know I said I'd post last night, but my phone was disconnected, barringinternet access. See, we'd received two envelopes from SBC, one noting thePayment Due November 9th, and a second threatening to disconnect service on the1st.

We opened and read the first, but somehow missed the second, and so it sat for awhole week on a pile of credit card ads and Osco coupons. Yesterday, when Igot home, our phone didn't work.

Now, ordinarily, I might have deposited my last paycheck in my checking accountand paid the thing off conveniently, at once. But I don't have my bank card,because last Friday I was beaten up and robbed by three kids on 63rd andEllis...

Bad things come in threes too, and our phone had technically been disconnectedon the evening of the 1st. I should have seen this coming. The Law of Threesfar predates even the Boston Red Sox.

Then again, elections and polls and all kinds of problems are informed byperspective. By about the twentieth kick to the head, I figure I'd acclimated,and what had seemed extraordinary five minutes before, suddenly wasn't.

WHAT HAPPENED

I should explain, maybe, what happened. I've already deferred this storynumerous times by promising to post it here.

Armand was having a barbecue birthday party on the night of the 29th. I wasrunning late, and thought I'd make up the time by taking the Green Line toCottage Grove and 63rd, and walking the last ten minutes. It was nine atnight, dark but early... I've walked this walk many times, and never had aproblem.

Kids cluttered the corners, ten or twelve in total. One boy waited at a busstop. Two boys walked behind me. The two behind me began to gain, which isstrange; I walk very fast naturally, especially alone.

I had just glimpsed the shadow of one, gaining on me, when they both ran uparound me, struck me in the head, and pulled me to the ground. The boy fromthe bus stop joined them, and while two of them kicked me, the third rifled mypockets.

This went on until they found my wallet, with my CTA card, some cash... a totalof about $45 worth inside.

And they ran off.

Twenty minutes later, however, I was at the warmth of a party, surrounded by friends and light, and being a party populated with med school students, theyall poked me and prodded me, and seemed to think if I survived the night I'd be fine.

THOUGHTS THEREUPON

As for me:

I felt bruised, but certainly not "humiliated," as so many have expressed concern.
I wasn't the one who run up on an unarmed guy from behind.
I wasn't the one who felt the need to take someone three to one.
I didn't run away in the end, although I would have run had it been an option.

I was proud of my conduct, actually.
You always wonder how you'll behave in such a situation... I'd always worriedI'd either break down or spontaneously find some macho drive.
Instead, I surrendered my wallet, told them to "just take it," and when theyleft, stood up and walked away.

I'll continue this line of prudence and add 63rd street to my list of places Notto Go Alone at Night.
Nor will I allow this one event, the first serious occasion I've encountered ina decade of exploring cities, to weaken my curiosity and imagination.

As for the kids who did it:

I think apologizing for others' ridiculous and vindictive conduct is about asproductive as middle class guilt. What those kids did was asshole and criminal. As I've said to many since I was jumped, though, everywhere you go on earth there are angels and assholes. In my high school, the assholes enjoyed throwing spit wads and calling you"faggot." That was what they enjoyed and could get away with. On 63rd they enjoy and get away with beating you up and taking your money.

In fact, it's always struck me as sort of subtle racism (the kind peddledby liberal middle class guilty-feeling people), the notion that ghetto thugs are anything more or less than assholes with violent experience... it follows hard on generalizing assumptions that all people the same, and for that matter, if their actions are somehow justified, it deprives them of meaningful agency.

So I call the those kids assholes, and don't trouble myself beyond that designation.

One point touches upon all of these observations, including the Law of Threes, and is summed up by a close friend:

"Moderation in all things, especially modulation."

To wrap up this subplot, I told Father Mike about the event and he said a quickprayer over me. It turns out he was beaten up himself, that same week, by somebums drinking at midnight in the alley behind the rectory. He went down, toldthem to quiet down, and walked off bruised.

So I got jumped while wearing a Hawai'ian shirt, and my priest got jumped at therectory.

I should have guessed who would win the election.

continued...

~ Connor