Mugging Part 2

"What did he look like?" asked the police officer. He was anxious to start chasing after the guy who had robbed me, and I could hear his dogs barking in the back of his police SUV.
"Well, he was black," I felt uncomfortable saying that, ""and he had dreads. I mean braids."
"Was his skin dark?"
"No, but not light either. Kinda in between."
"What was he wearing?"
"I don't know, a baggy coat?"
"What did the gun look like?"
"It wasn't a revolver. And it was shiny."
"How long ago was this??"
I looked at my phone.
"Fifteen minutes at this point."
"Fifteen?!" he exclaimed, and stormed off in the direction the mugger had run.
I called the bank before I called the police. I assumed my wallet was gone, that the most important thing was to keep him from getting at the money in my bank account. So I called Wachovia, and then the cops, who sent 7 cars in less than a minute and brought those angry dogs in the SUV. Now they were annoyed with me for being a stupid civilian and waiting to call them.
"Always call the cops first," said another, nicer cop who was taking my statement.
"Getting here quickly is our best chance of catching these idiots," said another.
"Yeah, sorry about that. I guess I fucked up."
"Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm a cop," he said. "I would know what to do. But if I wasn't a cop, if I was just an normal person like you, I'd probably have done the same thing. Don't feel bad."
I finished filling out my statement and headed back to the strangers' porch where I had stopped to use the phone. They had hidden their beer because they were underaged. They offered me a ride home, but I told them I wanted to walk the rest of the way. "It's not like I have anything left to steal," I told them.
I like walking in the Fan, and I don't think I'm going to stop. I'll just be more nervous while I do it.

"You Get Your Shit Took."

I was walking home from my friends' house tonight, as I often do, when I heard a voice behind me and turned to see who it was. It was a man with a gun.
"What do you have in your pockets?" he asked.
So I started to get things out of my pockets, but he was impatient.
"Give me your wallet," he said.
I fumbled with this, so he stuck the gun in my face to make sure I would do it. I did.
"Get down on the ground," he told me.
"Okay!" I said, hoping not to get shot.
"Stay there, don't get up," he said. I did not get up.
When he was gone, I went down the street, and stopped at some strangers' porch to breath and tell them about being mugged. They were really nice about it, and when I called the cops roughly the entire Richmond police department showed up. They had dogs and everything. I told a lot of people what had happened, and they all agreed that I had not called soon enough, and that my ability to describe the mugger was poor. Then I went home and started worrying about credit fraud.

"White People Are Nuts"

Saturday my friend Kelsey and I found a woman’s purse in the parking lot at Kroger. Being decent people, we decided to try to get it back to its owner. I opened the wallet to find the owner’s name and address, while Kelsey got the cell phone out and started trying to find a good number to call.
As we did this, a middle-aged black woman pulled her car up next to us.
“What are you doing with a woman’s purse?” she said, angrily.
“It was abandoned in this shopping cart,” I said.
“We’re trying to find information so we can get it back to the owner,” said Kelsey.
The woman eyed us suspiciously.
“Just going through a woman’s wallet, mm mm mm,” she said, shaking her head.
“I would want someone to go through my wallet,” I said, “if it meant I got my wallet back.” I was mad. I felt that I was doing a nice thing, and that this lady who suspected me of being a thief was a stupid bitch. Kelsey dealt with the situation much better:
“Maybe we should just take this into the service desk,” he said.
“You better do that,” said the woman, as though she would call the police if we didn’t.
Kelsey took the purse inside, and I stayed outside with the groceries, while the rude woman drove away.

I thought about how suspicious she had been. I remembered a co-worker, Genesa, and a conversation in which she told me she was afraid of white men.
“Black people are more likely to rob you, sure,” she said, “but that’s all they do. You get your shit took. Big deal. Now a white man, if he pulls a gun on you, you don’t know what kinda weird shit he’s going to do to you. You might end up with your teeth in a maracca and your balls stapled to a tree—it could be anything. White people are nuts.”
I also seem to remember that conversation started with her saying I reminded her of Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Someday I hope I can be judged by the content of my character, and not by my the color of my skin/scraggliness of my beard.

Aphorism

Just now my economics professor uttered the following:
"In the long run we should all be happy; it's getting to the long run that we have to suffer through. You'll know the long run when you get there."

Sandwich Lady

Just now I was waiting for my sandwich, and the woman behind the counter, who is cross-eyed, shouted to a girl next to me. She was holding the girl's order slip, which had extra instructions scribbled in the margin.
"Hey excuse me! Does this say 'No cheese,' or 'Mo' cheese?" asked the sandwich lady, not exactly rude but clearly in a hurry.
"No cheese," said the girl.
"Okay," said the sandwich lady.
She makes good sandwiches.