fuzzbean.net

So. So.

So I really fucking hate this city.

Tonight I had my second fiddle class. I had a hankering for Thai food, so before I went over I checked out google maps and located a place half a mile away from the school. Half a mile. That's nothing, right? That's like a five minute walk. Bad shit doesn't happen in half a mile.

Yeah. Parked car in lot, paid up until 9:20, took lesson, dropped fiddle in trunk of car. Walked over. There are people around. Yes, it's 8.15 and after dark, but there are people around and streetlights on and for fuck's sake, any of these homes would retail at seven figures. I walk along Wilson with no incident. I turn the corner on Damen. People still around, I can see the neon sign for the restaurant. I hear footsteps coming up behind me. I hear them slow and I'm tensing and he grabs my right shoulder and there's something hard and round stuck in my rib cage and I don't know what it is and there's a hoarse whisper in my ear. "Gimme your purse." "What the fuck?" and whatever's in my rib cage is pushed harder and "Gimme your purse" again and I'm running through what's in there and I'm thinking there's nothing in there he wants but fuck it, he doesn't know that so fine, take it, take my purse that I got from Paris, my favorite awesome brown purse, take my notebook with my NaNo story ideas and my little spiral notebook that I've been keeping for the last three months with all my shopping lists and food notes, the last thing I had left from LA, and my Pilot G-Tec-C4 that my sister ordered special from England and the checks that I haven't cashed yet, take it, you fucking fucker, take it and go to hell. "Have fun," and I hand it over and he goes the other way, he's gone and I still don't know what just happened.

I'm shaking. I'm shaking. I'm not scared, I'm not scared I could have died but I'm shaking. I'm shaking and I don't know what to do so I adhere to previous plan, restaurant is there, I get water and order pad thai and my dinner comes and I'm eating and shaking and...right, you're supposed to call the cops when something like this happens. Right. That's what you're supposed to do. Assault with a deadly weapon, that's what this is called. A guy comes in and he looks rough, like the one who just took my notebook and my pen and my fucking notebook, you asshole, my notebook with my recipes and my directions and my thoughts, my notebook that I can flip through and remember how I made LA taste, remember what happened on each day and how I felt by what I made, the last three months and they're gone, you fuck, a guy comes in and he sits down and as the waiter passes I flag him and ask him to call the cops, I just got mugged, holy shit I just got mugged. The guy who walked in is looking at me, everybody's looking at me and I'm shaking so hard I can hardly get the words out, I don't know what to do. What's the procedure for this? Where's my script? What the fuck am I supposed to do?

The waiter goes and calls and the guy is looking at me, it's not the same guy. I don't know why he asks and I don't know why I say it's okay but I let him sit at my table and he talks to me, says he used to work for the IRS--he looks too rough to have worked for the IRS but I don't really care what he's saying, at least he's talking. He keeps saying how strange it is that I'm looking as calm as I am--shaking but not crying, drinking water like it'll save me--and I tell him that I'm very stable; yeah, that's me, stable. I'm letting him do most of the talking and that's fine; there's other people around and then they've got the cops on the phone and the first thing they ask is if I'm hurt and I'm not, what happened and I tell them, Damen at Wilson, taller than me, 6'0/6'1, light hair, rough face--forties or fifties, white, no accent, big jacket thing on, no facial hair, happened so fast, I've got three seconds of shakey impressions to work with here, it was dark, it was so fast, I don't know if he had a gun but it was implied, I don't know, I don't know. They're going to send someone over to talk to me, I don't have to go down to the station or anything, someone will be by.

The guy is asking me out. Wtf? He's asking if I'd like to go see a movie or something sometime. Um. No, thank you, it's very kind of you but no. God, I hope the cops get here soon. I'm wondering how old he thinks I am, or does he usually try to pick up just-mugged 23-year-olds? That's a new kind of desperate. I get them to box up what's left of my dinner. The cops are here. He asks if someone called them and I wave a shaky hand. "That's me." We go outside and I tell him what happened, second of many times, tall, thin, rough, lined face, fast. So fast. Right--just there--and I wave my hand at the building two doors down. He asks what happened, I asked if I can touch him and show him how I was grabbed--shoulder, ribs, I want to scour my skin off. He asks what I lost, no, nothing valuable, my credit cards and cash and everything was in my wallet which was in my pocket, there was nothing worth anything in the purse except to me, he didn't take any ID, not even a checkbook in the purse. No, I'm not hurt; yes, I was at least implicitly threatened. No, no, it wasn't stupid. This wasn't a bad neighborhood, this shit just happens, you weren't doing anything dumb, just random. Just god fucking with you one more time. Look, there's other girls walking alone all over the place. It's not you. It's nothing you did. Just some random homeless asshole.

I pay for dinner. It's $10. I go back outside and ask the cop if we can walk down a ways to see if maybe he tossed it out after he saw there was nothing in there worth anything and we do; he walks me down and we check a couple of alleys and there's nothing. My purse is gone. My notebooks. They're gone.

I get in the back of his squad car and make a feeble joke about how I'm not usually back here. "Yeah, you're in trouble now." Cars with other cops in them keep pulling up...how tall? Wearing what? I go through it again. He's filling something out, passes it to me through the crack above the plate glass. He's slid open the plexiglass that usually covers the mesh. I guess he figures I'm not about to shoot him. He drives me back to my car, waits to see me get in. It's 9:22. My meter ran out two minutes ago.

I don't start to cry until I get in the car and then it takes everything to stop. Lock doors. Can't cry when calling grammy to say I'll be a little past 9:30. This never happened. She can't ever know. I call her, yeah, just fine, just running a little late, no biggie. I start crying again when I hang up; I'm still shaking like it's freezing out and I'm naked. Someone has pulled up next to me and they're beeping at me, some young guy in a beat up white Nova who thinks crying chicks are hot, fuck you, fuck you asshole. I'm driving poorly, distracted, too close to the car in front of me a couple of times but shit, I just want to go home. I don't have a home. I just want to go home.

I call my aunt, who wrote me the largest check in there. I call from the car. I don't want to do this inside the house. Grammy might hear. She must never know. This never happened. I go inside. I call my mom. I IM Scullin in Champagne and he calls me and talks to me for an hour until I stop shaking, random stuff, HSAs and retirement savings and fascism and I don't remember. I IM VFT. I IM RadiantSun. I really want a hug. I start shaking again as I start to write this--better to get it out, bleed it all out--and fuck, if I believed in a deity I'd think someone had it in for me, this isn't funny any more, there is nothing funny about this any more.

I really, really, really hate this city right now.