Becoming a Statistic

Random acts of violence… a fact of living in the city? Not for me, at least not until last Monday night. It was a night were everything seemed a bit “off”. I was unsettled, needed to get out of my house, so I went to Showtunes… nothing unusual. The crowd was not filled with the “regulars”, but it was fun all the same. I had my fill, a little earlier than usual, and decided it was the perfect night to walk home. I’ve done it before; it takes about 20 minutes and would have given me just the right amount of time to catch up with my mother and get home in time to climb into bed. After all, I was 2 days away from my trip to CA for the wedding…

“Fate” had something else in store. I got to 15th and T and my mother realized I was walking home. Just to cover her bases she made sure she had the right number for my friend L the cop. I verified that and we discussed what she should do in the case of an emergency. I assured her nothing was going to happen, but just to ease her nerves I told her where I was. Two blocks later it happened… The worst nightmare for a mother 3,000 miles away and a nightmare for me. I was attacked from behind.

I’d love to go into the details of what happened, but I can’t remember all of it. It all kind of blurs together now: the arm around my neck strangling me keeping me from getting air or screaming, the guy squatted down on my chest demanding my money and threatening me with a gun, the other guy standing at my feet. I gave them my wallet, or maybe they took it from my pocket (I can’t remember), they took my cell phone (I believe my mother had hung up by then) they wanted my jacket, but the guy strangling me had the collar stuck in his grasp and he wouldn’t let go and then the hitting started. I don’t remember the pain, I just remember the blows:

1) he hit me in the right eye, my glasses went flying
2) he hit me in left eye and my already blurry vision got cloudier
3) he hit my nose; I heard pops, but didn’t have time to digest it before:
4) he hit me on the right side of my mouth

In my memory that was it… it was over they ran off, I got up and ran down the street to find someone, anyone to call the cops. A witness fills in a few of the gaps: http://cafe227.blogspot.com/2006/05/new-jack-city.html

I found someone to help, called 9-1-1 and waited. Conversations with several cops and a trip to the emergency room later I was left with a broken nose, fractured floors to both my orbiters, a chip taken out from the C-7 vertebrae in my neck, no wallet and no cell phone.

A week and a half later I sit in my office finishing this post (it took forever to write), still restrained by a neck brace, but looking almost normal… Now I ask, is what happened to me anything special or have I just become another statistic of random acts of violence in DC?