Got away mostly unscathed from my mugging, which happened on my 25th birthday as I came home from the bar alone. Many of my friends had recently got beat up when they got mugged, and I’d stopped carrying a wallet at night because so many people I knew had been stuck up, see? So that night I only had my driver’s license and a $10 bill in my pocket.

Three hazy figures materialized two short blocks away from me on an otherwise deserted Pine Street. My heart stopped when I saw them see me and then pick up their ambling gait to an excited gallop. Like horses or cows do when they catch sight of the barn at the end of a long day of grazing. Tipsy and fatalistically ready for what was clearly coming, I turned onto the alley-street that led to my front door about 75 feet away. Had time to try one house to see if the door was open. Nope. That made me sad… and mad.

Half-way down Uber Street I was, when I heard “HEY!” Froze and put my hands up just like in the movies. The three hoods floated up to me and stuck one long Wild West pistol and one snub-nosed revolver, at 45-degree angles, into my front and side. “Whadda u got?” Only looked at the guns, not their faces, and said, “I’ve only got $10 on me! You can check!” They did check my pockets and took the money but left the license. Then they ran off cinematically into the night.

Dizzy from adrenaline, unable to feel my body, but aware it was not full of bullet holes, fumbled my way in the front door of my building. In the midst of such jangleshock, I had this calm-minded thought: “Ha! They only got ten bucks!” Carry no wallet at night, cheapo’s delight.

Found out later that they jumped a whole group of people after me, and one had broke away and run off to a payphone to call the police (this was before cellphones) just about the same time I did. Which is how, using the two coordinates of the phone call locations…

They caught the son-of-a-bitches.

NOTE: You don’t have to read the parts in italics below if you don’t want to, they’re about race.

The cop who’d arrived about a minute after I called was black. He asked me to describe the muggers and I detailed what they were wearing, but I didn’t say their race; weirdly, it seemed discriminatory to me at that moment, plus I wasn’t sure whether to say African American or black or what. He helped me out, tilting his head to show his understanding of my quandary, which he seemed used to: “Black?” “Yes.”

Officer Tilthead drove me to the scene of the arrest. Made me ID the perps (or not) right in the paddy wagon. No lineup at the station. Just opened the back door and pointed in there, where three faces were glowering at me out of the dark, their eyes intent and glowing like opossums’ when your headlights light them up aside a night road, but with more shame and anger at being caught. “Is that them?” asked the Fuzz. Said I didn’t know, but that sure looked like the coats they’d been wearing. Put me in the squad car to wait, wait, wait for the long, boring arrest process to get done. A knock came at the car window, I rolled it down. A cop’s arm dangled two guns through the window in front of my scaredyface and asked, “Is these the guns?” Startled and none too happy to have guns so close to my face again, I nodded with a sad (and mad) frown.

Back at the precinct, Detective Gray (who was, in fact, completely gray in hue) questioned me for an exquisitely tedious hour. By now it was well past 3 a.m. and I had to teach in the morning. After taking my statement in which I told the truth, i.e., that three young black guys in long down coats had mugged me with two guns, but I could not be sure it was the same three in the paddy wagon, Det. Gray went back to his desk behind a closed door to type things up.

He walked up to me a while later holding a statement that said that I’d positively ID’ed the suspects. “Sign here,” he said. Yours truly sputtered, “But…” He interrupted me: “Look, you know and I know that it was these guys. Let’s don’t act stupid. Come on.” Tried to protest and he said, “OK, fine, if you say so, I’ll just go back and retype the whoooole thing!” Exhausted and still with a faint screamy sound in my head on account of the guns earlier, I said, “No, I’ll sign it, if you cross out this part about the positive ID.” He did and I signed it.

After that’s when the second mugging began: Reams of subpoenae.

Obeyed the first one, telling me to show up at Family Court. See, one of the muggers was a juvie.

The group that had been mugged after me was all there at the court, we greeted each other somberly but with no sense of shared experience (they were all from South Jersey). At the precinct the girls had been hysterical — the muggers’d been much rougher to this group than they were to me.

REMINDER: The italicized parts are “racial.” Don’t read them.

The judge was a crotchety, sassy older black man. Defense counsel was a young white woman dripping with liberalness. The ADA was a white man in his 30s with a stern demeanor. I was a white, too. ADA asked me if I had ever seen anyone in the courtroom before and I said yes and pointed at the defendant, and quickly started to add I recognized him from the paddy wagon only, but the ADA clipped me off with “Nothing further!” I tried again and he cut me off again. Defense told Judge Sass how my statement to the detective did not reflect a positive ID, but judge asked, “What time was it when this happened?” She responded, “2 a.m., your honor.” He said, “Well, then it was dark out! How in the hell was he supposed to see anything anyway?” I was excused from the stand.

The kid was sentenced to juvenile detention till his 21st birthday. The juvie’s family was there: Well-coiffed and -heeled, real nice-looking folks. Even Grandma had come for the hearing. Felt bad for the family, obviously. Wow, three years is so long, I thought. But then I noodled on how he and his fellow robbers had pointed guns at me. If I did that, I’d expect to go to jail.

That’s the post-mugging conservative side of me I mentioned up top there. Don’t want to hear your sob story about abuse and neglect: You robbed me at gunpoint. You’re a jerk and there’s no excuse for you. In other words, we all have to live by the same societal standards regardless of our demographic profile.

See, my Self fell through a trap door, I felt my very Humanity “go” when I saw the guns. Because pointing a gun at someone is robbing them not just of whatever money you mug off them but taking away their civil right to not think they’re about to be murdered. Your Money or Your Life: It means the money is worth more than you, and that hurts your feelings real’ bad, expecially when the amount at stake is $10.

During the endless season of subpoenas, I was getting more and more afraid of retribution for testifying, so I decided to ignore the invitations to the two adults’ trials. Mr. ADA called one day to make sure I was coming and I said Nope. He said they’d send an officer to arrest me and bring me in to the court and I said Go ahead. They didn’t. The group of students who got mugged after me would suffice for them to make the case, is what I figure they thought. Arresting the victims is not a popular thing to do.

I told my dad by phone about what happened to me, and he helpfully offered this summing up: “Yeah, I mean, you’ve lost a sense of security that you’ll probably never get back again.”

That turned out 2B wrong; I’m just more careful now about nighttime walks. But I don’t walk around with a heightened fear of muggers. As a matter of fact I feel like Charles Bronson in the Deathwish movies — unarmed, though, but with the same secret, insane desire to be attacked so I can retaliate with lethal force against my attackers — with my bare fists! I got so much anger, and no one to victimize with it (legally). So a mugger more on the hapless side — say, one of those that sticks his finger out under his jacket like it’s a gun — would not be lucky to choose me. If they have a real gun, though, I’ll just have to surrender my money and wait for my next turn to go berserk on someone, like a fucking banshee when you step on its tail accimadentally and it flies into your stupid unsuspecting face.

I know, I’m morally all over the place. It’s probably because I was the victim of a violent crime, though. I don’t think so good since then.

I never got my $10 back, either. I asked for it and the ADA said Nope. But you wanna know what, I learned a lot for that ten bucks. It’s a bargain as far as life’s tuition goes.