How I almost died and the fight I narrowly avoided
WTF Universe?
That’s my mantra right now. The past few weeks have been full of surprises. And disappointments. And lots of other nouns. I’ve already written about a lot of the political stuff here, so I won’t bother rehashing any of it yet again, and I haven’t had enough space or time to really reflect and digest everything from then yet anyway. Instead, I want to talk about Friday–when I almost got hit by a car in the morning, and where I was about 30 seconds and 12 inches away from an all-out gang brawl in Union Square in the evening. Yeah, fun times, let me tell you! Man do I love the holidays.
Friday AM
I had just finished teaching my environmental politics class at Fordham in the South Bronx and was walking back to the 4 train. There a section of Fordham Road where it splits by Bryan Park, and I was crossing at the top of the park. Due to the way the road curves, and the way cars are usually parked on the right side of the road, it can make for a bit of a pedestrian blindspot. There was an MTA bus stopped along the curb in the other lane of traffic alongside the park, but no other visible traffic in either direction, so I started walking across. I was a few steps away from crossing into the other lane when a car came whizzing around the corner. Normally I would have been fine, as I was not in the oncoming lane the car was in. However, the driver was apparently not paying attention, and as they came around the corner and towards the light (which is about 100 feet past this corner, and about 30 feet up from where the bus was stopped picking people up) they suddenly realized there was a bus in the lane and swerved to get around the bus into the other lane–which was precisely where I was at that moment.
Suddenly I felt like an incapacitated action hero in a bad John Woo film, as the car came careening towards me to avoid the bus and all I could do was watch in a dazed stupor. I felt the car on my face as it sliced between the back left fender of the bus and the front right corner of my right leg. I barely even had time to stop, and if I had been even one step further across the road I would have taken the hit full on. Somehow I managed to avoid that, but just barely. Needless to say I was quite shaken up, and I’m pretty sure that is the closest I have ever come to being hit.
Friday PM
Fast forward a few hours, to around 4:30. I was in Union Square waiting to meet a friend who was in town visiting. I was sitting near the end of the benches closest to those tacky red and white shopping stalls, reading a very interesting book on Complexity Theory (perhaps I’ll write about that in another post if I have the energy). Anyway, while I was sitting there there was a sudden commotion and off to my left a young black guy and girl appeared. There were struggling with each other and as they moved towards me the guy swung the girl around and slammed her down onto the ground. This was about 12-15 feet away from where I was sitting. A few other people around them jumped up or moved back in response to this, and without even thinking I sprung up and grabbed the guy, who looked like he was about to start attacking her again. He spun around, freeing himself, and quickly walked off towards the market stall. As he walked away I yelled at him to never do that again, and to never hit a woman like that again.
About 25-30 seconds later a friend of his, a young latin guy in a blue jacket, got up in my face, asking me what the fuck I was doing grabbing his friend, and then pushed me full force. I tried to tell him I was just reacting to what happened, and didn’t care about his friend or their business, all the while being quite calm and non-confrontational. He stormed off back to the group of young people sitting further down the walkway where I guess this had all begun, and I sat back down. About a minute later he came walking back, looked at me and then said I had better get out of there, cause if I was still there he was going to “black my eye” and I had better not be there when he got back, as he walked towards wherever his friend had gone. Another minute or two went by, and he came back, looked at me again, proceeded to give me the same threats about blacking my eye if I didn’t leave, and then went back to the group he was with.
Another minute or two went by, and this same guy in the blue jacket, as well as the first guy who had thrown the girl down, came back over. They were in full swagger now, pumped up like a pair of circus tigers following an electric prodding from the zoo keeper. “Yo, what the fuck were you thinking man,” the black kid yelled at me. “You know who the fuck I am. You know who the fuck I am. I’ll fuck you up. I’ll fuck you up. You’re lucky I’m still 18 or…” and he continued to rant like this for another minute or two. He’d start to get more agitated and move closer to me–I was still sitting in the bench at this point–and his buddy in blue would but a hand on his chest, holding him back a bit, only to unleash another torrent of rants.
I tried–perhaps stupidly–to explain that all I saw was a girl being thrown down and had intervened, and I wasn’t interested in their business. At that point he informed me that this was “his girl” and that she had apparently hit him earlier and he was just responding, and that in a few hours she would be back in his arms kissing on him again. He then tried to play the, you had a girl right, you know how it is line. I had to restrain myself from telling him he was a piece of worthless misogynist shit and that if that girl had any sense, she would drop his ass like the piece of shit he was. But I kept that to myself, and simply told him I didn’t know what was going on between and them and didn’t want to get involved.
With a final bluster of patriarchal bravado he flung a few more verbal threats, inching closer and closer each time, and then proceeded to take his two pointer finger and jab them into my face, on either side of my nose. His buddy in blue then proceeded to spit a large mouth full of spit into my face, and the two triumphant petty tyrants marched off to their pack, likely to brag about their heroism. I sat for a moment in shock. Had that really just happened? Wow, I’m glad I have had a lot of non-violence and conflict resolution training. And man, why wasn’t I already enrolled in those Krav Maga classes I have been considering?!
Another minute or two went by, and luckily my friend called, and I left to go meet up with her. As I was walking away another group of high school kids who were assembled around the walkway going down from the market towards the subway entrance asked me what happened, and appeared sympathetic to the girl and not particularly friendly to the two guys I had just had the altercation with. They told me he was a Harlem ghetto kid and lots of trouble. I started explaining what happened when one of them said those guys are coming back, and I had better go.
Considering I had a bag full of fresh produce from the farmers market under one arm, and a bundle of broom corn in the other, I wasn’t exactly dressed for battle. (Although I was half curious about how effective a shuck of bound broom corn might be if used as a weapon…) I’m a pretty insightful tactical strategist: Me versus somewhere between 3 and 8 high school kids (judging by the group they were hanging out with) is hardly an even match, and I have no doubt that a fight between just me and the two others–both of which were scrawny looking punks I would have taken on in a different setting–would have quickly turned into me and their gang. That’s a fight I would lose. And besides, I had a friend to meet, and a meeting on Undoing Racism after that, so having a pissing contest at Union Square with some high school kids from Harlem was pretty low on my agenda.
Needless to say, I don’t know what the universe is doing right now, but man o man. Was the incident from the morning a warning to be careful later in the day? Was there no connection at all? Was this a manifestation of the larger craziness that seems to be everywhere right now–and has everybody on edge? I don’t know, but I am sick of it, that much I can say for sure. Winter break, I am so ready for you to come. Until next time…
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