Chapter 17

 

 

“Listen, bitch, I ain’t afraid of you,” said the Hispanic man in his early 20s. “I’ve got nothing to lose, so hand it over!”

The man was nervous, so he became loud. It was his first robbery on the street; all of his previous crimes were petty, only shoplifting and vandalism. He’d steeled himself for the illicit act by drinking copious beers and smoking robust marijuana with friends. He’d told them he was going to go out to rob someone, and although they didn’t believe him, when he returned with the evidence, his friends were at once appalled and enthralled. Appalled that he had done such a heinous act; enthralled that at least one of them had some guts.

He had appeared as if out of nowhere, because he’d been waiting behind a metal fence near an empty storefront.

Linda had been doing her best to pay attention to the activity on the street, but if someone wants to remain hidden, it doesn’t take much to accomplish that goal. To all animals, humans of course included, we notice movement easily, but if some other creature is preying upon us, staying perfectly still and being camouflaged is all that’s necessary to be nearly invisible.

Standing at only 5-foot, 5-inches tall, the man was not a tower of power. But his demeanor was threatening enough to intimidate.

“Now!” he yelled. “I said hand it over!”

All Linda knew was that he was mighty serious sounding. She also decided the smart thing to do would be to lose the battle in order to win the war. The battle was her wallet and its meager contents, and the war was her life. No need to exchange one for the other, although this fellow didn’t look armed.

It was then that he pulled out a nasty looking weapon, a Saturday night special.

“I said, ‘Hand it over,’ and I mean it!” he snapped at her.

His desperate attitude and the sight of the handgun made Linda move fast. When he pulled out the gun, all the words became engraved on her mind, echoing and bouncing around the inside of her skull. The handgun made the man look bigger, for some reason, but no matter what happened from this point on, Linda was not going to lose her life over a wallet.

She shoved her wallet into his eager hands, and looked away. She remembered something about preventing a robber from getting violent by showing that she won’t be able to identify the assailant. She was reacting instantly, not really thinking; when and where she picked up the information about looking away, she couldn’t have told you at the time. But that’s what she did.

“Don’t turn around, lady,” he choked out the words as he took off, wallet in hand. He was off and running down the street, around the corner as Linda turned around to see the last of the thug.

She stood alone in the street. The noise of traffic from adjoining streets continued to fill the air, but there was nothing else going on. She was the center of attention. She had become a victim.

“Damn,” she said to herself. “Royally ripped off!”

She wasn’t far from home, and with rapid precision marched back to her apartment, partially in shock, partially in fear. When she got home, she immediately dialed 9-1-1 on her cell phone; why she didn’t do so on the street we’ll never know. The police told her they’d send an officer to take a report, but she declined, saying she’d come into the precinct the following day and make an official report.

“No reason to bother one of your fine officers,” she told the police dispatcher. “I’m home safe now, that’s the most important thing.”

The next day, after a trip to the police station, Linda told the whole story to Lou at the Club Festival. He listened to her tale while he polished glasses at the bar.

“It happened so fast, Lou, it was all over in an instant,” Linda told her boss, over a cold one at the club.

“Crime on the street,” Lou said, “it’s like that, over in a blink of the eye.”

“Lucky for me there wasn’t much money in the wallet,” she rationalized.

“But did I do the right thing?” she asked her boss. “I handed over my entire wallet. Was there something else I should have done?”

“Like what?” he said.

“Oh, I don’t know, kick him in the crotch or run?”

“In the face of a gun,” he said, “I don’t think so. With shit like that, it’s not like in the movies, this is real, and you’re no martial arts expert, so you really did the only thing you could do.”

Linda looked at her boss. She thought about what he said. They continued nursing their beers. Lou’s face then became pinched and anxious.

“Hey,” he said, “you’re gonna have to excuse me for a minute.”

Before Linda could respond, Lou quickly got up from the chair and headed to the back. He headed to the men’s restroom.

It seemed that the Mexican food he had earlier was not agreeing with him. Or it could be something in the water, like the deadly parasite Cryptosporidium, attacking his bowels. Whatever the reason, he barely got into the stall and his pants down when a severe case of diarrhea evacuated his bowels.

He stayed in the men’s restroom for the next ten minutes. Linda might have been alarmed, but she had other topics on her mind, like surviving her recent encounter with the Hispanic mugger. She was also mulling over in her mind what she might have done differently.

She remembered that one time a media report suggested that in the event of a robbery, a tactic might be to take the money out of a wallet and throw it on the ground. Since money was all most robbers are looking for, then the robber would be instantly fixated on the cash on the ground, and the victim might be able to slip away quickly.

But Linda remembered the gun, and that made her pause as she reflected. No reason to take any chances.

When Lou returned, Linda asked what took him so long. She never noticed that he had rushed back to the men’s room; for all she knew, he had gone to his office, or taken the rear door exit to take care of some task. She’d learned not to take anything for granted; at the same time, she could consider all of the possibilities without obsessing or assuming.

“Had to go to my office,” Lou responded. He lied, of course, but it was out of embarrassment and modesty, not out of malice or subterfuge. In Lou’s mind, there was only so much information that people need to know. He almost instantly felt better after relieving himself.

“Lou,” she said as he sat back down, “I was thinking.”

“That’s a dangerous proposition,” he said, smiling. Linda realized he was joking, and giving her a hard time.

“Listen,” he said. “Don’t make too much of a thing out of this incident. You did the best you could under the circumstances, and you are alive and well and uninjured. What more could you ask for?”

“How about my ID?” she asked. “I was thinking, maybe I could have taken the small amount of money out of my wallet and thrown it on the ground, and then headed the other direction.”

“Yeah, right,” he said. “Hindsight is golden. We can all second guess ourselves later.”

“I’m sorry, Lou, for wasting your time.”

“Stop,” he said. “It’s good to talk to someone after such a harrowing experience. That’s what friends are for, to help process and vent.”

“You’re deep,” she said, in a sweet tone.

“Cut it out,” he responded. “I’ve learned over the years to share and open up with people I can trust. It’s good therapy. It’s good for both parties.”

The two sat sipping their beers. Lou’s stomach felt normal and the bubbly brew felt good going down.

Linda and Lou were becoming good friends, and felt comfortable with each other.

Linda was especially grateful that she found a man who had a heart and a mind, and was not afraid to open up. She’d known so many bad men, to find a good one was like finding gold. She felt good about what was transpiring between them. It wasn’t a romantic feeling, more like the feeling you’d get from relating to a brother. She also knew it wasn’t the beer, since she’d only had two or three swallows from the glass.

She had a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach, a feeling she’d use to have as a child when a parent or good friend was helping her do some craft or project. It was a good feeling. It seemed to her to be the opposite of having an upset stomach.

“Yeah,” Lou said. “Sorry about what happened to you. But what about replacing your ID?”

“Well, there’s that,” she admitted, sheepishly, holding her head down. He was right. She’d lost all her current ID. That wouldn’t be easy to wrangle up again. But it would have to be done.

A few years ago, she’d misplaced her wallet with all her ID and found out what a hassle it can be to get all that together again. In particular, she thought getting a new Oregon state driver’s license would be difficult.

Her issue with the driver’s license was that she didn’t have a matching birth certificate. Her mom had divorced Linda’s real father, and when her mother remarried, to the person who would become Linda’s stepfather, there wasn’t a legal adoption. She was automatically absorbed into the stepfather’s world, and since infancy all the normal avenues of ID were easily handled by the parents.

Linda had a birth certificate, necessary to get a new driver’s license, without her current name on it. Oh, it had her birthday and birth place, but a completely different name: Norma Rae Sinclair.

She was worried she’d have to file for a whole new birth certificate, but a friend of hers advised she go to the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles with the original birth certificate.

“Try it,” said the friend, “and see what happens. What do you have to lose? And if the person you’re dealing with at the counter doesn’t go along with it, ask for a supervisor.”

Brilliant idea. Linda had learned from becoming an expert shopper that if you don’t get satisfaction from the person on the sales floor, ask for a supervisor. At that point either the person you’re dealing with gives in to your request, or the supervisor comes out and usually makes sure “the customer is always right.”

Linda went into the DMV with her original birth certificate, with the “wrong name” on it, and attempted getting a replacement driver’s license. Amazingly, no one at the DMV blinked an eye. Sure, Linda had brought along other pieces of ID to verify her address and phone number, like her electric bill and phone bill. The people at the DMV seemed nonplussed over the circumstance, as if they were faced with that dilemma all the time.

But there was more to being robbed than the loss of money or possessions. For Linda, it went much deeper. Her guilt over being taken advantage of, especially after Lou had given her some savvy advice about defending herself, had become oppressive to her. It was good to talk afterwards to Lou, and what he said made sense. It was a random act that no one could have predicted, and without foreknowledge there was nothing anyone could have done to prevent the crime.

As with anything that bothers Linda and makes it difficult to process the information or event, she found it helpful to talk with friends. Her friend Bev had been especially helpful in the past, but Linda didn’t want to rely on her exclusively.

“What to do, what to do?” she thought to herself. She had a tight-knit cadre of close friends for support, and a brother in town, so why was she so stymied? She had become obsessed with attempting to figure out where she went wrong during the robbery. As important to her was the existential question of why did it have to happen to her?

She worked it over in her mind again and again, with still no wisdom forthcoming.

Finally, she decided to talk with someone. Lou had been as supportive as he could be, but this issue was not going away. Linda wanted her life back. She wanted some answers.

She decided to take a chance and talk with Squint Eye. To her it was a crazy idea spilling her guts to a stranger, especially a customer, but she was at the end of her rope. He was available, as a club regular, and the two of them had become better acquainted over the past few weeks. Maybe instead of looking at Squint Eye as a possible romantic encounter, she could use another friend, another person to share the load of life.

Squint was absent the day Linda decided to speak with him, for whatever reason, but the following night he was back.

It was around 9 o’clock, and the action during the weeknight was middling, not too busy, not too dead. As cigarette girl, Linda could make her own hours and take breaks whenever she felt the need. It was a sweet deal.

She saw Squint and moseyed his way.

“Hey, stranger,” she said to Squint as he sat at a table, alone, contemplating the world.

Squint was lost in thought, and Linda’s salutation startled him.

“Hey. Good seein’ you. Oh, I’ve been helped by one of the waitresses,” he said, pointing to the shot glass and beer in front of him.

“That’s OK, I’m stopping by to see if I could bother you with a question.”

Both of Squint’s eyebrows rose, and he nodded.

“Sit down, take a load off.”

Linda placed her cigarette girl tray of goodies down on the chair between them.

“What’s on your mind?” Squint asked.

“First of all,” she said in a low voice, “would it be alright if anything we talk about during this conversation be kept confidential?”

Squint was honored that Linda would share confidential material with him. He had only recently learned her name, and was impressed she had the fortitude to come to him to talk.

“Yeah, I got no problem with that. Share.”

Linda described the recent violation of her personal property. She told the story without flourishes or emotion. Although she was roiling inside with emotion over the incident, she kept her composure in front of Squint. It was all she could do from breaking down and crying, reliving the crime again. Having to explain it again was painful.

“So how much money did he get away with?”

“I wasn’t exactly rolling in dough,” she said, “so he only got a few bucks.”

“What about losing your ID? Aren’t you afraid of identity theft?”

“I took care of all that right away. I don’t have any credit cards. All I had in the wallet was a driver’s license, a library card and a debit card. No big deal.”

“If it’s no big deal, then why are we talking?”

Linda was surprised to hear Squint say something so callous.

“I mean, you seem to be taking this whole thing in stride. Is there something here I’m not getting? Did he physically attack you?”

“No, I wasn’t attacked,” Linda said, beginning to think that maybe it was a mistake having a conversation with a man she didn’t really know that well.

“Listen,” he said. “I’d like to help. Tell me what’s really bothering you.”

Linda sat in silence for a few seconds. She took a deep breath.

“I don’t know what’s really bothering me,” she confessed. “I can’t seem to get this rotten thing out of my mind. I keep wondering what I could have done differently. I keep wondering why it had to happen to me.”

Squint was feeling good. A nice lady was asking him for advice. He was in heaven. He lifted the shot glass, downed the shot and followed it with a sip of beer. He looked Linda right in the eye.

“I’m sorry about what happened to you,” he said. “That’s first. Second, without knowing more about the incident, I’d have to say at first glance that there was probably nothing you could have done to prevent it, obviously, and furthermore there wasn’t any choice other than handing over your wallet. Unless you were Superwoman or something like that, what other choice would you have had?”

Squint’s advice was similar to Lou’s. The advice was simultaneously confirming and yet somehow not all that helpful.

“Lastly,” he said, trying to express himself in a way that was reassuring and calming, “to answer your question of ‘Why me?’ I’ve got to be honest: It’s a question that doesn’t have an answer.”

Linda had to think about that one. She appeared puzzled.

“Do you remember me talking about those ‘dark films’ the other night?”

Linda did remember, but she couldn’t pinpoint the name he used.

“Didn’t they have some sort of French name?”

“Yeah, you’re right. They’re called film noir.”

“What about ’em?”

“Well, I didn’t really get a chance to get into some of the nuances of those films, but there’s a thought process that links most of them.”

“What’s that?” Linda sat back in her chair and relaxed. It was the first time in a couple of days she had been able to forget about the robbery.

“The characters in those films get into some pretty rough jams. And in the middle of it all, they ask, ‘Why is this happening to me?’ And do you know what the answer is?”

“No,” Linda said, following each word from Squint, paying attention and feeling good about the interaction.

“No reason. No reason at all.”

Linda looked to the side and thought about what Squint had said.

“I don’t know if that’s helpful,” he said. “But I’ve thought about life quite a bit, and sometimes there just isn’t any rhyme or reason to certain things. Sure, you could blame God or Allah or the stars or the fates…”

“But maybe there’s no answer,” Linda said, trying to finish his sentence.

“Right. I mean, I’m not saying there’s no God, but at the same time, who said there’s any kind of rule book to life. Hell, I figured out a long time ago there is no instruction manual for life. So maybe you shouldn’t worry so much about why you got robbed. Maybe you should feel lucky you weren’t seriously injured. Did you say he pulled a gun on you?”

“Yeah.”

“We should throw all the guns away,” he said. “They’re too much trouble. But that’s another subject. Are you gonna be OK?”

Linda was feeling better. It was good to speak to a man who seemed both sensitive and smart. Squint Eye was turning out to be something of a find.

“I do feel better,” she said. “I appreciate you being honest with me, and not babying me or patronizing me. I appreciate the advice.”

At that moment Linda reached for her tray and began to stand up.

“Let me buy you another drink,” she said. “Kind of a partial payment.”

“No,” he said, “I’m good. You don’t owe me a thing. It was my pleasure to try to help you out with this situation. Good luck.”

“Thanks,” she said, and wandered away.