COJO MUGGED AT GUNPOINT! 6-6-04
I remember when I first moved to Manhattan I heard a statistic that the average New Yorker gets mugged once every three years. I personally had never been mugged (If you saw me walking down a dark alley, I wouldn't exactly appear to be an easy mark, 6'3" 240 lb.-at the time of this writing) so I guess I was long overdue for a good mugging.
The irony of this story is that I had to be visiting some small whack ass bumblefuck town in order to finally get mugged.
THE GUTS:
I had just finished a long week of work and craziness, so when Saturday night freed up I decided I should either go to a strip club, or out to some bars. I didn't want to travel to Manhattan because I wasn't in the mood for an all night party, still having some work to do on Sunday and needing to have a clear head to do it, yet wanting to relax, I decided I'd do something in Pennsylvania.
I called the few Pennsylvania friends I have last minute and unfortunately they already had plans or were working.
I said fuck it and went to Easton, Pennsylvania by myself. The bummer about this is that I am so used to going to the bars in the city (any New Yorker can attest to this) without a car, that actually having to drive home from the bar would be a new thing for me. I figured I would just have to seriously pace myself, and for the last hour I'd just drink water.
Easton is a shitty little dump of a town. The only cool part is this circle in the center of town, where there are a few cool bars and THE CRAYOLA FACTORY where they make all the crayons. The rest of it is pretty much ghetto.
Well, generally when I go to Easton with friends we park on one of the 4 main streets that branch off of the circle, but it was a Saturday night so the parking was insane, I had to turn off one of the main streets and back track down a secondary street.
I found parking in a well lit area. On my right was the Easton Express (the main newspaper for Easton) and on my left was a Verizon building, and a bank. A bank, can't beat that for saftey....
So I went to the bars, MOTHERS, and DRINKY DRINKERSONS, mingled, drank a few, flirted, average shit. Chicks in Pennsylvania are totally not up to NYC standards I promise you. It's like another world...AKA not impressed. Besides that, the bars close at 2 so when I leave, I feel like I still have 2 more hours of partying left in me.
I chilled on the Miller Lights at 1AM and switched over to Red Bull instead of water, so by the time the house lights went on and all the uglies got uglier I was cracked out on caffeine.
I walked the two blocks to my car. I was about 2 car lengths away from it, I had actually already dug in my pocket and pulled out my keys. Then I noticed a man approaching on the other side of the street. He was a shabbily dressed middle age black man with a balled up jacket in his right hand.
Man:"Hey!"
Cojo: "Sorry man." I responded.
In NYC you get approached ten times a day by beggars and you learn to develop a general brush off response.
Man:(again) "HEY!"
Cojo: "I said I'm sorry man, I'm broke." I said back calmly.
By now the guy was cutting across the street fast and in a diagonal towards me, he was holding the jacket like he was concealing something. I pocketed my keys instinctively and in my mind I said to myself "I'm about to get mugged, this is crazy, walk past the car like it's not mine or I'm gonna get carjacked to boot."
Man: "WHAT'S YOUR NAME?!"
Cojo: "What?"
Man: "WHAT'S YOUR NAME?! DO I KNOW YOU?!"
Cojo: "No, I've never seen you before. My name is Colin." I said.
I never call myself Colin, which is my name by birth, but 80% of the time when I tell someone my name is Cojo, they don't believe me, or get confused and I have to repeat myself or explain it. I didn't want to confuse him or have him think I was giving him a fake name, or fucking with him. He was holding this jacket like there was a gun in it. I didn't really believe there was a gun in there, but this was Easton so there very well could be, and wasn't about to try to find out the hard way.
Man: "I WANT MONEY!"
He said as he adjusted the jacket so it was pointing more at me.
Now the realization of the situation hit me, I AM getting mugged! I've been confronted by homeless people before that follow you, or come right up to you demanding money, but I could tell, this guy wasn't just a random bum, he was on some kinda drugs. He was all shaky and he really wanted money, and would do me harm to get it.
Cojo: "You gotta be kidding me."
I said as a gut reaction. You always wonder how you would react in a situation like this, and I guess disbelief was my first reaction. I wasn't thinking about being in pain with my blood spilling over the pavement, I was thinking about the $156.00 in my wallet, having to get my license replaced, and new credit cards, or the fact that he's mugging me 3 feet away from my car. He actually had to come around the back of the car when he crossed the street to confront me (although I didn't even look at it, or acknowledge that it was mine).
Man: "I have a 357 millimeter pointed at your chest, that's how serious I am, I want your money...ALL OF IT...NOW!!!"
The Red Bull I pounded 5 minutes prior to this encounter as I left the bar was by now kicked in completely and the adrenaline was pumping kicking me into overdrive so I started sweating like mad. I realized while I reached into my pocket I was shaking as though I too was on drugs. He didn't say wallet, he said money, so I wasn't about to fork over all my ID and credit cards if he didn't ask for them.
Cojo: "Shit man, I'm sorry, it's the end of the night, I'm like broke!"
I said as I reached into my baggy jeans and put my thumb into my wallet and pulled out a single bill which when I handed it to him I noticed it was a 10 spot. (one of the smallest bills I had on me, which sort of made me smile on the inside). As I started to hand it to him I was shaking like crazy and I realized I probably looked like I was on crack because he was now looking at me funny.
A few car headlights beamed at us from two blocks away. We were on a one way street so the car would be passing us in less than a minute. I looked at the car and made a loud freaked out paranoid noise, like I was on drugs and thought that the car was a cop coming to bust me.
Cojo: "heehhHHHHHEEEEEHHHHHH!!"
I blurted, a long non word addressing the car as some kind of enemy. I started breathing very fast and loud.
Man: "Are you high!?"
Cojo: "YEAH MAN, AND I'M FREAKIN' OUT!"
I talk/yelled in a totally mock drug induced freak out voice. I swear I could have won an Oscar for this performance. I started making weird noises and making weird cracked out movements (A trick Ran-D told me he had done once.)
I extended the ten spot out to him sort of fast and he flinched. He grabbed the ten and started to move away from me. Nothing on earth is scarier than a young white crack head in a dark alley, and apparently he knew that.
I started to walk away from him towards the cars. He pointed the jacket at me and said:
Man: "RUN!"
I started to walk away fast.
Man: "I SAID RUN!" he yelled.
So I ran. I ran around the block, turned the corner, ran around the side of a house and stood there in a panic.
I stood around for a minute or two trying to regain my composure. I dumped the mints from my pocket (that were in a metal tin that I noticed rattled when I ran) into a nearby bush. I peeked around the corner of the building on the end of the street and didn't see the guy. I sprinted back to my car, hopped in and headed home.
I laughed a nervous laugh for most of the ride home, and I think a few times I said "AWESOME" aloud for some reason. I guess out of disbelief. Playing it over and over and over in my head, the whole mugging must have taken only about 30 seconds, but felt like an eternity.
The car, (which I keep calling my car is actually my brother's car I'm borrowing now that he moved to California-since I gave my half of my old car to my ex when we broke up- see COJO IN SPLITSVILLE) doesn't have a functioning radio so I was left to ponder the scenario like a broken record.
I didn't even think about my own mortality till I was a few blocks away from home. How close I came to loosing my life, just so some crackhead could get one more fix. I was hit with the stark reality of it all, how cheap the price tag of human existence is to some people.
I bought back my life tonight for 10 bucks.
You can't even buy a good mixed drink for that!
Just another day in the life of an Art Juggernaut.
-Cojo