Fantasy Day
Yesterday Katherine and I had a "fantasy day."
Unfortunately it was not lurid in any way. We pretended we had just won $50,000,000 in the lottery and walked around the city figuring out how we would spend our colossal sum. Now of course in the beginning I had to talk her down regarding the net present value of our fifty mil and took out taxes, so we figured we were really allocating a prize that would be cut by as much as 75% give or take. As such, it was three million dollar townhouses, rather than eight million dollar townhouses we were aiming for. Katherine was a sport, and despite having her balloon deflated somewhat, decided to help "budget" without imagining an even bigger payday.
We spent a good deal of the afternoon walking around the hidden out-of-the-way streets of the West Village, weaving around BMWs and studying the long lines outside pricey bakeries. At some point, we cornered Christopher Street, and as you probably know, Christopher Street is like its own little universe of overt homosexuality. Kind of a wonderful and independent island in the middle of the most expensive real estate probably anywhere, every store is illuminated with rainbow flags, and about fifty percent of them sell mostly S&M gear or Village People costumes anyway. To wit, the first person we saw as we turned on to Christopher was a fat and shirtless bald man in cut-off jeans and many-bangled combat boots, vigorously slapping his man breasts and great belly to some upbeat 1970s anthem.
We agreed that we would probably not want to buy on Christopher Street. "It's a nice place to visit" as the saying goes, but it's just loud (as opposed to the rest of the West Village, which is serene, silent, and almost not New York at all), and there's no way any of us would ever fall asleep with the raucous partying that goes on every night.
We turned again, passing a church. On any other street corner I might not have noticed the man leaning against the church at all. He was nicely built and dressed all in black, with a black cap and a little purple button (I didn't peer close enough to read what it said, but I assumed it had some local flavor if you take my meaning), standing all alone; but because we were on Christopher, I assumed he was a young gay man looking to get picked up on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Before I finished my thought, Katherine said, "Now here is a nice townhouse." I disagreed. Too close to Christopher.
And that's when it happened.
All of a sudden there was screaming, and two men were entangled in the middle of the street. One of them was the young man we had passed, the one I thought was waiting for a date. I tried to compare the jerky rasslin' with what I had seen in the UFC, and decided to my badass imaginary self that I could take either one of them. Screaming, more screaming. What was going on, anyway? As quickly as it started, the bodies broke and the boy in the black cap ran down the street, past us again. He only made it about a block and a half before he tired to a jog, then hung a left, walking.
The other guy, a balding Latino man in his thirties or forties, his face streaming with blood, was up a few seconds later. He started jogging after the other but was clearly disoriented; trying to get his bearings, he called 911 and patting his pocket. He had been robbed.
I was kind of shocked.
Was this a mugging? I had never seen a mugging before.
I certainly didn't expect to see [what I assumed to be] a gay-on-gay attack in the middle of the gay capital of the universe, under the bright sunlight of a Sunday afternoon, and certainly not with dozens of people watching. I had passed the attacker myself, just a moment earlier. What happened again?
The logic of the event began to make more and more sense to me, though. He was too tired to run after just a block, despite being not even 25... I guess pounding someone in the middle of the street for a minute will take a bit out of you. But despite the fact that many people saw him running, by the time he passed the first block, none of them really knew who he was or why he was running or certainly what had just happened. By the time he turned left on the next block, he would be just another sweaty guy in a black wife beater.
Did he get away?
We saw a couple of squad cars in the next five minutes, but I doubt that they caught the boy in black. He could have been on the PATH or the subway or ducking in another church with a change of tee shirt in his black messenger bag. I don't know why they fought... What was he waiting for? Was it a pre-meditated attack or was I just lucky he didn't jump me -- or, oh God, Katherine -- as we walked by with our two-year-old daughter?
Back to reality: "I still think this is a nice street to buy. You know that was just a coincidence that that happened right when you said that thing, right?"
Unfortunately it was not lurid in any way. We pretended we had just won $50,000,000 in the lottery and walked around the city figuring out how we would spend our colossal sum. Now of course in the beginning I had to talk her down regarding the net present value of our fifty mil and took out taxes, so we figured we were really allocating a prize that would be cut by as much as 75% give or take. As such, it was three million dollar townhouses, rather than eight million dollar townhouses we were aiming for. Katherine was a sport, and despite having her balloon deflated somewhat, decided to help "budget" without imagining an even bigger payday.
We spent a good deal of the afternoon walking around the hidden out-of-the-way streets of the West Village, weaving around BMWs and studying the long lines outside pricey bakeries. At some point, we cornered Christopher Street, and as you probably know, Christopher Street is like its own little universe of overt homosexuality. Kind of a wonderful and independent island in the middle of the most expensive real estate probably anywhere, every store is illuminated with rainbow flags, and about fifty percent of them sell mostly S&M gear or Village People costumes anyway. To wit, the first person we saw as we turned on to Christopher was a fat and shirtless bald man in cut-off jeans and many-bangled combat boots, vigorously slapping his man breasts and great belly to some upbeat 1970s anthem.
We agreed that we would probably not want to buy on Christopher Street. "It's a nice place to visit" as the saying goes, but it's just loud (as opposed to the rest of the West Village, which is serene, silent, and almost not New York at all), and there's no way any of us would ever fall asleep with the raucous partying that goes on every night.
We turned again, passing a church. On any other street corner I might not have noticed the man leaning against the church at all. He was nicely built and dressed all in black, with a black cap and a little purple button (I didn't peer close enough to read what it said, but I assumed it had some local flavor if you take my meaning), standing all alone; but because we were on Christopher, I assumed he was a young gay man looking to get picked up on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Before I finished my thought, Katherine said, "Now here is a nice townhouse." I disagreed. Too close to Christopher.
And that's when it happened.
All of a sudden there was screaming, and two men were entangled in the middle of the street. One of them was the young man we had passed, the one I thought was waiting for a date. I tried to compare the jerky rasslin' with what I had seen in the UFC, and decided to my badass imaginary self that I could take either one of them. Screaming, more screaming. What was going on, anyway? As quickly as it started, the bodies broke and the boy in the black cap ran down the street, past us again. He only made it about a block and a half before he tired to a jog, then hung a left, walking.
The other guy, a balding Latino man in his thirties or forties, his face streaming with blood, was up a few seconds later. He started jogging after the other but was clearly disoriented; trying to get his bearings, he called 911 and patting his pocket. He had been robbed.
I was kind of shocked.
Was this a mugging? I had never seen a mugging before.
I certainly didn't expect to see [what I assumed to be] a gay-on-gay attack in the middle of the gay capital of the universe, under the bright sunlight of a Sunday afternoon, and certainly not with dozens of people watching. I had passed the attacker myself, just a moment earlier. What happened again?
The logic of the event began to make more and more sense to me, though. He was too tired to run after just a block, despite being not even 25... I guess pounding someone in the middle of the street for a minute will take a bit out of you. But despite the fact that many people saw him running, by the time he passed the first block, none of them really knew who he was or why he was running or certainly what had just happened. By the time he turned left on the next block, he would be just another sweaty guy in a black wife beater.
Did he get away?
We saw a couple of squad cars in the next five minutes, but I doubt that they caught the boy in black. He could have been on the PATH or the subway or ducking in another church with a change of tee shirt in his black messenger bag. I don't know why they fought... What was he waiting for? Was it a pre-meditated attack or was I just lucky he didn't jump me -- or, oh God, Katherine -- as we walked by with our two-year-old daughter?
Back to reality: "I still think this is a nice street to buy. You know that was just a coincidence that that happened right when you said that thing, right?"