Last Saturday night I had the privilege of being robbed at knife point. I was walking through the Southwest Corridor, a walking path that's parallel to Columbus Ave and Huntington Ave, at midnight with my friend Ken. It had been a long day filled with drunkenly watching Pedro Martinez beat up on old men and Yankees relief pitchers beating up Fenway Park grounds keepers. The city was certainly filled with hostility but the incident that I am speaking of now had absolutely no connection to all of that.

As we made our way towards Mass Ave on the Corridor four nice young gentleman appeared before us walking in the opposite direction. One of these nice young gentlemen, a little bit on the overweight side, decided that it would be easier to shoulder check me out of the way while passing than to politely meet me half-way in a "normal" people-passing manner. Another one of these nice gentleman sporting a halloween mask decided his tactic would be to trip Kenny, a kid that is way larger, in better shape, and certainly more ill-tempered than myself. Normally while in a fairly drunken state, despite my own size disadvantage I'd probably respond to a situation like this with something along the lines of "are you fucking kidding me?" or a "what the fuck was that for?". However, upon sizing up these gentleman, both Kenneth and I opted to continue on our way, with me throwing in an "excuse me" for good measure. Unfortunately my polite comment was returned with a "you're not going to fucking say you're sorry?" Despite my previous attempt at sucking up my pride and putting the blame on myself I couldn't find it in myself to offer up an apology, and fired back with "I said excuse me."

We continued to walk away, hoping that this whole thing was over with when we were cautioned by the sounds of heavy footsteps approaching us from the rear. These guys were not about to let us walk away easy. After a couple more polite statements by us like "you catch the game today?" and "excuse me guys, it's been a long and I really must be going" that were returned with responses like "shut the fuck up", "you fuckers smell like booze", and "show me whatchoo got" I knew we were in for a ton of trouble.

All of a sudden Kenny was surrounded by three of them and the other was right in front me saying that if I took off my friend was done for. There was a butterfly knife in my face and one of the guys cornering Kenny was reaching into a shoulder bag grabbing for what I instinctively thought to be a gun. The second I saw the knife I reached for my wallet and somehow magically was able to pull out just a $20 bill, rather than the whole thing. As I offered it to the knife wielding gentleman in front of me the other three guys became startled and Kenny bolted for it. I threw the $20 and followed suit, screaming completely inappropriate things as I ran for my life. They chased us for a little while but eventually their footsteps were inaudible and they were gone.

I grabbed at my phone and dialed 911, telling the operator my location and the description of the guys that had just mugged us. Within one minute there was a car in front of my house with an officer telling us that they had apprehended three gentlemen that fit the description we had just provided the operator. They invited us to the scene and were more than pleased to find the same four MOTHERFUCKERS that had just robbed us face first on the ground in handcuffs. A few minutes later a different group of officers pulled my $20 bill, a backpack containing the aforementioned halloween mask and a huge ninja-movie-prop-lookin' knife, and a little bit of pot out of some bushes, ensuring that the attackers pleads of "what, black guys aren't allowed to walk through a white neighborhood?" and "you ain't got nothin' on us" will surely be jokes of the officers for as long as this incident resides in their memories. *

Between losing the car that I shared with my brother on Memorial Day, having my apartment burn down in mid-August, and this most recent dramatic event I'd go as far as saying that I'm in the top tier of unlucky people that I know.

However, I'm managing to juggle three jobs totalling well over 50 hours a week and three classes. I do my best to make time for my girlfriend and my friends although it sometimes might not seem like it. Just over six months from now I'll be staring face-first at graduation. If I can make it through until then I'll be walking away from this city with tougher skin and a coy smile that will read "fuck you, i've won," for the rest of my life.