There’s a certain rage where you lose sense of all socialization. You graduate from street smarts and contextualization to the desire to sink your teeth into someone’s flesh, pummeling and puncturing everything you can reach.
It’s not the anger I felt at the post office when the drug-addled clerk continued to eat a muffin instead of checking for my package, yelling and spraying crumbs in my direction. It’s not the anger of a woman scorned or backstabbed or denied.
It’s an entirely different animal, and I felt it today.
This afternoon, I was supposed to meet with an eighth grader I was hired to tutor. I already tutor the daughter of a family friend who recommended me. These kids are a completely different demographic from the one I’ve been teaching. They are “model minority” kids to the nth, with zealously involved parents, competitive schooling, and a slew of extra-curricular activities. Tutoring gives me extra money, which is nice, but also some time working with the kinds of students that are easiest to work with. I loves me some driven, polite children.
I thought I’d take the subway and get to our tutoring location with no problem. I left early and waited, realized the commute was not going to work, and decided to take a cab. I am loathe to take cabs when it’s not dangerously late and I’m not intoxicated. Flagging down a cab was easy enough; I had $13 dollars that would cover the fare. I sat back and watched the driver head to Broadway and then start driving in the wrong direction.
“Whoa! Where do you think I’m going?” I sat up and re-directed the cabbie, who apologized in a way that told me he would not drop the charge already on the meter. I sighed and soon found myself stuck in traffic, nowhere near my destination but approaching my cash limit. How was I over forty blocks away and at $11?
He was at a familiar corner when I decided this wasn’t working. I’d have to cancel the tutoring appointment and set a new location, as the traffic and subway route changes would make it extremely difficult for me to get there. The cabdriver pulled over and let me out. I gave him the $13, tipping him despite his gaffe, and headed out. I’m mentioning this detail so no one can cite instant karma when I get to the rage part of my story.
I walked a few blocks back in the general direction of my apartment. I’d have a long walk home. A grizzly man on the sidewalk was sitting around, chortling, “It’ll be a murder-suicide! I’m taking everyone with me!” He sneered at me convincingly. I saw two fat teenage boys walking out of a store on my right. I didn’t notice more than that. I walked past before they left the shade of its awning.
And then I felt cold water, or thought I felt it. I touched the back of my pants. The boys had squirted cold water all over my butt and the back right sleeve of my shirt! I was dumbfounded, completely in shock. I turned around, and they had crossed the street. They were holding a water bottle - the kind with the nozzle you can squirt - and laughing under the elevated train tracks. It felt like I stood there for five minutes, unaware of anything going on in the world around me, in shock that two children would do such a thing to an adult they don’t know.
One of my fingers did the only thing it could think to do. They began to curse at me. I couldn’t even speak. Probably only a growl would come out if I tried. I was LIVID! I nearly ran across the street, under the tracks to fight them. My heart was pounding and my muscles were tensed to spring into retaliation. But then my brain got just enough blood flowing to think of what two fat teenagers of my height could do to only one of me. And how bad it would be if I were hit by a car or hurt or arrested for killing two kids that natural selection will take care of sooner or later. (I’m hoping sooner).
I stumbled forward. A man stood outside the next store over. He watched me stoically. “Did you see what those kids did?” He shook his head, impervious to my distress. “They just squirted water all over…me.”
I nearly said “my butt,” because it was the target. The act wasn’t a joke, it was meant to intimidate me with no consequence. It was sexual harassment, which I am no stranger to, but I have never had someone actually do anything to me. I’d rather hear the uncensored desires or observations of a million oglers than ever have one (or two) do something to me. And the kids that did this, I have taught many like them. From that neighborhood, of the same age and ethnicity and socioeconomic level. I won’t accept any prejudiced justification for any of this. I have never been so enraged or disrespected by complete strangers.
It was cold water, but you can’t convince me it wasn’t a weapon.
Well if it makes you feel any better when I was living in Harlem dodging random water gun attacks (some even drive by) was a regular part of life during the summer. So while I can’t speak to the nature of the motivation of this attack, I can speak to the point that a random wetting it in it of itself is a not so uncommon occurrence.
It wasn’t sexual harassment. They sprayed your ass because it would take more time for you to feel your wet ass than your wet back!
do you call it sexual harassment when a child throws a snow ball at you?
I’ve never had a snowball thrown at me, except when I was snowball fighting someone. Harassment creates an intimidating, hostile environment. The boys squirted a large volume of water on my butt, which is the same as if they squirted the front of my tee shirt. It was targeting a sexualized part of my body.
Whoa, Jeremy. I had no idea you were a survivor of drive-bys. So you’ve left Harlem?
yup, I am currently across the country in portland. I needed a break from NYC. But I am toying with the idea of moving back.
is amanda saying she uses her ass for sex?
sex·u·al·ize (sěk’shōō-ə-līz’)
tr.v. sex·u·al·ized, sex·u·al·iz·ing, sex·u·al·iz·es
To make sexual in character or quality
just like amanda’s bf does when he says he likes her butt
“just like amanda’s bf does when he says he likes her butt”
Precisely!
- Cade