An Assault and the Four-Year-Old Witness
Posted on | January 8, 2009 | No Comments
I was four years old when my mother and I moved into our first apartment. I thought it was luxurious and affectionately referred to it as our “sky house.” Mom was excited, too; she said she’d gotten a really good deal. Of course, it wouldn’t be long before we were put in our place and the sky house would serve as the backdrop to her assault.
We were only a few yards from the apartment complex when the mugger first struck her. I remember an eerie quiet throughout the attack– there were no words; my mother was silently, stubbornly clinging to her purse as the assailant dragged her across the asphalt. (She told me in time that her only concern throughout the beating was keeping me from recognizing what was happening.) When I looked up at our building, I saw the fluorescent flicker of balcony lights occupied like ghosts by human silhouettes. Our neighbors were watching.
When her purse strings finally snapped, the assailant took off into the darkness. I futilely started after him until my mother shrieked my name in terror and yelled for me to come back.
Resigned and asthmatic, I collapsed next to her, wheezing and weeping into her blouse. When I peered over her shoulder and back up at the balconies, I was paralyzed with rage. Almost every light had gone out as casually as it had come on.
In that moment, I furiously resolved that I would never become the beast who sat idly by and allowed someone else to feel as helpless as I did right then.
Strip away the vanities and pretension and that’s what I am: the consequence of a scared little boy, grown up and fighting. Apathy was the real assailant that muggy night in 1989. What I’ve recognized over time is that even though its manifestation in the shadows in the tower balconies went away in a moment, the residue never left. And it didn’t really start there, did it?
I guess that’s how I’m sure this social good thing is real for me. That it’s about more than glamorized depictions of defending the weak or helpless. It’s about regaining lost power. It’s about chasing that man around the corner and catching up with him, even if only to look him in the eyes and say, “I know what you are and I’m not going to let you get away with this.” And showing the bored, cynical ones on the balconies that one man was capable enough to do it.
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