Moving to Duluth (or just back to D.C.) Part II

So I had a relatively traumatizing experience after a Yankees game the other day. The Scooby and I had a hell of a time getting out to Yankee Stadium. There are a bunch of trains that just don’t run on the weekends. One of those trains happens to be the express train that stops by my apartment and takes passengers right to the stadium. After waiting on the platform for about 30 minutes, Scoobs and I realized our error of waiting for a train that would never come. We ended up taking a cab because we were already so late for the game. Since my apartment is so far uptown, it was only 10 bucks too.

We considered taking a cab right back to Morningside Heights after the game (the Yankees won and I ate the most amazing hot dog ever), but opted to take the 4-5-6 train. In fact, the train leaves the Bronx and heads down the East side, but after my newfound bus knowledge, I informed Scoobs that we could just get off at 110th and take a crosstown bus.

There is one thing about guide books that really annoys me. They write about all of the great finds in any given area, but never do they write things like, “if you are a young girl with bright orange hair, you may feel a little out of place if you emerge from the subway at 110th on the East side.” You can imagine our surprise, when we walked outside to find that dilapidated buildings surrounded us in an extremely sketchy area. "Oops," I said. "I think we're in Harlem."

My first instinct was to go back down to the subway and take it for a few more stops, but since it was the middle of the day, I figured we would just walk a block, wait for the bus and be back in my neighborhood in no time. We walked about 5 blocks until we found a bus stop and then started waiting. According to the schedule, the bus would show up in about 10 minutes, so we stood there staring down the street.

Two boys of about 16 or so were riding bikes toward us. Scooby was reading the bus schedule and I was just standing there watching the boys, and for a moment I thought to myself, “why is this boy riding so close to me? Is he going to run over my toes?” I got my answer in a split second: he tried to rip my tank top off of me as he rode by. There was a loud ripping noise and the boy screamed something and then kept biking. I looked down to verify that my shirt was still intact and noticed three red scratch marks running down my chest.

When I recall this happening, it all turns out differently. As the kid rides by and grabs my shirt, instead of just gasping loudly, I actually punch him in the head, knock him off his bike, kick the shit out of him and run away.

Of course, I did nothing but stand there dumbfounded, and watched the boys bike away, laughing.

After that, Scooby and I decided to just walk home. We were only a few blocks from Central Park, so it wouldn’t take that long to get to the west side by walking through one of the few sanctuaries in New York City. I was shaken up, but pulling myself together by speedwalking home. There were people jogging, walking and bicycling everywhere. A man bicycling shouted to a group of kids, “hey kids. Wrong way!” (Central Park has ALL kinds of rules and most of the roads going through the park are one way. It’s kind of weird actually) and this little boy on a bicycle who could not have been more than 8 yelled back to the man, “go fuck your mother.”

After that, I was totally distraught. I got home, lay on my bed and cried, telling Scooby that there was no way in hell I was staying in this crazy city with all of the evil bike-riding kids. D.C. is a relatively dangerous city, but I've never witnessed any of the violence in Dupont Circle, so I decided I was going to quit school and move back home.

Ten minutes later I was fine. I reconsidered dropping out of Columbia after all. Scoobs and I had to meet some friends in the village, so we stopped by Starbucks on the way to the subway for a much-needed pick me up. As we were walking in, a man who was following us in, exchanged words with a homeless panhandler. I don’t know what happened exactly but the incident culminated with the homeless man following the other guy into Starbucks and yelling at the top of his lungs something about “beating him to death,” the turned around and left.

I looked at the Scooby snacks with my puffy bloodshot eyes and all I could was laugh.