I was punched in the face last Friday, for the first time since 1988. It wasn’t as emasculating as the 1988 incident (which, since I was only 12 at the time, might more properly be called e-boyulating), but, well, it wasn’t so much fun either.
Let me back up a bit, because the punch-in-the-face was only the last of the indignities I suffered lo, that fateful Friday.
My wife and I arrived in Wilmington, Delaware at about 4 p.m. on Friday, November 3rd. We were there for the wedding of my college roommate, and I was the best man (a very manly thing to be, yes?), so before we checked in to our hotel, we stopped off at the hotel where he was staying so that I could grab the tuxedo I’d be wearing the next day. We parked the car and went inside. I got the tuxedo, we chatted for a while, and then we headed back to the car ? which had a $45 parking ticket in its windshield.
I now quote from the letter I just mailed to the city of Wilmington to protest the fine:
We were initially very confused (not to mention upset). Before we parked, we’d driven around for a few minutes precisely to avoid parking illegally, and we were sure that the spot we found was legal. The meters said they were for 2 hour parking, and a parking meter itself is usually a pretty good indication that, so long as you put enough money in, the parking is legal. We finally figured out, from the "4-6 p.m." note in the comments section of the ticket, that despite the meters parking was prohibited between those hours, but there was no mention of that restriction on the meter itself. Other meters along that block had very small stickers on them mentioning that restriction, but ours didn’t even have that, as the attached photos demonstrate. As well, there’s a sign at the end of the block that indicates the 4-6 p.m. prohibition, but it’s faded and small.
We swallowed our frustration, vowed to fight the parking ticket by whatever means necessary (i.e. a very sternly worded letter of appeal), and went to our hotel about a quarter-mile away, which was in a more dilapidated part of downtown but which seemed, at first glance, perfectly nice. That impression of pleasantness lasted until we got to our room on the fourth floor, which was well-decorated but stiflingly hot. We turned on the air conditioning, but to no effect.
We changed, and headed out to the rehearsal dinner, stopping by the front desk along the way for an explanation of the hotness, which went like this: The management, in an act of understandable fiscal prudence but unforgivable hoteliquette, had turned off the climate control for all the rooms some weeks before, when it had started to get cool outside. They were relying on the ambient heat from the lobby and the adjoining buildings to balance out the cold of the air outside (it was about 50 degrees or so). It hadn’t worked, obviously, but they didn’t seem bothered by that, and we had to get to the dinner, so we left, hoping that maybe by the time we got back the room would have cooled.
After a Lovely Rehearsal Dinner Interlude – we were seated with the retiring senator from Maryland, his wife, his daughter, and some old friends of mine from college, and the food was rilly rilly good – we returned to the hotel at about 11 p.m., only to discover that it had been absorbed by the nightclub next to it, which opened up into the hotel lobby.
There were empty glasses and beer bottles strewn about, drunk people acting drunkenly, and both of the elevators were broken. One of the elevators was so aggresively broken that there was a piercing alarm sounding from inside of it. It was so piercing, in fact, that we could hear it through our hotel room door. A quick call down to the the nice man at the front desk, who was having a tough, tough night, revealed that although the elevator repair company had been called, it was unknown when or whether they would arrive to fix the elevator and silence the alarm.
So we left. After calling around a bit, we found a room at the hotel across the street. It was about $40 more per night, but it was blessedly quiet and cool, and by this time we were happy to pay the money. After we settled in, I changed into my party-hearty clothes (jeans and a T-shirt) and headed out the door to walk to the afterparty, which was at the hotel where the groom was staying, about a quarter-mile away. Jess stayed behind to get some sleep.
About halfway to the other hotel, I got a call from Jess, who had some last minute questions about the wedding the next day. I stepped off the sidewalk to take the call, and we chatted for a few minutes. I didn’t think much of my safety because although the downtown was abandoned—nobody lives there, and there isn’t really any nightlife—it was, after all, Delaware, perhaps the least intimidating state in the union, and I was standing next to a big bank building, which was next to an insurance building, and so on. It didn’t look like a dangerous place.
So I didn’t think much of it when three young black guys—probably 18, give or take a year or two—crossed the street toward me. One of them asked me for a light, in a friendly tone, and when I said I didn’t have one, he moved on ? but not too far.
As Jess and I continued talking, he and his friends kind of lingered. I might have been suspicious, but I was preoccupied with my conversation, and the guys didn’t seem menacing. The one guy had been friendly when he asked me for a light, and a minute or two later, when he walked in front of me to the bushes about ten feet away to take a piss, he said, “Don’t mind me. I just need to take a piss.”
So I didn’t mind him. I stayed on the phone for another minute or two, and then got off and started walking toward the hotel. The three guys were about ten feet in front of me, and I was walking faster, so I passed them. A few seconds later, I heard a rustling noise behind me, and I half-turned. The main guy—the ring-leader, it seemed—was running at me. I had time to sort of half-raise an elbow before he got to me. It wasn’t enough to get in the way of his fist, which descended in a kind of overhand arc, connecting with my face somewhere around the right cheekbone.
I stepped back, and he stepped back. I was shocked, but not in pain.
“What the fuck was that?!” I yelled, in a tone that was upset and hostile, but which had a sufficient edge of fear to indicate that I wasn’t about to rush him back.
He muttered something.
“Why the fuck did you do that?” I said. “I’m standing there, talking to my wife, and you heard me. Why would you do something like that?”
“Your wife ain’t got nothing to do with me,” he said, kinda surly-like.
I said “What the fuck?” a few more times.
He muttered responses, and then at some point he started saying, “Don’t run.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Don’t run.”
“What?”
“Don’t run.”
“I’m not gonna run,” I finally said, starting to back slowly away from him.
“Don’t run.”
“I’m not running, I’m walking away.”
I backed away, and he and his friends crossed the street in the opposite direction.
“Fucking white guy,” was the last thing I heard any of them say.
I walked back to the Doubletree, because I didn’t want to run into them again, and that was it. I iced my face, which had started to ache a bit, and I wished on a shooting star that I wouldn’t look like I’d been hit when I was standing by my friend’s side the next day. Then I went to sleep.
