Don't Forget to Write

I Witness a Robbery

 Fredrick Douglass Avenue was a row of restaurants. Delis, coffee shops, bakeries, pizzerias, Chinese, sushi, Mexican, halal... virtually any food you could ask for existed within stumbling distance of the of my apartment. It was like a better version of a school cafeteria, which wasn't too high of a standard since our school's cafeteria was closed down due to a recent infestation of rats and insects. I didn't have much spending money, so I hadn't been in many of the shops. Some of them were quite fancy and expensive-looking, with their fabric table cloths and their polished stem glasses on every table. It was a side effect of the encroaching "gentrification" that would soon run me and all the other low-income folks out of the neighborhood. Luckily there was one deli on the corner of 151st, less than fifty steps from my front door, ran by a middle-aged middle eastern man named Abe. It was a sandwich shop and convenience store, and Abe kept his prices low to accommodate the people who lived here. He'd owned the shop for decades, and loved the people in the neighborhood. The neighborhood loved him, too. People from around the area, including many from the project buildings, flooded in for cheap, good sandwiches and the occasional grocery item. I was always in there getting snacks, peanut butter, bread, the occasional sub. Abe made a hell of a sandwich. When I walked in the place was empty, Abe was enjoying the lull between the lunch and dinner rushes by watching a soccer match. He nodded as I walked in and said "Sup buddy?" through a thick accent.

"Hey Abe. How's the game?"

"Barcelona is winning, so good. What do you need today?" Abe knew the English language perfectly well, better even than a lot of people who were born here, but was also aware of his thick accent, so he spoke slowly and deliberately, making sure that anybody could understand him. He spoke to be heard, not simply for the sake of speaking.

"Can you cook me up a buffalo chicken sub?"

"Sure. Blue cheese?"

"Nah, lots of sauce though."

He nodded as he put on his latex gloves. In the back of the deli was a large coffee station with a handful of different brews. I poured a large cup of dark roast put a little cream in it, nearly drooling as I brought the cup up to my lips to take that refreshing first sip of coffee that brings so much comfort and energy simultaneously. The first sip of coffee or whiskey is always the best one. I was watching Barcelona pass the ball around with that rhythm that only they could pull off while waiting for my sandwich when a huge man walked in with a hoodie and a baseball cap pulled low over his brow. "GET OVER HERE MOTHER FUCKER." He yelled, staring at Abe. "YOU, TOWEL HEADED MOTHER FUCKER, GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE." Then the man saw me. He pointed at me, and it was then that I realized he had a gun. "STAY RIGHT THERE WHITE BOY. GET ON THE GROUND." I sat on the floor, dropping my coffee on the way down. "STAY THERE YOU FUCKING WHITE TRASH. NOW YOU," he said, turning back to Abe, "MONEY, IN THE BAG. NOW."

"Fine fine, take it easy. You know you're on camera?"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP SAND NIGGER I KNOW YOU'RE TOO CHEAP FOR REAL CAMERAS. LESS TALK. MONEY IN THE BAG."

Abe emptied the whole drawer into a paper bag and gave it to him. The robber looked in the bag and then back to Abe, "That's it? Mutha-fucka you call yourself a business?" Haring the man speak in a normal voice rather than a scream seemed an odd change of pace. I realized he was just a normal guy, just another dude I might bump into on the street, not some evil demon from hell. "Where's the rest of the money?"

"It's not here."

The man pointed the gun at Abe's head, the barrel less than a foot away, the robber's finger on the trigger, "BULLSHIT MOTHER FUCKER. GET THE REST OF THE MONEY."

"It's not here! I swear to God it isn't here!" Abe's voice slightly trembling. It was the first time I had ever heard him speaking above his usual quiet and friendly tone. "I swear! I brought the money to the bank just an hour ago!"

The robber stared over his pistol into Abe's eyes for a long time, deciding whether or not he was telling the truth. Finally, he lowered his gun. "Mother fucker." The robber slammed his fist on the glass counter, shattering it. He looked back at me, swinging his gun around as he turned, "YOU AIN'T SEEN SHIT! YOU HEAR ME?" I nodded. He kept staring at me. "I know exactly who you are white boy. You live over there," he pointed in the direction of my apartment building. "Bitch-ass motherfuckers like you don't belong here. You understand?" His knuckles around the grip of the pistol were bone-white.

"I'm just-"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP WHITE BOY. IF I WANT YOU TO SPEAK, I WILL TELL YOU TO SPEAK" He kept the gun pointed at my face for a while, "you better watch yourself." Then he tucked the gun in his pants, stole two drinks out of the fridge, and walked out of the store and onto a bus that had just pulled across the street. Within seconds the bus had turned the corner and disappeared into traffic. It was gone and so was the robber.

I stood up, noticing my pants were wet and warm. Had I... did I really... piss myself? Was I that much of a scared little bitch? I looked down, relieved to find that no, I hadn't peed myself. It was just the coffee. Thank god. My legs felt weak and shaky. I walked up to Abe, he was staring out the glass door at the passing cars. "Are you okay?"

He nodded. "Yes. Good thing I deposited my earnings from lunch at the bank."

"Was he serious about the cameras? These don't work?"

Abe shook his head. "I could not afford to keep the security system. Many of us around here can't"

"Damn, I'm sorry Abe"

Finally, he pulled his gaze from the traffic and looked at me. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah."

"Have you ever had something like this happen to you"

"Have I ever had a gun pointed at my head? No, not unless paintball counts. Had a few knives pointed at me though."

He laughed. "That is the third time this has happened to me. I have bad luck, I think. Or maybe it is because I am, as he said, a 'sand-nigger,'" he said, quoting the man.

"You don't deserve to be treated like that."

"That is the way it is here, my friend" he said with a shrug, "All ethnicities come with their own curses. Even, sometimes, people who look white." He forced a smile and gave me the sandwich, "No charge buddy. And get another coffee. I have to lock up and call the police now."

"Let me pay for it."

"No, no, I insist," he said, passing his hands over each other in a rejection motion. "You were in danger, the least I can do is give you a sandwich."

"Thanks Abe, hope everything turns out okay."

Back in the apartment I changed out of my coffee-stained jeans and tried to eat my sandwich, but wasn't hungry anymore, so I wrapped the sandwich up and put in the fridge for tomorrow. I opened my laptop with full intentions of getting ahead on classwork, but ended up getting sucked into a rabbit hole of news articles about war and whether or not gun control was a good idea until it was time to walk back to campus for Calculus III. The sun was getting low, and the city had that warm, deep orange glow about it that could only happen in the warmth of a beautiful late summer afternoon. It reminded me of being a kid on summer break, riding bikes around town and feeling like the days would never end, like night could never fall and even when it did it would be only a short wait until the sun came up and I could be outside for another endless day.

I was too wired to fall asleep during this two-hour lecture, even though it was nothing more than a review of things we already knew. My mind was not engaged in the class, it wandered into thoughts of the robbery, of violence and fear and chaos.