by Tom Hunter

Created on: December 27, 2007

The man ahead of me stopped. He was smart. He saved his life. He turned his bike around and went back the way he came.

I had lived in Russia and so I thought"screw it"and went in the tunnel under the Henry Hudson Parkway.

Near the Hudson River I walked alone on a cold evening in Manhattan. I was surprised how quickly it got dark in January. I grew up in the Midwest and did not want to be a knee-jerk who feared a man standing for utterly no reason in the middle of a tunnel in the dark. He stood in a tan knee-length leather coat with a belt that was cinched around his waist, lifting his belly. Cars passed under the arched overpass. The man stared across the traffic, unseeing and unmoving, with the quiet of a spider.

I hurried toward the tunnel because of the dark and sudden cold. Being over six feet, I tend to disregard the threat others pose to my safety. I reached the mouth of the tunnel. The man stood near the far end, arms at his sides. His leather coat reflected the light from a faraway street lamp. "Screw it."

The tunnel was dark. My backpack felt heavy. I had packed too many books. The warm January meant my coat was also stuffed into my backpack, making it hard to run.
Who was I fooling: since I broke my ankle in Cincinnati and had twelve screws added to my anatomy, I could not run without re-breaking my ankle. I made a stupid decision by saying "screw it" and going in the tunnel.

The man's face carried the coarse grain of one who lives outdoors. He had likely grown up in a rough neighborhood that expected him to fight every day. The sight of a tall, affluent white man did not give him dread or fear. He wanted to get not just my money but me. Mugging me was his jobhow he would pay for the groceries that became tonight's dinner. After he took me from behind and dragged me into a cornerwhile I flailed and thought of my girl and my family and everything I had hoped to do in this lifethe man would drag me by the neck to a quiet corner and then shove his knife in my chest seven times. Each one stung. I felt the wetness on my belly. I felt dizzy. The mugger needed to touch me a few more times to make sure. He made sure I didn't bleed on him. He was going through his grocery list, deciding whether he wanted a pot roast tonight or maybe a porterhouse steak. As he touched me one last time squarely in the heart, the mugger struck on the thought of buying some mushrooms to garnish the steak. Chen-lo in the Korean market had some nice caps for a porterhouse.

After

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