Surreal Accusations

by T.J. Johnston

"I'm gonna kill ya!" Spring arrived only a few hours earlier, but my vernal equinox began with a threat to my life. This being a new experience, I was a little thrown off by the verbal assault. "I'm gonna kill ya!" repeated the man. No doubt this stranger was speaking directly to me. Thank God he was shouting at me from thirty yards at Saint Francis Circle, where I was waiting for Muni.

The man in question wore bulky winter clothing and carried an equally cumbersome pack. I caught only a glimpse of a snake-style tattoo under his sleeve. I looked around to see if the other commuters were paying attention. No such luck, but I can't blame them for wanting to stay out of harm's way. I also checked for nearby men in blue: none were visible.

"I've seen you with that dog," the red-bearded stranger continued, "And I saw you in that truck. I'm gonna kill ya!" Absolutely jarring. Did this person know I used to walk dogs? Sounds plausible, but where did the truck come from? And who the hell was he to talk shit? Who was he, period?

I wasn't in the mood to refute his accusations and I am certainly unaccustomed to threats of extermination from apparently unstable people. "You must have me confused with someone else," I countered. Honestly, I didn't know what else to do. He went on his way to another bus stop. I walked further down the median. I'm not good with confrontation, especially the physical kind. So I let him walk away. Surreal as it was, the encounter lasted only a minute.

As if I didn't have enough crap in my life. The bus came, proving some public services were more reliable than others. At least I had fresh news for POOR's Community Newsroom…

There's a scene from Nick Hornby's novel, High Fidelity (it also appears in the movie starring John Cusack) where the protagonist, Rob, imagines different scenarios with a romantic rival. Like Rob, I immediately played script doctor with my bus stop scene.

SCENE 1. TJ whips out a camcorder and captures the images of his assailant. Very Norma Desmond, the crazed person plays to the camera. "I'm ready for my close-up," he says. "Now, I'm gonna kill ya!" TJ makes a run for it.

SCENE 2. TJ extends his wrist and shoots a web at his adversary, who struggles with his entanglement. A note is attached: "Courtesy of the Poor Man's Spiderman."

SCENE 3. TJ touches his earpiece. "5150 him." A team of cop cars and a padded truck speed in the perp's direction. Cops emerge, point their weapons and yell "freeze," and a now-straitjacketed perp is carted in the truck. With a smirk, TJ tells him, "Say hello to Nurse Ratched, Bubba."

SCENE 4. TJ imitates Robert Deniro in Taxi Driver. "Are you talkin' to me? There's no one else here, so you must be talkin' to me." He whips out a gun and empties it into him, just like Deniro did to the child pimp portrayed by Harvey Keitel. The local press heralds TJ as a hero defending himself against scum.

SCENE 5. A symphonic rendition of "Pop Goes the Weasel" induces TJ to act like Curly from the Three Stooges. He runs in place, slaps his head, and goes "woo-woo-woo." He then charges into him head first and beats the hell out of him. The number crescendos as TJ thrashes him about.

As writers for POOR Magazine, we represent ourselves in relationship to poverty (in my case, I describe myself as at-risk). Through POOR and the Raising Our Voices program at Media Alliance, I'm continually apprised of the plight of the indigent, the profiled, and the marginalized and their chronic subjugation. This particular person immediately lost my sympathy when he threatened me and became just another motherfucker. Call me "the liberal who just got mugged."

Admittedly, my account is subjective. Broaching the topic in Community Newsroom, I got a varied response. My colleagues inquired how I knew this person was homeless, mentally ill, and specifically targeting me. The consensus was that I acted properly in defusing the situation, and not just for my sake. One questioned the wisdom of involving police and psychiatrists. Another agreed that I had indeed been violated. Dee, one of our editors, suggested speaking to a counselor.

As I write this, I'm still attempting to make sense of this senseless act. Historically, I've had abuse heaped upon me by people who knew what they were doing and stood to gain from it. What distinguished this situation was the randomness of this occurrence, not to mention the wasted opportunity to fuck him over. It was a scene out of a Jim Thompson novel in an un-Thompsonlike neighborhood of West Portal. If I weren't already a light sleeper, I'd be downright insomniac. If this guy provokes someone more ill tempered than he, I'd enjoy it as much as "The Killer Inside Me."