That Time I Thought I Was Going to Get Shot In The Face

I’m floating around the South Congress side of Downtown Austin, knocking out errands between double shifts. The lunch rush was over an hour faster than it should have been, so now I have three hours to kill- no point in going home for an hour just to come back, eat, and re-pay to park. Time to get some shit done. The first one is easy- a 10 minute stop at the closest Wells Fargo branch.  The second is to buy a wallet, because I just ran out of those.

Buying a wallet is an objectively weird thing to have to do. Simply put, you’re spending cash on a tool that holds your cash. In a perfect world, we won’t ever need more than one of them; but just like healthcare, duct tape or protection money, it’s something we all have to pony up for every once in a while.

That’s probably why I get a strange reaction when I ask about wallets at a Patagonia near 2^nd Street. Surprisingly, I can actually form the words, but unsurprisingly, they don’t sound right. “I, um, need to buy a wallet?” More of a question than a statement. Driving home, much later, I actually practice saying “Show me where your wallets are, please.” Nobody wants to need a wallet. Doesn’t feel right.

The nice guy at the register (a stubbled, plaid shirted hipster caricature- beanie, rim glasses, the whole shebang) says “um...” like some kind of stumped replicant. His eyes roll up and to the right, with one eye squinting. Thinking. When he finally remembers, it’s like he just remembered the name of something that had been bothering him all day. I’m pretty sure that when it took me and my friends five minutes to remember the name of the Green Power Ranger (Tommy, not Jason) we probably had the exact same expression.

I’m not sure why it took him so long- the wallets are right at the corner of the register. These are apparently made with ultra high quality leather, featuring unobtrusive coin storage, and easy access for “4-13+” cards. There are two different places to put bills, and one allows you to hide them by folding them under a flap, like a kind of manila folder inside of a wallet. The first one I pick up has a brown exterior and a blue inside. I dig it. I like the idea of having vanity money and hidden money. The blue leather interior matches my Megaman tattoo.

Before the friendly Portlandia extra rings me up, I remember I need new sunglasses. A couple weeks back, I had cracked mine. A friend bought them for me over the summer- She knew I had a fat head, proportional to my tree-trunk torso (unlike my stick arms) and remembered me when she found wayfarers big enough to keep me from getting a headache after wearing them for half an hour. They lasted forever, relatively speaking. They survived river floats and hiking trips and being dropped on rocks from six feet in the air.

It was a dropped piece of silverware that finally did them in. I had them in my hoodie pocket while I was setting my store’s dining room floor one morning, and bent to pick up a fork I dropped. As soon as I heard the crack, I knew what had happened. Now, the right lens will never properly stay in place.

When I ask him, my PBR-swilling salesperson sure as hell knows where the sunglasses are. “We only have one kind- they’re made from recycled fishing nets, SUPER high quality.” He mentions something about the lenses, made in America, with a design that keeps them from breaking under even the most insane conditions. “I don’t know,” I say. “I’m pretty clumsy, sometimes.”

It’s the wee hours of a weeknight, and I’m just getting done with a good shift- I made good money and didn’t break much of a sweat. I don’t have to work until late the next day, so I figure I can spare a couple of hours and a few dollars at my favorite local. 

It feels more like a hostel than a bar sometimes- there’s a dark, dirty interior, with a little game area I don’t spend much time around and a patio that’s always full of loud, drunk conversations between tired people, as they talk about politics or pornography or their terrible bosses. It’s a dive, but it’s my dive.

If somebody is checking ID's at the bar, I just give him a fist bump. I find a seat at the bar, and usually without even a word, there’s a beer in front of me.

By the time I go to sleep tonight, I’ll need a new wallet.

I’m not the kind of person who gets hammered as quick as they can- not anymore. While I’m here, I like to read comics on my phone, listen to whatever rock music blasts out of the jukebox, and talk shop with the staff. Nine times out of ten, there’s somebody there I know. Tonight, it’s a friend, another waiter, somebody I’ve worked with before. She’s possibly drunk, most likely furious, and almost definitely looks like all she needs in this world is somebody to talk to. Guess I’m not reading the new Moon Knight collection tonight. Dr. Sam is in.

She doesn’t feel like anyone cares; she feels like she only gives, because she cares about people, but when she needs somebody (like today, when she got out of the ER for something “not serious”) and needed a ride. Nobody was around, and/or nobody could help. She’s moving to a college town 20 miles south of here, but she’s about one bad hour away from moving to Costa Rica. When I ask her, she tells me her ideal space in life is to be a massage therapist, living in a treehouse in Costa Rica, somewhere she doesn’t need to worry about the bullshit.

Before I leave, I make sure to give her a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. “I don’t know what’s really going on,” I say. “But I think you’re going to be fine.” She beams. I pay my tab; it’s 11 dollars- I tip five and I go home.

When I turn right into the apartment complex, there’s somebody pulling out. The car’s got one person in the front seat, and somebody in the back seat, but nobody in the passenger seat.

This should have told me something.

They’re halfway out of the parking space, and driver’s logic dictates that the person who’s spent the most energy getting into the situation we’re in should be the first to find their way out- but they’re not going anywhere. Polite. I pull around, park, get out, and start walking to my apartment. That same car pulls around, parks a little ways down from me. The guy in the back gets out, and walks towards me. Now, I understand that this is Texas, and that anything under 65 degrees is the coldest day of everyone’s life, but his jacket still looks bigger than it needs to be. He has blue jeans that roll down to bright white shoes. I say, “Can I help you?”

He doesn’t say anything. For half a second, I think he’s staying quiet because he has tape over his mouth. Nope. Just a bandana. He pulls out a semi automatic pistol- silver frame with a black slide. He cocks it, and then points it at me. I say, “Oh.”

These “SUPER HIGH QUALITY” sunglasses look like shit. I don’t know if the tire-tread rubber material on the bridge and bars is a design choice, or some kind of inevitable aftermath of making sunglasses from fishnets, but I can’t wait to have the conversation with whoever I’m trying to impress with them-

“Aw, c’mon baby! sure, it looks like an ATV ran over my face, but these things were made out of recycled fish nets! Well, of course they’re still vegan!”

How much are these fucking things worth, anyway?  I ask, in nicer terms.

“Uh, 130.” The wallet is 90. Then, he looks down. He knows what happens next. He probably knew as soon as he saw me that this was above my level. My hair is done, my nails are trimmed, my hands are clean, but I still look disheveled- I’m currently rocking a black batman shirt that isn’t large enough to cover the white undershirt I’ll wear later under a restaurant uniform.

This guy sees the kind of people who randomly have 90 dollars to spend on a wallet, and I’m pretty sure I don’t look like them. It’s gotta be the shoes. The shoes are a dead giveaway. They’re only meant to pass for dress shoes on only the most half-assed inspection. I like them because they’re comfortable, and because it doesn't really matter: Considering what my old work shoes looked like by the time I was done with them (destroyed), nobody really seems to care about what my shoes look like. 

That is, unless I stumble into their store, looking like I don’t know how to shop, because the last time I needed what I need, I didn’t have a high school diploma yet.

“Eh… I’m good,” I say. He gets it. No point in spending all of your money on something that holds your money. “Have a nice day and Merry Christmas,” he says. I try to reply the same way but all that comes out is a muffled misfire of consonants, and then “Christmas- you too.”

I carefully put on my broken sunglasses, making sure the lens doesn’t slip out, and buy a wallet next door. It’s discounted, 24.95. Black. Plenty of card storage, but nowhere to put the coins. It’ll do. It’s super stiff, and it doesn’t feel right in my pocket. Probably won’t for a while. I like the feel, but I need a second opinion. The nice lady behind the register thinks it’s cool- “I like how the part you put the ID in isn’t a separate piece.” I remember- my old wallet had one of those pieces; a transparent part that held an ID, but it was just an insert into a wallet. I threw it away, or lost it, or something- a decade ago probably. This isn’t just sewn on, it’s a full-blown feature. I wonder how you clean it?

When I get my ID, supposedly in 3-5 weeks, I’ll have to try it out. I hand my voice of reassurance my new temporary debit card, and when prompted, I enter the same pin I had for my last one- hope it’s the same. At least something feels the same.

Right now, I only have a temporary license- you might have had one before. It has all of my information, but it doesn’t look real. There’s a black and white picture and a couple of signatures, printed on regular old printer paper. Give me a laptop and 10 minutes, and I could make the same thing in Microsoft Paint.

It’s valid, but you can’t do much with it. Not just because it’s basically a piece of paper, but because it’s not convenient to take it anywhere. I folded it to keep it as small as possible, to where you can only see the relevant information, without all of the extra bullshit, like receipt numbers and the cost of replacement. It’s stapled to keep it in place. It still doesn’t fit into my wallet, so when I get back to my car, parked in the garage under my workplace, I put it and the pamphlet from Victim’s Services (which has my case number written on it) in the glove box.

I take out the money my Mom gave me- an early Christmas present- and my temporary debit card and put it in the new wallet. Wallet goes in the back pocket. It still feels weird. I pull it out, then put it back in. Yeah, feels weird. “Nothing I won’t get used to,” I say out loud, probably just to myself.

I have a few hours to kill before the second half of my double shift, and it’s Thursday. That means only one thing- pot roast. I walk West, but not before reaching in my pocket to check my phone, make sure I have time. 

I can’t find my phone, and I panic- I check my pockets, and I wonder if I’m going to have another panic attack. But then, I relax. I just forget that I no longer have a phone. The lens falls out of my sunglasses. I pick it up, then ask the guy smoking by a trash can what time it is. He’s apprehensive- it’s hard to blame him. He’s currently being approached by a hairy guy with a batman shirt over a much larger white undershirt, wearing sunglasses with a lens missing, who might be having a panic attack and isn’t sure what time it is.

He’s nice. He lets me know that I have two hours until I’m back on, more than enough time. He watches me throw away the sunglasses. He’s smoking, so now I have to, and he offers me a light. I say “I’m good.” He says “Merry Christmas.” I stumble and say “Christmas- you too” and curse under my breath.

The guy with the gun’s English isn’t spectacular, but he’s definitely got a few phrases down. When he says “give me your shit,” I barely detect an accent. I very, very slowly grab my wallet, my phone, my keys, and half a pack of cigarettes. As soon as they hit the ground, I hear “You got other stuff? You got other stuff?” The gun’s pointed at my abdomen, held with one hand. I’m guessing this guy is left handed. I’m trying to notice anything else. Bright blue, North Carolina blue bandanna. Brown eyes. Possibly bald.

He circles behind me, grabs my back pocket. We both feel the heavy thing at the same time. “Whats zat mang? Za fuck is zat, mang?”

Oh yeah. That. I forgot about that.

Shit. Shit. Shit shit shit.

I worked at a Tex-mex place for years before getting the job at a higher-end rustic Italian place, so I definitely needed to brush up on my wine-opening skills. What I’ve learned about myself is this- I can only find the right way to do something by finding a lot of ways to do it wrong first. For example, when you’re opening a bottle of wine using nothing but a standard corkscrew, once you've figured out how to cut the wrapper the right way, the next thing you need to do is get the screw into the cork. The tricky thing is that it's counter intuitive- you want to hold the handle perpendicular to the wine bottle, so that the corkscrew goes in at an angle. But the cork is too tough for that; it has to be, to preserve the wine. Try it, and all you’ll end up doing is uselessly dragging the screw across the cork, shredding it, instead of screwing into it and getting these irritated people the booze they’re paying you for.

So you have to start by pushing the point straight into the cork, then quickly correcting, pointing the corkscrew down so that you don’t screw in sideways. If you’re doing it right, the screw never touches anything but the cork. If you do it wrong, you can break the corkscrew. Do it really wrong, and you’ll break the bottle.

For some reason, using a heavier corkscrew makes this easier for me. I don’t know why for sure, but I think there’s something about the weight that lets me intuitively equate that I’m using the tool and the bottle together, instead of using a tool on a bottle.

I didn’t know if I needed to make the investment until I tried using one. I got to borrow one from the Service Director for the restaurant group that owns the restaurant I work in. He’s a certified sommelier and he’s probably worked in the industry as long as some of my coworkers have been alive. It’s worth mentioning that he could, on a whim, fire the people who can fire me. So presumably, he knows his corkscrews. The brand he uses is the one I use now. He described it best: “It’s a tank.” It’s shiny, and heavy, and the blade on it rips open wine wrappers like nothing I’ve used before. The lever is perfectly placed. Handy.

The corkscrew is so fancy it actually has a name: It’s called “Prestigio.” It was thirty dollars at Austin Wine Merchant, which I thought was kind of a lot for a corkscrew. But there’s a confidence I get from having it- if I’m talking somebody into buying a wine that’s 9 dollars more than they said they wanted to spend, seeing that I’m not messing around when it comes to the tools I use to serve wine will always help ease the anxiety of buying wine they might not think is worth it. 

And honestly, as far as that corkscrew goes- its role in the time I thought I was going to get shot in the face notwithstanding, I still think it was a solid investment. 

Finding this thing in my back pocket almost sets this guy off- Up until the guy finds the corkscrew that I forgot I had, this robbery is going fairly straightforward. I slowly reach into my pocket, slowly enough that the guy has time to make his way back around me and adjust the gun, holding with two hands right now, close enough to my face that I can see the dark of the inside of the barrel. “WHAT THE FUCK IS ZAT MANG?!”

“It’s a fucking corkscrew, dumbass!” I slowly set it down. I’m glad he doesn’t speak enough English to understand what I just said- insulting somebody you just frightened is a dick move, regardless of whether or not he’s holding a tool that can rapidly spread your brains across your apartment’s parking lot.

He calms down- he honestly seems relieved- and says “Acueste.” I didn’t know what he was saying at first, I thought maybe “sequester,” which would have been fucking hilarious. Thinking about it now, how he might have been describing the robbery he was committing in real time using strictly legal terminology still makes me chuckle. The truth is more boring- all that word means is “lie down” in Spanish. Whatever. I don’t know Spanish as well as I ought, but I can figure things out from context. I lie down.

He takes the phone, the wallet, and the cigarettes (asshole) and then kicks the keys to my Honda across the parking lot. He runs off, and gets into the back seat of the car he arrived in. I’m lying behind a giant truck, maybe a newer model f-150, so I can’t see much, but a with a little shift over, I can tell that he’s getting into an Asian sedan of some kind, maybe a Civic or TL or Camry. It has a spoiler and paper tags. And faster than it takes to read this sentence, he and whomever was driving are gone. He doesn’t even touch the corkscrew- provided he can’t figure out the code to my phone, it would have been the most valuable thing he could have taken from me.

On the south side of 6^th street, about halfway between where I work and where I’m walking to, there’s a little lane you can pull into that lets you use a mounted post office box. Until then, I didn’t realize what that lane actually was, so I’m usually fine to walk down the middle of it, like some kind of lost, apathetic buffalo. I make this walk a few times a month, but usually it’s with headphones in, blasting Czarface or Circa Survive or Porter Robinson. It lets me drown the noise out from whatever else could be happening, be it the incomprehensible stammering from legions of hammered well to dos throughout the bar scene on west 6^th or the elevated collective anxiety of the poor, stranded fucks trying and failing to beat the traffic home. I don’t get that privilege today- it’s just street noise. And that’s all it is, at least until I find out what that lane actually does- I think I hear something, and turn around to see a very patient lady in a Lexus waiting for this big, lumbering hairball to get out of the road so she can send her last minute Christmas presents or whatever.

As I get out of her way, it occurs to me- I just got snuck up on by a car. There are a few ways to take this- On the one hand, it means I’m not so paranoid that I won’t allow anything to surprise me. On the other hand, in the aftermath of a traumatic experience, I definitely haven’t gained spider senses. Guess I have to look elsewhere for silver linings. As the lady drives off, she waves at me. Food is three blocks away, and I walk faster.

It's nice to find common ground, and in that spirit, I think I've found a tautology: It's really, really hard to be sad while eating pot roast. 

For me, pot roast happens every Thursday- it’s a blue plate special at a sister restaurant. I missed it last week, and as I walk in, 1 hour and 45 minutes until my second shift, three people who work there asked me why (wasn’t feeling well). I don’t know if you’ve ever eaten so much pot roast that it’s actually newsworthy when you don’t, but it’s a condition I typically call happiness. Today, while I’m eating, I drink two half-liters of Mexican coke (the kind made with real sugar cane) and when there’s nothing solid left on the plate, I get some toast so I can sop up what’s left on the plate. When I ask for my bill, I don’t get one.

Instead, I get a 30 second drawing that the bartender scribbled on receipt paper- it’s a Christmas tree and a present, with a giant “HO! HO! HO!” splayed across. Definitely solid for 30 seconds of work. I leave a 20 as a tip, and almost forget to leave without asking her to sign her work.

Now that drawing lives in the wallet, with some handwritten notes from somebody who wants to make sure I have their number, and contact information of hairstylist my friend recommended. As I’m writing this, I’ve only had the wallet for a few days, but with the unfaced bills and growing collection of white paper notes that don’t fit anywhere neatly, it’s already a mess, a signature feature of most things that I own. Welcome to the collection, wallet. Looks like you and I will get along just fine.

I don’t go for the keys right away. Adrenaline kicks in, and for the first half hour, I know what I need to do: grab my corkscrew, jump into my patio, break into my own house, intentionally wake up and unintentionally scare the shit out of my roommate, borrow four of his cigarettes and use his phone to call the police. I throw up a facebook post to let my friends know what to look out for. I go back outside.

A smarter man than I once said “you never have reason to panic, you have reason to act.” After the phone call, I find my keys and wait. Police are quick on the scene, and it suddenly becomes painfully clear that I can’t really tell them anything useful. There are two cars parked near us that match the description of the car I saw drive off. I don’t know what the guy looks like. We’re out on East Oltorf, one of the last areas in this city that’s still affordable on any level, so, with as much respect as I can muster, I’ll make the claim that telling police that somebody didn’t have a firm grasp on the English language doesn’t narrow down the suspect list all that much.

I tell him what he stole- a wallet containing my ID and a debit card and a library card and some random business cards.  I had a single dollar in cash and a coupon for a discounted pack of Newport smokes, something I intended to give to a guy I work with, who I call my grandson for reasons way too stupid to bother explaining. The phone was at 3% battery when he was taken, so it’s probably dead, although I suspect the only reason he took my phone was to keep me from calling the police sooner than I did.

The police officer and I have the same birthday, to the year. He’s constantly doing that police thing where he holds his radio closer to his ear and stares off in the distance, listening to something I can’t hear over a police channel. One of my best friends works for the Sheriff of Dona Ana county, southern New Mexico. He always tells me his two goals after work are to come home to his own bed, and to not end up on Youtube. I wish somebody would put this guy on Youtube- he’s doing everything I want in a police officer. Before I can relay this, however, he’s suddenly in a hurry to get somewhere. “What’s the fastest way out of here?”

I tell him he needs to flip a bitch, get out the way he came in, and take a left. He’s gone.

What I realize, right then, is that this isn’t the way my friend with the gun left earlier. He went the other direction. If you go that way, you’re not getting out nearly as fast, and that’s if you take the fastest way. Make a wrong turn, and you’re having the same conversation everyone’s had at one time or another- “How the fuck do I get out of this apartment complex?” Whoever was driving didn’t have that problem- they were just gone. That might mean they were lucky. That might also mean they know the complex. That’s when my adrenaline wears off, and the fear sets in.

“You don’t have reason to panic, you have reason to act.” Well, sometimes the only action you have is panic. Luckily for me, there’s never really been anything to keep me from going to sleep, although staying there can be a problem. So that’s what happens. 

 

The day after the robbery, I get the temporary license, but don’t have time to get anything else done- it takes me way too long to find the DMV without a phone feeding me directions. All I have time to do after getting an ID is head to work and eat. I took the time to let people on facebook know what happened, so that if nothing else, I can say I did my part to make sure nobody got robbed. Hopefully people were smarter than I and made it home before last call. From what I’ve heard so far, it looks like everyone is fine. Also based on what I’ve heard so far, it doesn’t look like they’re going to catch the guy that robbed me.

It’s the end of my shift, the night after I got robbed. I’m tired, and grouchy, but physically and mentally, I feel better than I thought I would. My last tables close out, and I’m ready to start doing my sidework to go home, check my emails, and play some Grand Theft Auto. This is right before the first panic attack.

A friend of mine does something nice for me- gives me most of a fancy Italian soda that’s already been opened and can’t be saved. He’s trying to make me laugh when he points his finger gun at my face, pretending to threaten me into drinking a soda.  (This will be funny in a month, I think.)

I have to go outside. I start chain smoking. I could have fucking died last night. I could have fucking died. I knew that to be factual ever since it happened, but it didn’t even register. That’s why work was so easy, relatively speaking. There’s a difference between knowing that water freezes at 32 degrees, and dealing with the aftermath of slipping on ice and falling down some stairs. I’m breathing fast, tears are streaming, and there’s nothing I can do. I won’t get my stuff back. They won’t catch this guy. There’s no repercussions and there’s no sense of personal satisfaction I’ll gain from this. I could have died. I went from completely fine to a second away from death and back over the course of 4 minutes. It happened that fast.

No action. Just panic.

But panic, after all, is an action- sometimes it’s the only thing there is to do, so you do it, and then, after a while, you stop. That’s what happens. I wipe my face, finish my work, and I go home.