This morning, I left my apartment to catch the 2/3 Eastern parkway train here in Brooklyn as I normally do every morning. Normally the station is really busy with people coming and going and there’s usually a kid that’s selling papers parked out in front of the steps but I was running late this morning and instead of the usual 8:30 mad dash, I was starting my commute at around 10 AM and there was no one really around.

As I started down the stairs into the station, five guys started coming up towards me, scoping behind them and ahead off them to see if the coast was clear. They were acting really sketchy and one of them looked at me me and said to the others, “Him! Get him! Do it! Fucking punk-ass, do it now!” I had no doubt that I was about to get jumped for my bag or my wallet.

They blocked off the stairs to try and box me in, so I turned around and high-tailed it out onto the street. One of them reached out to try and grab me, but I was too quick. All five of them ran out onto the street after me and for a few seconds I had the incredulous thought that I was about to get beat down and robbed on a busy street in broad daylight, but they took off running down the block, stopping at one point when the mouthy one slammed another guy up against a car, yelling at him and calling him a punk-ass, I assume because he let me get away.

I really don’t like the idea of being mugged again. I don’t know what it is about me or this fucked up neighborhood ghetto shithole, but being robbed twice and mugged once is really and quite truly fucking enough. Just that morning, I’d received the shipment of my brand new laptop and for some reason decided to leave it at home, against my natural inclination to dive headfirst into a new toy, which is a really good thing because if I had gotten robbed, I’d be shit out of luck.