"All these years you've been writing about Muni," James said to me after we were done talking to the police, "and now finally you have something interesting to say."
We had been riding the bus home from seeing Bruno (which I liked, but it was stressful!) on the 31. Some kid was asking if anyone had the time, and nobody was responding, and I was being nice -- and careless -- and looked at my watch to say 1:10am. He grabbed for the watch, I curled into a foetal position in my seat, and there were an awkward 15 seconds during which he clutched fruitlessly at my groin before giving up to run away into the public housing.
He didn't get anything. Too bad for you, public-housing-mugger! It wasn't a very good scheme, since how would you even yank a watch off of a wrist unless it was the elastic kind, which this wasn't, because I am not a computer science major in the year 1988? Or maybe he was going for my phone, which was in my pocket and he could maybe feel it as he was groping around in my lap. Anyway the whole thing was like an encore performance of Bruno. What a tangle!
Of course it was all captured on tape -- or at least, it happened in front of cameras that may or may not have been functioning. I have made some inquiries and will hopefully be getting the footage, if it exists.
The driver -- Ruth -- was very nice, and called the cops. They took a statement. I was fine. We rode the bus the rest of the way home, and at one point Ruth speculated, "do you think he went for you because you're gay?" And I knew I was back amongst friends.
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