“everyone walks around staring at their phone like it's a GPS leading them towards gold or some shit...open yer eyes! (I'm walking now).”
I typed this into my phone (tweeted) while walking east on Bergen Street, approaching 3rd Ave. Moments later…something happened. I use the vague term ‘something’ not as an attempt to build tension or suspense within the story, but simply because I still don’t know what happened.
Saturday, August 29th, 2009. 10:15 PM. I got off the G train and began walking towards a music venue in Park Slope, Brooklyn called Southpaw to see the rap group Nice & Smooth perform. On a night during which I knew I wasn’t going to be getting on stage, I was sober and relaxed as I texted a few friends who I was going to be meeting there. There was a group of four kids walking across the street a little bit ahead of me, and I noted their existence. Simply noted it. I’ve lived in New York City my entire life and I’ve had my fair share of run-ins with people whose intentions were far from innocent. My experiences have ranged from threats received, to humorously failed robbery attempts, to the successful acquisition of various items of mine. Sometimes weapons were drawn, and at other times pure intimidation was implemented. But dozens of such experiences in a wide array of circumstances and locations have left me more than aware and prepared. So I noted the existence of these four kids. I took out my phone, sent another text, put it back in my pocket, checked across the street, and they were gone.
So I kept walking. A few minutes later I looked behind me to see just one guy about 30 feet back, walking by himself. Again, simply noting his existence I took out my phone to confirm with a friend of mine that I was about 10 minutes away from the venue and I would be seeing him there soon. I put the phone back in my pocket. The next memory I have is being on the ground up against a wall with the right side of my face throbbing and a relatively frantic sensation in my chest.
It was an innate, self-preservation-based instinct that implored me to get off the ground with the amount of urgency with which I acted. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was coming out of an unconscious state after being severely beaten. In one second’s time the only information my brain had gathered was that my face hurt, I was on the ground and there were four guys hovering over me. I had to get off the ground. It was a challenging feat to accomplish considering my physical condition at the time, but I popped up with as much vigor as I could, saying repeatedly, “Chill! Chill! Chill!” I assumed I was being robbed and I wanted them to know that I would give up whatever they wanted without them having to assault me. I thought they had yet to attack me other than maybe hitting me once in the face.
They seemed surprised at the fact that I had popped up like that – apparently they had been beating me while I was out cold and I spontaneously awoke and jumped up. They took a slight step back and demanded my wallet, which I quickly produced from my cargo pocket. Then in unison a few of them demanded my phone, which for some reason surprised me to the point where I questioned, “My phone?” And they repeated, “Gimme your phone!” This time I obliged and gave them my phone, still about 15 seconds out of my unconscious state. They grabbed it from my hand and immediately sprinted west on Bergen Street. I stood there momentarily thinking to myself, “Shit. That sucks. I just got robbed and punched in the face. Crap.” The only injury I was aware of at that moment was a throbbing pain beneath my right eye (which would be completely swollen shut within the next hour). I turned and began to proceed east on Bergen Street towards Southpaw. To the show.
At this point in time I had no idea, but I had suffered the following injuries: A concussion, a dozen abrasions on my hands, wrists and knees, a fractured jaw, multiple broken bones in my nose, two black eyes, a one-inch deep bruise in my brain, and contusions in cervical discs four and five leading to something called cervical radiculopathy.
Seconds later I heard someone running up behind me, and I turned to see an older man scurrying towards me carrying a hammer. “Now what,” I thought. As he approached he hysterically asked questions about what had happened and if I was OK. I quickly responded with, “Are you with them?” My expectations for honesty are occasionally absurd. He replied with, “No, I swear to God! I live around the corner and I saw them following you, and then I saw them beating on you so I ran out here, but they took off before I got here. We gotta get you to a hospital!”
“Clearly this is an insane person,” I thought to myself. Running out here with a hammer? A hospital? I just got punched in the face, no huge deal. I kept walking, and he kept walking with me, talking about calling an ambulance. As we approached the corner a cop car happened to pull up to a red light, and the man ran over to the car in a panic screaming, “Police, police! This guy just got beat up and the kids just ran off!” The cops said to me, “This just happened now?” I said, “Yeah.” They screamed, “Get in! Get in!”
I hopped in the cop car, the guy with the hammer stayed outside, and suddenly sirens were wailing and lights were flashing and we were flying down the block looking for these kids. This was a surprise to me – upon entering the car I thought we were on our way to a police station to file a report. So they robbed me? Was it really siren-worthy? It was only then that I noticed the blood on my shorts. And then on my shirt. And then on my shoes. I put my hands out beneath my chin and caught streams of blood pouring from…somewhere. As the car pealed out, the officer in the passenger seat turned to me and asked me a barrage of questions.
“How many were there?”
“I think four.” I had been unconscious 45 seconds prior.
“Young?”
“Yeah I think so.” I had just been beaten defenselessly.
“What race were they? What were they wearing? Which direction did they go in?”
“Um, I don’t really know. They ran the opposite direction I was walking in. Away from 3rd Ave.” It was then that the cop turned and looked at me with some serious concern.
“We’re gonna call you an ambulance. Your nose is definitely broken.”
I still didn’t think I had even been hit in the nose. I joked with him, saying, “No, I just have a big nose. I don’t need an ambulance.”
He looked at me for a few more seconds, then turned back to grab his radio and called something in. We scoured the area for a few minutes, passing by groups of kids the cops considered as being the suspects, but I couldn’t confirm anything about them. After a while the car came to a stop at a corner where an ambulance was waiting.
“You’re going to get into that ambulance and they’re going to take care of you, and you’ll just answer some more questions at the hospital, OK? Can you get out of the car and walk to the ambulance on your own?”
“Yeah.” I looked out the window and saw a group of policemen and EMT workers standing outside of an ambulance with a stretcher. As I got out of the cop car, I noticed the look on everybody’s faces. These were professionals who, assumedly, had seen situations similar to this. As they examined the damage done to my face, I heard a few of them say, “Oh shit.” I got into the ambulance and the paramedic in the back told me to slowly lie down on the gurney. I didn’t think I needed to lie down, but I complied. He asked various questions about my spine, neck, allergies, and if I had blacked out. I told him I didn’t think I had. Gentle and compassionate, this man seemed utterly disgusted with what had been done to me. He pulled out an oxygen mask and told me to breathe into it normally as we drove. This seemed completely unnecessary to me, but again I figured it was just protocol and he was playing it safe.
“Now, I know you’ve heard Kings County is one of the worst hospitals in the city (I hadn’t heard this), but they have the best trauma unit in all of Brooklyn. I swear to you, if a cop were shot, he would be taken straight to Kings and given the best treatment there is. So that’s where we’re taking you.”
Trauma unit? Shot? Whoa whoa whoa…all that had happened to me was I got punched a few times. What is going on?
As we rode it became clear to me that this guy was blabbering away in attempts to keep me conscious. Ridiculous ramblings about cell phone providers, second amendment rights and neighborhood evolutions did nothing more than make me grow more concerned about my condition. As we pulled up to the hospital and I sat up, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the rear view mirror. My entire face was dark red, and I looked like a jigsaw puzzle that had been put together by a blind person. Suddenly the idea of an ambulance, a gurney, an oxygen mask and a trauma center all started to make sense.
As I was wheeled into the hospital, multiple cops surrounded me and began asking the same questions that I still didn’t know the answers to. They wrote down whatever information I could offer, regarding place and time, my info, and my best guesses as to how to identify these kids. I entered the hospital at around 11:30 PM, less than an hour after the attack had taken place. I wouldn’t leave the hospital for another twelve hours. It was during these twelve hours that I would begin to understand how unmercifully and recklessly I had been beaten, how poor the conditions and treatment of a hospital can truly be, and how lucky I was to have only suffered the injuries that I did.
My complaints and grievances towards Kings County Hospital are significant in number and magnitude. Various employees who work there were responsible for having misread my cat scans and x-rays, refused to clean and treat various open wounds, neglected to provide me with water and food after many requests, and acted amazingly impatient, rude and inconsiderate throughout my twelve hours there. Some were more kind than others, but the beating I received at that hospital felt nearly more detrimental than that at the hands of my assailants. Needless to say, when my mother came to pick me up the next morning, exactly one week ago from the moment of writing this, I was pleased.
The past seven days have been interesting. I have been healing with the assistance of some very kind and skillful people. My experiences with doctors have not all been fantastic, and my surgeries and adjustments have not been without their flaws. However, with the help of various doctors, policemen and friends I have begun to piece together what happened that night, as well as piece together my physical structure. If a simulation of the event were to be crafted, it would most likely read like this:
Four kids saw a white guy walking by himself through Park Slope on a block that, although not normally desolate on a Saturday night at 10:30 PM, happened to be relatively barren at the time. They came up behind him and hit him in the back of the head with either a fist or a weapon, instantly knocking him unconscious. In order to prevent any attempts of escape, calls for help, or identification, they immediately began beating him ruthlessly, despite the fact that he was motionless and on the ground. Kicks? Punches? Weapons? Seconds? Minutes? The details of the beating are unclear, and the motives as to why the extent of the physical harm caused was as extreme as it was will probably never be known.
This event is not a life-changing occurrence. It hasn’t taught me a lesson and I’m not walking away from it as a different person. I was rather unlucky, considering that I was attacked on a Saturday night at 10:30 PM in an area that is generally considered to be safe. However, at the same time I am very fortunate indeed. It is possible that if a certain punch or kick had been received at a different fraction of an angle, I could have suffered brain damage, internal bleeding, etc. Although I have experienced a fair amount of pain, frustration and adversity due to this situation, I am sure that whatever cruelty exists within the people who did this that puts them in a place to carry out such an act is far more painful than my injuries. Whatever put these young men in a position to commit such an act of gratuitous violence towards a defenseless, unconscious individual must be considered more agonizing than my wounds. Blame? Anger? Revenge? None of this is on my mind. I hope that I will heal. I hope this does not happen to anyone else. I hope to continue to experience and appreciate the world and all of its mystery and wonder as much as I did prior to this happening. And I plan to.
