Altercations with men in public, Part 3
The one where I almost get killed - Indianapolis, 2002
It began with one of the most infuriating commands in the English language - ‘Smile, baby’.
I was carrying four heavy bags of groceries down a city street, my forearms bulging with the strain. The sun beat down mercilessly, sending rivulets of sweat down the backs of my knees to collect in the heels of my sandals. I was hot and irritable, hurrying to get home and showered before my evening shift at the restaurant where I worked. He was the third man to bother me that day, stepping into my path to demand my attention. By the age of 23 my reaction to these kinds of encounters required little thought, relying instead on muscle memory. Sidestep, no eye contact, keep walking. Act as if he doesn’t exist. Usually that worked, but not always. This one was persistent.
‘Hey! Did you hear me, girl? I said you should smile. Ain’t nothing wrong with a smile’. His voice was deep and slow with a side of cocky.
My ‘friend’ was in lockstep with me now, having turned from his original direction of travel to follow me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that he wore a ripped blue t-shirt and had dirt under his fingernails, but I didn’t look directly at him. There could be no deviation from the drill. Eyes forward, shoulders back, chin up. Remain calm. Ignore, ignore, ignore.
When I stopped at the corner to cross, so did he, standing behind me at an uncomfortably close distance. I arranged myself in a statue pose, hoping he would lose interest if I became an inanimate object, devoid of any movement or personality. Undeterred, he hovered over me, reeking of stale beer and entitlement. Frozen in place, I watched cars whizz past on an interminably long green light, the grocery bags cutting deep lines into my palms, making them ache.
‘I said smile!’ he hissed in my ear, any attempt at feigned friendliness gone.
Something in me snapped, pinging around my insides like a firecracker let loose in a small room. Spinning around to face him, I snarled, baring my teeth.
‘Fuck off!’ I shouted in the loudest, sternest voice I could muster. People on the other side of the busy crossing looked up, curious and concerned but helpless to intervene.
The man drew back, astonished. Taking in his stubbled cheeks and droopy eyelids, I glared at him for a moment before turning to face the road again. That should do the trick. But then his hands were on me, fingers curled around my back just below my shoulder blades. I staggered forward, trying to twist out of his grip, but the bags made it hard to manoeuvre. He paused briefly, muttering ‘Bitch!’, and then shoved me as hard as he could.
I went flying off the kerb and into the road, directly in the path of oncoming traffic. When my hands and knees hit the asphalt, I looked up just in time to see a silver car swerve and blast its horn, nearly ramming into the car beside it to avoid hitting me. The tyre was so close to my face that I could see the grooves of its tread as it sailed past my nose. Quickly, I scrambled backwards to safety, watching as most of my groceries rolled into the street and were run over. A pressurised can of pre-made pastry dough landed next to my bloodied hands and I grabbed it as I sprung back up from the ground to face my attacker.
As I approached the man in the blue t-shirt, a red mist fell over my eyes like a stage curtain after the last encore, the whoosh of my own heartbeat pounding in my ears, my jaw clamped down so hard I could feel the fillings in my molars crunch. The inside of my brain looked like the fuzzy screen of a black-and-white TV set, a series of shapes and shadows that jumped and blurred at the edges.
A desire for violence came over me swiftly; a desire born from not only his actions but the actions of every man like him who’d come before. Every hand that had ever grabbed me, every footstep that had followed me home at night, every filthy or intimidating word that had been shouted in my direction, every command that had been issued to me by strangers as if I were obliged to bow and obey. He represented not only himself but all of them. And for once, I wanted him - them - to be afraid of me.
An enormous wave of strength flooded through me, like a superhero who has just discovered their secret power at the critical moment, right when it looks like all is lost and the villain will have their way. Roaring, I rushed towards him and swung my arm up, cocking my elbow behind me as if I were winding up to throw a pitch from a baseball mound, and brought the can down on his head. In the split second before I struck him, my vision cleared long enough to see the terror on his face. I won’t lie, it felt good. More than good; it felt fucking amazing.
The can popped open on contact, sending blood from the gash on his forehead into his eyes and discs of cinnamon-swirled dough to the ground. Prepared for retaliation, I puffed out my chest and stood on tiptoe, trying to make myself appear larger. My breathing was rapid and a deep growl emanated from the back of my throat. I was feral. Fearless. Wild.
He did not come at me though. Stunned, he turned and fled just as the cars that had been streaming past finally came to a stop beside us. I watched him run away, peering behind him to see if I was following before he turned the next corner and disappeared from sight. Victory and relief flowed through me, riding on the waves of adrenaline pulsing through my veins.
A parking attendant who had seen everything unfold from across the street came running over to help me collect what was left of my groceries and asked if I wanted him to call the police.
‘No’, I said quickly, imagining a pair of cops eyeing the length of my shorts and asking why I wasn’t nicer to the poor man who was just trying to be friendly. ‘I need to get home. I have work soon.’ I crouched low to the ground, stuffing dented boxes and bruised fruit back into my bags.
‘Let me walk you home at least, or help you get bandaged up. You’re bleeding’ he said, motioning towards the grit embedded in my hands and knees.
‘No’ I repeated, more firmly this time. ‘I’ve got it. Thanks though.’
‘Suit yourself’, he said, palms upturned. There was an edge of hurt and irritation in his voice but I didn’t care. He was just another strange man, one whose motives were unknown to me.
At home, I washed the blood and sweat from my body and put my uniform on. Too exhausted to dry my hair, I pulled it back into a bun and left my face bare. I drove to work on autopilot, barely able to recall how I got there or where I’d parked. It wasn’t until I was standing in a cluster with the other waitstaff, listening to the evening’s specials, that the shock wore off and the reality of what had happened hit me.
Halfway through Chef’s description of the seafood dish, my hands began shaking violently, making my handwriting illegible. My chest tightened and released in spasms, constricting my heart and lungs so that I had to gasp noisily for air. Then my vision blurred again, this time with tears. Everyone turned to look at me just as they burst horizontally from my eyes like a cartoon baby, shoulders heaving. Our new manager, inexperienced and clearly uncomfortable, sent me home without asking any questions.
I rarely spoke of the incident again, except when I told it as a funny anecdote at parties, enhancing the comedic part where I hit a creepy guy with pastry dough, and downplaying the horrifying part where a man pushed me into traffic for not smiling at him. I never told anyone how satisfying it had been to make him bleed.
No one could see the rage that had been released and then stuffed back into me, how it prowled beneath the surface waiting to erupt again. None of them could hear the howl that was still stuck in my throat, nor could they have predicted how it would manifest many years later. No one knew the truth of what was to come, least of all me.