Maxigumee

This past Thursday, I was at home, entertaining some friends of the family when my sister called me. She wanted me to walk over to her friend Lena’s house (about three blocks from our own) to pick her up. I insisted that she just walk home herself, but my sister, being the stubborn uncooperative person that she is, refused. And it’s a good thing that she did, too.

I excused myself from our guests and walked over to meet my sister half way between our house and Lena’s house. When I met her, we turned and started walking back towards our own house. We crossed “R” Avenue and entered the small “S” street. We were talking about something completely random and casual when all of the sudden, we heard some sort of loud stomping noise behind us.

We turned around and saw three boys, probably around the age of fifteen, one of them wearing a black ski mask. It was a bit if a creepy sight, and obviously we were scared, but after years of convincing ourselves to trust people too much, we thought nothing of it. “Heyyy…..” my sister and I said casually before turning back around to walk.

One of the boys in the group said something that made us turn back around, probably “Wait” or “Hold on,” because we turned back around to look at them walking towards us. One of them said “Give us your money.”

I seriously thought they were joking. I mean, we were two little white kids walking alone in the dark. We could obviously be taken advantage of. My sister, clearly thinking the same thing as me asked nervously, “are you kidding?” One of the boys pulled a black handgun from the pocket of his gray hoodie and pointed it at us. I guess not.

I didn’t think that I had any money at first. The first thing of value I had on me was my phone. I gave it to them and started searching my pockets. I pulled out about fifteen dollars in cash and my college ID wallet. I gave them that cash. They demanded the wallet, too, but I opened it and fanned out all of my cards and IDs and showed them that there was no money in it. I don’t even know why I did that, I was strangely calm and collected the entire time.

Next, they turned their attention over to my sister, who had dialed 911 on her cell phone. I heard one of the boys shout, “take her phone, she’s calling the cops!” They took my sister’s phone and emptied the contents of her purse onto the ground. “Get the iPod!” one of them shouted. They grabbed my sister’s pink iPod Mini and ran back up the street giggling. I thought it was really strange that they were laughing after holding two kids up with a gun, but I guess maybe it was their first time and they were excited that they actually got away with it.

After watching the three boys run back onto “R” avenue, my sister and I immediately turned in the opposite direction and ran as fast as we could in the direction of our house. I could tell my sister had started crying.

I just know I’m going to get post-traumatic stress disorder from this entire ordeal. I mean, besides a huge adrenaline rush, I think I handled the entire situation very well. I mean, I started giggling by the time we reached our house. But that seems to happen to me a lot when faced with something completely serious. I just laugh at it.

My sister and I ran into our house and into the living room where our two guests and their two children were being entertained by my mother. “We were just robbed!” My sister and I shouted. “Some guys held us up at gunpoint and asked us for all of our money! They took our phones…. and Ana’s iPod….”

My mother seemed like she couldn’t process the information quickly enough. “You’re joking!” she half asked and half begged.

“I swear to God!” I said nervously and she told us that we needed to call the police right away. My mother got on the phone and dialed 911.

My entire family is pretty adamant about the whole pro-urban thing. If there’s anybody that’s going to stick up for the city, it’s us. I can’t count how many times we’ve bragged about how our ghetto little neighborhood really isn’t all that bad to our suburban acquaintances. Now, after rushing into our house, my sister bawling in her bedroom, I wasn’t so sure we could say that anymore.

I felt bad for our guests. They seemed more scared than I did. The little children seemed excited by the fact that we could have just had holes blown through our skulls. They surrounded us asking questions like, “was it a toy gun? Was it big? Were they big boys? How big were they?”

My mother, on the phone with the police, said that they would be over in two minutes. Before rushing upstairs to get my panicked sister, I raced to the bathroom to run some gel through my hair. I think it’s funny that in even the most serious of situations, the first thing I think of is my hair. I couldn’t look bad for the police!

As promised, the police showed up in what seemed like no time at all. It was weird having them enter our home, knowing that they’d probably done the same thing several times that night already. I wondered what they thought of our home, how it looked to them. I wanted to start cleaning it obsessively like I usually do when guests are over, but that obviously would not have been the best thing to do.

The police sat us down on the couch and began questioning us. The first thing they asked is what they boys looked like. “Were they black? Hispanic? Did they have an accent that would lead you to believe they were Hispanic?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I hate stereotyping and have learned over the years that it is a very bad, bad thing. Yet, here the policeman was, African-American himself, asking me if the three boys were black or Hispanic. Not white, black, Chinese, Indian, or Hispanic. Black or Hispanic. It reminded me of the movie Crash and its whole race theme and the idea of race and stereotyping. As bad as stereotyping is, people continue to perpetuate these stereotypes, making them just that much more true. I felt awful telling the police officer that even though I didn’t get a close look at the boys (I was a bit too concerned with the gun pointed at my face), I believed that they were African-American.

They asked us a few more questions like what our phone numbers were, how much money they took, etc. They told us that a detective would probably call us within the next few days and ask us some more questions and perhaps show us some pictures for us to identify.

Before they left, one of the officers told us that this sort of thing, even though it was rare, was more probable at this time of year. For whatever the reason, perhaps people are sad that they can’t afford better presents for people, the rate of robberies is considerably higher between Thanksgiving and New Years.

I’ll tell you, spending a lot of time hanging out with friends at Delaware Park after hours kind of makes you fear the police. There have been several occasions in which we’ve had to either run from the cops or be asked to leave by the cops. This entire experience really gave me an entirely new respect for the guys. They’re not just some hard thugs out to give you a hard time. They genuinely care about you really want to help protect you.

I spent the night on the pull-out mattress in my sister’s room. We discussed how we’re really less upset about our money being taken and more upset about our phones. The fact that we could have died hardly even came up. I was extremely irritated rather than afraid or shocked simply because I had gotten a new $300 phone only days beforehand. My sister was upset because she is normally glued to her cellphone 24/7 and is constantly texting and talking away on it. Materialistic, right?

It was not really until last night, while driving with my father back from IKEA in Canada that it hit me. I was listening to Ludacris’ new song, “Runaway Love” and when it got to the part about the little girl being shot to death, I thought, that could have been me. It was a very unsettling thought, one that even a happier song couldn’t fix.