December 25, 2003
Quito, Ecuador

Reconnect with your animal self. Get robbed.

Last night mom and i stepped out of the hostel for christmas eve dinner about 7:45pm, we walked about 30 feet, and were robbed by three men.

I saw it coming in slow motion as the first guy, a black man about my height dressed in nice clothes stepped off the curb on the other side of the street. He was walking the same direction we were going and had come from behind my field of view. He started to cross in front of us. Then he turned and looked at me with a strange sort of half-smile on his face, saying nothing, and he began to curve around towards us. At that point my mind was screaming... "NOT NORMAL! THIS IS NOT FUCKING NORMAL YOU IDIOT!" I had my hand on my knife. But as I began to think about pulling it out, I felt an arm come around from behind me, around my neck. Thug number two. Before I knew it i was in a head lock and the first guy was in front of me, with his hand up under my chin, like he was putting a knife to my throat. It was so fast, and in a split second I was down on the ground on my face. Mom was screaming.  I don't know if i can ever appropriately explain how surreal it was to go from zero to down on the ground fighting for my life with the most frightened and panicked sound i can imagine coming out of the lips of my mother. 

All i could see was thug #1's leg in front of me. And my hand was still on my knife. So I pulled it out and deployed the blade with one hand (thank god it's a Spyderco). Then i stuck it in that fucker's leg. He said something to the effect of "a knife." And then they started to run off. There was a third there too... i guess he must have grabbed my mom.  She said she bit his hand. Good for mom.

As soon as the arm was gone from around my neck i got up and started chasing one of them around a corner. But I stopped as soon as I realized i would be leaving mom alone.

She was sobbing... "Dan, dan, are you ok?" I was grunting and panting like some sort of wild boar. I stood in the middle of the street with my knife in my hand and yelled "COME BACK IF YOU WANT SOME FUCKING MORE!!!!" People were looking out of their doors -- the people from a couple hotels, including ours, were coming out into the street.

--

Well they had enough time to get my little pocket digital camera. But no money and no ID. I've been careful simply not to take my wallet with me, and to only carry enough money for the evening.

Mom had left her handbag at home too and had only a similar amount of stuff.

We called the police, who came promptly on a dirt bike, which is the standard around here. and went through the motions of making a search of the neighborhood.

I guess we got off easy. Last week in the same place, two dutch boys were robbed at 2am coming back from a bar. Probably by the same guys. They bit their noses to shut them up.  Big teeth marks all the way around their noses.

--

The rest of the night was a wash... we tried to make the best of it, and went out again for dinner anyway. But mostly I brooded... mom kept trying to change the subject and bring me out of it.

On the taxi ride to the restaurant we talked a little about what had happened.

When she saw the knife she thought they were going to kill me. She didn't realize it was in my hand.  Her mind panicked with the kind of fear i can only imagine a parent having for the life of their child.

My mind was just replaying the scene over and over again... going over what i did wrong, how i would handle it differently. I told my mom in the cab ...

"I hate what this does to me... the violent side, sitting here looking for black men out of the window of the cab."

But I was lying. I loved the feeling of that fight.  And I wasn't just looking for black men.  I was looking for those men.  I wanted fucking revenge... I wanted to find those fuckers and make them pay for the way they had made my mom scream.  A sound I will never forget.