2002 Summer Manhattan Island, New York
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Why did things turn out like this?
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“Face to the wall!!”
I remembered what face and wall meant, but what did to mean, again…?
They didn’t seem to give a rip that I couldn’t speak English. I mean, they’d had my head shoved up against the stone wall before even giving me this warning (if that was what this was).
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It all started with a lottery held by my local shopping district.
“Coooongratulatiooooons! It’s the grand prize: a five-day, three-night trip to Neeeew Yooooork!”
Accompanied by an aneurism-inducing scream, a bell clanged away.
Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang…
I’d landed in America with that sound still echoing in my ears.
Even though I’d really only wanted the second-prize game console…
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I headed through a forest of skyscrapers, making for the Manhattan Bridge. I’d decided to get Chinese in Chinatown. When you’re not sure what to eat, get noodles: That’s common sense the world over.
This might have been the “grand prize,” but it had come with a minimal travel allowance, so I couldn’t do anything too extravagant. It was so bad that, although the prize had originally been a trip for two, I’d hocked one of the tickets at a secondhand ticket shop and managed to squeeze out some pocket money.
There was a Japanese beef bowl chain in New York, and I was (financially) really attracted to it, but something about seeing the name written in Latin letters bugged me. I hadn’t even been in the city for a day yet, and already I felt starved for the sight of kanji characters.
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As I walked along, thinking about stuff like that, I began hearing raucous voices.
Five or six boys were yelling in a narrow alley that led off the broad avenue. They seemed to be crowded around something, jumping and hollering, so I went a bit closer, just to see. Then a kid who looked like the youngest of the bunch grabbed my hand and smiled at me. “Look, look!” he said.
What was it?
I was curious, so I went farther into the alley and looked into the center of the circle.
—What’s the deal? There’s nothing there.
The second I opened my mouth to say that, I did a double take. The kids—still laughing and hollering—all jumped me at once.
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The rest happened like I said at the beginning.
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I’d always thought that if I got dragged into this sort of trouble, I’d be able to make the right decisions and deal with it on my own… But just look at the reality: They didn’t even give me time to react.
I don’t know what they did to me after that, or how. Before I knew it, I was lying on the sun-warmed asphalt, and by the time I managed to pick myself up, the kids were beating a hasty retreat around the corner.
My first thought was I’m lucky I didn’t get killed, and then I realized they’d taken all my stuff. …Yeah, I wouldn’t call that luck. I probably should have been grateful for my continued existence, but “Once the danger’s past,” et cetera. I even thought, You know, I wish I’d hit ’em back. It’s a seriously self-serving way of thinking, but if you don’t think like that, you’ll go under.
I was just getting started as a wildlife photographer, and I’d brought an expensive camera along on the trip. Result: I lost the whole thing.
Dammit, how many hundreds of thousands of yen do they think that camera cost?! I couldn’t help but be bitter.
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There was nothing to vent my anger on, so I stomped it down, and all I did was contact the police through the hotel. In a way, the fact that I was turning into the stereotypical Japanese victim who shows up in movies and on TV bothered me even more than getting mugged.
The police response was about what I’d expected.
All they gave me was the absolute minimum of the paperwork I’d need to file an insurance claim. A hotel employee who understood a little Japanese had come along with me, and according to him, the police wouldn’t seriously exert themselves over an incident like this. If I’d been obviously injured, or if somebody had threatened me with a gun, things would’ve been different, but…
That said, that camera had been expensive. I’d practically traded my life to get it, and I couldn’t bring myself to just let it go. And anyway, I hadn’t even had the money to get it insured.
If nothing changed, the second I got back to Japan I was probably going to go find the president of the district who’d offered me this trip and kick him in the back of the head out of sheer misdirected resentment.
While imagining hitting the guy with a Shining Wizard once he was on his knees, I desperately stood my ground. The officer was sympathetic, but the mood around here said that they really did have to prioritize murders and other dangerous crimes.
…Then the graying officer glanced over the report again, considered the address where the mugging had gone down, and muttered something.
My interpreter made with the interpreting, and apparently this was what he’d said:
“…You know, you just might get that camera back. Mind you, it’s not really something I can recommend, but…”