“Hi Nick. So sorry to bother you in the middle of the night. I’m locked out of my apartment,” I said, while standing at my building manager’s door at 3 a.m. on Thursday before Halloween. “There are two policemen with me, so don’t freak out when you open the door.” The policemen, stocky men in their late 20s or early 30s, smiled for the first time that evening. The uniform made them look older and bigger.

In a shabby t-shirt and shorts, Nick looked like he had just splashed his face with cold water to wake up. He rushed out barefoot and quickly closed the door behind him. I always thought he looked like a gentle giant: tall with broad shoulders and a baby face. 

“Are you OK?” he asked, taking a couple of steps towards me and hunching over to see my face in the dark hallway. 

“Yes, well…” I smiled and lifted my right hand in a splint that looked like a boxing glove. The two surgeons who treated me at the Kaiser ER said I could now punch people. Then, not sure if I got the joke, added that I probably shouldn’t. 

While Nick went downstairs to the dinghy storage room to get the spare keys, the police and I waited upstairs. He got back soon and as he handed me the keys, offered to help if I needed anything.  

The moment I turned the key in the lock, the police asked me to step away from the door. They pulled their guns, entered my studio, scanning the room. They peeked into the kitchen and the bathroom. No one was there. One of the policemen turned on the light switch as he was leaving the room, smiling. The bright light made me feel more tired and exposed. Maybe he thought it would make me feel safer, like a father who turns on lights and pulls up the bed covers to show his child that there are no monsters under the bed. Maybe he didn’t give it any thought at all. The good news was that no one had been to my apartment. 

I thanked the policemen and Nick, and was glad when they left. I could finally make sense of what had happened. I took off my white and black leopard print scarf and threw it in the laundry basket in the closet. I thought of throwing it away. Standing in the middle of my room, I felt too tired to cry, too anxious to sit down. I began to pace, slowly and deliberately, but still veering off the straight path. That lasted about 30 seconds and then I thought of at least three things I had to do right away: take a shower, cancel my job interview in the morning, and go to bed. 

I needed a survival game plan, but the best I could do was to keep moving from one moment to another, taking care of one small thought at a time. I knew my hand would take a long time to heal, maybe even would need surgery. I had to stay focused and learn to get by with my left hand. 

Following my evening routine was important to me that night — it added some normalcy to the day and it was also my way of not letting what happened take over my life. If I didn’t wash my hair that night or floss my teeth or put on a face cream, I knew I wouldn’t do it the next day and all the days that would follow, and that would mean giving up. 

I put a plastic bag over my splint and wrapped a hair tie around my wrist to keep it dry while I took a shower. In the shower I had to stretch out and elevate my right arm in front of me, away from water. I looked like I was doing a Nazi salute, and that was a disturbing thought. I decided to never think that again. Opening the shampoo bottle turned out to be a challenge: I had to hold the shampoo bottle under my right armpit and use the left hand to take off the cap. I left the bottle open and skipped the conditioner. Something had to give. 

It took forever to put on my pajamas. Then I walked into my kitchen, and “God dammit!” Dirty dishes in the sink. I never leave dirty dishes in the sink, but I was in a hurry to meet my girlfriends at Esther Perel’s talk at the Jewish Center in San Francisco, so decided being on time was more important. And, that was a bad decision. Now I had only one fully functioning hand. I opened the refrigerator to get some water, but then remembered the effort it would take to open a bottle, so drank the tap water instead. 

I didn’t feel any pain, but kept touching the tip of my broken finger, to make sure I could still feel it. The last time I saw it, I couldn’t move it, it was just hanging, twisted to the side. The ER doctors left my index finger out, so I could at least type like a first-grader. The guys were really trying to make me feel better. 

***

4:55 a.m. Using the voice-to-text feature on my iPad, I dictated an email to cancel a job interview in the morning:

Hi Katie,

I’m so sorry I have to cancel tomorrow’s interview with Matt. I was attacked last night in Oakland, and my phone was stolen. I also have a broken finger, spent the night in the emergency room, and need to see a specialist tomorrow. I was wondering if we can reschedule the interview for next week. Please let me know if Matt would be open to that, and what days and times would work best for him.

Once again my sincere apologies for any convenience. Thanks so much for your understanding.

Maria

I put away the iPad and with my hair still wet, went to bed. Lying on my back, I stared at the ceiling. I used a pillow to prop up my right hand, to keep it above my head. I was feeling cold, but the idea of looking for a shirt with a sleeve that would go over the boxing glove-sized splint didn’t seem worth it. Instead, I chose to focus on something I could do without moving, something I was good at: create a to-do list.

1. Set up a Google phone, so I can call people. I’ll just call Anna. Mariposa is probably still on her flight to New York. I hope they weren’t texting me last night after the talk. What if they were? Did they think something was off when I didn’t respond? 
2. Cancel all credit cards. I think I took care of Chase and CapitalOne at the hospital. May need to double-check, they were unclear about security and mailing a new card.
3. Text mom to tell her I’m busy this Saturday and can’t Skype. She cannot know what happened, this would kill her.  
4. Get a new phone. Will get an iPhone 7, or the cheapest version that still supports my favorite apps. Oh, I can now leave AT&T — today was my last billing day. I’m going to T-Mobile. This is what it took for me to switch. 
5. Follow up with Patrick regarding the assignment. I can still do it, I’ll just need an extension. What if I need surgery? God, this is the worst timing.  
6. Order plastic spoons and forks, paper plates, paper cups. It’ll take forever to wash dishes with one hand. I’ll recycle. What else? Electric toothbrush. 
7. Report my stolen ID at the DMV.
8. Learn to write with my left hand. 
9. Call Highland in the morning. The ER surgeon said I could just walk in, right? Why did he send me there? Is that where all the uninsured go? They looked concerned when they were going over the X-rays. He said something about phalanges, they didn’t align. 

5:20 a.m. Crying, without tears. They were kids. Four or five teenagers: girls and one 10-12 year-old boy, wearing masks, jumping around, making eerie noises. Why did I keep walking with my earphones in my ears, looking ahead, ignoring them?

It was a beautiful, rare warm October evening in the Bay Area. Lake Merritt looked peaceful with its rim of year-around lights connected to the old lamp posts, looking a bit like Christmas. I knew it wasn’t the safest area to walk at night, and, as a matter of fact, I usually avoided that walk. But it was a beautiful night. And, the yellow line train was running late. I was going to transfer at the Lake Merritt station. But at the last minute decided to get out at Lake Merritt and walk. I felt pretty in my black A-line skirt that came down just below my knees, a bright pink blouse with a new necklace — fake pearls with little black velvet bows in-between. It was a beautiful night. I was listening to a New Yorker podcast, an interview with a writer of yet another Cold War-era spy novel, this one based on true stories. My summer wedges were comfortable, I could run in them. 

Why didn’t I run?! Why didn’t I just throw my bag and phone at them and run, run as fast as I could? 

There’s no security in my building. What if they come back for more? 

“In 99% of these cases, they never go to the house or apartment,” said one of the policemen, when I told him I was afraid they would show up at my place. 

I stared at him, tears still wet on my face, holding my right hand in my left, with palms open. He wasn’t making sense to me. “99% of the time I don’t get attacked or have my bones broken while walking home from Bart,” I thought. 

“What if they do this time?” I said. 

They sent a car to check while I was in the ER. 

After I was discharged from the ER, I called the police and asked them to take me home. My Oakland friends were out of town. I didn’t want to disturb anyone farther away. I didn’t have any money on me. I wasn’t sure if I had any cash at home, since I’d just taken out money from the bank that afternoon and left it in my purse — something I rarely did. Another bad decision.

But the bigger reason why I didn’t want to go home alone was because I was afraid. Really afraid. I didn’t have my keys and didn’t know any of my neighbors’ names or phone numbers. I didn’t even have Nick’s number, and the property management company was never helpful. I didn’t want to be stranded at 2:00 am outside. I had enough exposure for one night.

6:00 a.m. I finally closed my eyes. They wouldn’t come now. 

“Don’t scream. Stop screaming,” said one of the girls as they lay on top of me. They had made a beeline across the street and jumped from behind. I felt the grass and saw a deserted, grey pavement. They were trying to take my phone and the purse, and I was clinging to both, crouched up on the ground. I screamed. I didn’t feel my finger getting broken. They finally got what they wanted and ran. I got up and began to walk in the middle of the street, shivering. I had taken just a few steps when I heard “C’mon, get in” and saw a black SUV across the street in front of me a few feet away. The front passenger door was open and a middle-aged black woman waved to me. “Hurry,” she said.

“Can I trust you?” I said. That’s exactly how people avoid getting kidnapped, they ask if they can trust a stranger inviting them into his car and, if the answer is ‘no’,  they politely decline the invitation and move on. What was I thinking?! 

Except, I wasn’t thinking. I was scared, but trusted anyway and walked towards the car. What other option did I have? 

“Yes, yes… Quickly, get in. We saw what happened,” she said. 

They were a couple, the man was driving. I was crying. I don’t remember everything I said in the car, but I remember saying that I just needed my ID, I’d be in trouble without it and wouldn’t be able to get a job. I thought I had my immigration card in the purse. 

We started to chase the kids. They broke off and ran in different directions. At one point, the driver stopped the car and got out to catch up with the 10-12 year old boy. 

I jumped out of the car and asked the kid to give me back my ID. He was a skinny guy with either a confident or extremely scared face, I couldn’t tell. He shrugged his shoulders, kept moving, and said he didn’t have it. There was no trace of remorse or regret on his face, and I desperately wanted to see that. We got back into the car and that’s when I noticed my right ring finger looked displaced. 

The couple asked me what I wanted to do: go to the police or to the ER first. Since the police station was just a few blocks away, that’s where we went. It took a lot of maneuvering and breaking traffic rules for the police to finally notice us. We were invisible to them.

“On any other day, they’d be stopping me for nothing,” said the man. “Now they won’t even…” We finally got noticed and pulled into the parking lot by the police station, where a few police cars were parked. 

6:35 a.m. The night’s events kept coming up, like a slideshow, except no one had ordered or timed the slides. 

“Don’t worry, we won’t drop you. What’s today? Thursday? We don’t drop people on Thursdays. We do that on Mondays,” said one of the paramedics as they talked me into laying down on the stretcher and got ready to take me into the ER.

A few seconds earlier, when they’d just started to move the stretcher I jumped up, startling the paramedics who were gentle and attentive with me all along. They just didn’t know how much I hated being on a stretcher. The moment they started to move me, I had a flashback to the time when I got severely burned and spent months in recovery at a burn center. I was 10 years old and spent a lot of time on a gurney, being shuttled between rooms and examination tables. I hated it. I hated all the places they took me on it and all the pain I felt while laying on it. It all came back the moment the paramedics lifted the stretcher.  

As I lay in my bed, I traced the reflection of the streetlamp light on the ceiling and the wall as it curved and bent, sneaking through the tree branches and the blades of my window blinds. I saw hollow eyes and screaming mouths, masks popping up and dancing at the slightest movement of the leaves and branches. Then I closed my eyes and the silence soothed me. I craved silence. 

7:15 a.m. Twilight was breaking. Thoughts finally stopped and I let go of the night.

To be continued…