Live by the Panga, Die by the Panga

We just went out to get some beer. And then it happened.

Max, Ralph, and I were in Tanzania, staying out in the middle of nowhere, in a tiny village near Kilimanjaro called Uswaa, for the past two nights, at the childhood home of our guide, Kakasii. He was the last-born child and so, according to Chagga tradition, the maintenance of his mother’s home/farm was his responsibility; every one of his siblings would come here for two weeks at Christmas every year and the house sure as hell better be standing and well-stocked. Last Christmas, they slaughtered some outrageous number of animals for those gathered at the house--a dozen cows, a dozen goats, chickens, etc. Call me a city boy, but it’s hard to even estimate how much meat that is; but it sounds like A LOT.

It wasn’t Christmas, but all of Kakasii’s siblings were in town because their mother was deathly ill at the local hospital. At his insistence, we went to visit her and it was one of the most prolonged awkward moments of my life. All around me, crammed into rooms, crammed into hallways, people were ill, people were dying. Loved ones were near, dedicated doctors scurried from one patient to the next, everybody stared at the three white guys strolling through, and the same thought ran through my head in a never-ending loop--

‘Hold your breath, don’t touch anything, don’t catch anything, meningitis can be transmitted through the air, along with who knows what else. Holy shit, these poor people, so many of them might die, who knows what they have, but the worst of them will infect the best of them, they’re too close together, I’m too close...holy shit, I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to catch anything they have, holy shit, this is like asking to be taken to the best place to get the worst disease imaginable. Why did I let them take me here? And yet I know that Kakasii, quickly a good friend, wants us to be here, to meet his mother, to talk to her, to brighten her day, to help make things better. Best intentions. It would be rude to ask to leave. But it would be worse to get meningitis or leprosy or whatever the hell else they’re cultivating in here...’

I met his mother, held her hand, spoke to her in elementary Swahili and simple English, told her that I hoped she got better, wished for probably the first time that I had the crutch of religion to fall back onto, to resort to in this exceedingly uncomfortable situation. It would be so easy to say, “My prayers are with you...” or something like that, and yet I could not do it, could not say it, could not lie; and so my time on the hot seat was all the more blistering.

I wished I had a private audience, knowing she would not know the difference if I recited Shakespeare or read the paper, as it is with infants, but she was constantly surrounded by her daughters and the wives of her sons, who rotated shifts, one woman always by her side. The judging ears of these nearby and bilingual-enough women held me to a higher standard than the dying woman ever would have herself. Shit, what a test of faith. But I stood firm and stuck to my good-natured atheism. I have no idea what matter of useless bullshit I said, but I hope it helped.

Outside the hospital, as we waited for a few familial stragglers to say hello before visiting hours ended, we ran into one of Kakasii’s older brothers, Clemence, for the second time that day. Earlier, Kakasii had driven us by Clemence’s small chemistry shop off the main road--it was a store that, by all accounts, sold nothing but Bunsen burners, beakers, and laboratory chemicals, yet seemed to expect / rely on walk-in traffic, in the least-likely location you could ever imagine--an iPod repair shop in Antarctica would get more traffic.

You can actually research our presence there, if you wish, as the Tanzanian custom of excessive documentation was in full force at Clemence’s shop--we all had to sign a guestbook that proved we were there, even though we just popped in to say hello. The weirdest part about all the sign-in books in Tanzania was that they always asked how old you were and what your occupation was; why do these things matter? Later, on our trek up Kilimanjaro, we decided to get creative with our occupations at each camp check-in: ghost, wizard, blowhard, etc. Nobody noticed.

On our way back from the hospital--well, out of the way, really--we stopped off to trade in some of our delightfully-empty beer bottles for more-delightful full ones. The closest bar/store to the family farm happened to be right across the street from Clemence’s house, so, naturally, we had to stop in and say hello.

Well, it wasn’t his house, exactly--he and his family lived in a supposedly-enormous house in the former capital and largest city, Dar Es Salaam, an 8-hour drive away--this was his Christmas house. Like all seven of his siblings, ever since he left it, Clemence returns to his childhood home in Uswaa, for two weeks a year, in December. As a man of impressive means, it did not take long for him to outgrow crashing on the couch of his little brother’s house, so he built one of his own nearby, for comfort; it was an inarguable island of luxury in a sea of poverty.

According to local standards, the Christmas house was impressive for sure; it was not made of cow shit, it had a floor, windows, doors, multiple rooms, a garage, electricity, a houseboy we were never introduced to...and this was only his Christmas house. Evidently, as hinted at earlier in our trip, Kakasii and his family were some of the richest people around. Kakasii and Clemence are two of eight children of one of their father’s four wives; their grandfather had nine wives and pretty much ran the entire village of Uswaa; nearly everybody we met in Uswaa was related to Kakasii by blood or marriage.


After insisting we have a drink before we leave his house, as is Chagga custom, and then also insisting that he would only have dinner at his own brother’s house if we invited him, Clemence prepared to depart for dinner around the fire at Kakasii’s. As the houseboy scurried around, picking things up, Clemence grabbed his jacket and an oddly-shaped black shoulder bag of some kind.

“What’s that?” I asked.

Without answering me, he laid the bag down and opened it up; inside was a pristine, matte-black, sawed-off shotgun. My mouth hung open. I hate guns. I never want to see one in person. I never want to be around one. I think guns are the single worst invention in the history of mankind. They bring nothing but destruction.

“I won’t use it, but since I’ll be coming home alone...”

Kakasii raced over, grabbed the shotgun, emptied out what seemed to be a dozen shells, then wildly waved it around the room, pretending to be a cowboy or robber or something. Max, Ralph, and I all tried in vain to avoid having it point at us, but that wasn’t working very well, so I moved over behind Kakasii and followed him as he spun around pretending to kill imaginary bad guys, as excited as a child at Christmas. Thankfully there were no accidents.

Outside, the three of us piled into Clemence’s immaculate white Nissan SUV, along with Kakasii’s wife, Rosie. Clemence’s white car has a white leather interior, in rural Tanzania, one of the dustiest, dirtiest places on Earth.

“How do you keep it white?”
“I never roll the windows down--always A.C.”

I sat down in the back, next to Rosie, and Clemence thrust the sawed-off shotgun between my legs.

“You need to hold this for me.”

I didn’t want to touch it, so it rattled around between my legs, butt on the floor, muzzle pointed at the roof, for the entire bumpy, unnecessarily-air-conditioned ride back to the village. From the driver’s seat, Clemence talked a mile a minute, asking us about Obama, about the political situation back home in general, about what the American blacks were like, etc. It was somewhat difficult to hear what Clemence was saying, though--especially in the backseat--since he was competing with the powerful lungs of Celine Dion, whose Beauty and the Beast jams were blasting out of his stereo--by choice, on CD. About halfway through the journey, in sheer disbelief at where we were and what we were doing, my brother turned to me from the front passenger seat.

“Happy 30th birthday.”

His crooked smile said it all. I was not alone. This was what we came here for. This was an absolutely unpredictable, insane, beautiful moment we were sharing. This was the intoxicating reward adventure had to offer.

But adventure also has a price.

We just went out to check our email. And then it happened.


Our allotted four days in Uswaa village over, we said our goodbyes to fast friends young and old and headed back to Arusha, the big city near Kilimanjaro. Our climb was to begin in a couple days, and we had to prepare. The first step was meeting with our guide.

Kakasii’s friend Clemence (not his brother, also named Clemence) was an eminently-qualified guide up Kilimanjaro--he grew up on its slopes, had been climbing it since he was a young man, was the president of the climbing guide association, brought lawsuits against negligent/shady climbing companies, fought for pay raises for the porters--but he was also the biggest drag of our entire trip to Africa.

How could we have fallen so far from where we were last night? So far we had met so many warm, friendly people and Clemence was cold as an icebox. He was disappointed we didn’t prepare questions about the flora and fauna of the Mt. Kilimanjaro National Park. He was concerned that we didn’t bring sleeping bags and walking poles, even though our paperwork said those would be provided for us. He was worried that we did not understand how much water we should be drinking on our climb (we did). He tried to insinuate, calmly, that we were stupid and that we would die up there. It was not a good meeting. Our delicious African bubble had burst.


You see, we had been in the middle of nowhere for four days. How far in the middle of nowhere? It took Kakasii over five years to convince the local power company to allow him to pay for electric wires to be strung to his house. They had to run the cable for 1.5 miles. As soon as he left the farm, to return to his house in Arusha, somebody stole the power cable to sell for scrap across the border, in Kenya, for a penny on the dollar. So Kakasii had to re-string it and hire somebody to keep an eye on it--his houseboy, whom he never introduced to us, who might as well have been a ghost, who was evidently not the father of his son, a fact Kakasii brought up to me on at least two occasions, making me wonder if he was trying to tell me that he was the father. More likely, he was just proud to have the gossip at his disposal, proud that nobody could say that about him (as far as he knows), proud that he is more of a man than his houseboy.

Kakasii also revealed two other interesting tidbits during our time in Uswaa. Our first day there, while giving us a tour of the village, surprising all matter of unprepared locals with a trio of unexpected white men popping forth from the bushes, he casually mentioned that he had personally beaten a man to death for stealing a chicken from a neighbor.

“The guy who lived here in this house was a thief. Real bad thief. Real bad. So, one night, I got some peoples together, and we wait. And he sneak out and went to the neighbor’s to steal a chicken. I had a witness, and I beat him real bad. Real bad. In the morning, he was dead. Over here is the house of my brother--well, he is not my brother, but I can say he is my brother because he is very close to me...”

“Huh? Did he just tell us he’s a murderer?”
“Yes. Yes, he did.”

The other revelation hit closer to home. Our good-natured and talented cook, Moussa, hadn’t been feeling well ever since we met him. Toward the end of our time together, Kakasii told us as much.

“Moussa’s not feeling well. Probably malaria.”
“What?!”

Malaria, the omnipresent coiled cobra of whose strike we lived in constant fear, had reared its fanged head. Like a slap in the face, I suddenly realized that none of the locals were covered at all times in 100% DEET mosquito repellant; none of the locals were popping Malarone every day. I guess they just rolled the dice--and often lost.

Despite his apparent illness, Moussa continued to cook for us, load and unload the car for us, and sleep outside in a tent so we could be inside in beds. After we headed into Arusha to prepare for the Kilimanjaro climb, Kakasii dropped Moussa off at the hospital to be examined. Diagnosis: malaria. Presumably, Moussa spent the next 2-3 weeks nailed to a bed, under the vicious influence of the least-expensive, most-intense, hallucinogenic malaria medication available. I hope he survived.

But I digress.


Back in Arusha, the three of us said our temporary goodbyes to Clemence #2 and Kakasii--post-pre-climb meeting--and retreated upstairs to our hotel rooms. We all immediately agreed we hated Clemence and that we were no longer terribly excited about our climb. We yearned for the warmth and possibility of Uswaa. Max was tired and turned in for the night; Ralph and I both yearned for a little fresh air, a little physical activity, a little local brew, a little more venting, maybe even a little communication with loved ones very far away from all this.

Before I left the hotel, at my brother’s urging, I emptied my pockets of everything but about $10 in local currency. It was the best decision of the entire trip.

I met Ralph in the lobby, where he was asking our sweet-but-fairly-ignorant receptionist where we might be able to find internet access, since our hotel did not offer it, for some reason, despite the fact that it had one of the only elevators we saw in the entire country and was made almost entirely out of marble, and was therefore a luxury hotel aimed at business travelers, who like to use the internet. She had no idea where we could find it, but said we should take a taxi. Take a taxi to where? Hmmm...

We set off on foot and I immediately regretted it. We were headed for ‘the clocktower,’ which we both had seen several times before, but the exact location of which we were hardly certain. I was freshly showered, feeling good, feeling fit, and on alert, but as we walked the streets, I couldn’t help but feel like I had flashing lights mounted to my head, with a siren blaring:

“WHITE MAN! WHITE MAN! WHITE MAN! WHITE MAN!”

In the dark-as-hell, middle-of-nowhere, 7pm Arusha night, with every single ramshackle shop closed for the evening, and bug-eyed eyeballs tracking us from every shadow, it was impossible not to feel like a target for somebody, for at least the most desperate among them.

As my initial butterflies began morphing into silent screams of “Go back! Run away! Tell Ralph we shouldn’t do this!” I heard a loud whistle. I immediately thought that it might be a signal to somebody, some kind of perverted ‘dinner bell,’ communicating to the criminals-at-large the fact that there are white tourists wandering around at night, so come and get ‘em. My eyes darted around even more than before, my fists clenched, my muscles flexed--I was ready for combat, despite how futile it usually is, especially when ambushed and outnumbered.

Ralph and I agreed we would turn left, because I thought the clocktower was in that direction, but if we got to the bridge up ahead and couldn’t see it, we would turn back. All the hairs on my body (and there are a fair amount of them--sorry, ladies) stood on end. Would we make it?

Everybody I had met in this country so far was a warm and welcoming host, yet we all know there is also a dark side to Africa. There is poverty and starvation and malcontent on a grand scale, there are wars, evil dictators, pirates...but this is all beside the point. There are areas of cities in the United States where one should not walk after dark. There are just certain places you should not be, if you can help it. And that’s exactly where we were.

(photo courtesy of www.smh.com.au)

I sensed them coming before I should have; they were fast, it was dark, and we were easy prey. But I did. I don’t know how--Spideysense? I turned to see three guys running at Ralph with pangas (local version of a machete) raised above their heads. I immediately turned to run, knowing that is always the best move if you think of it in time, being a recent veteran of this situation, sadly.

“Ralph! Run! Run!”

As I ran away, I saw two guys that had been heading for me give up and change direction--they joined the others and swarmed Ralph instead. He didn’t stand a chance.

“Run! Ralph! Run! Run!”

I didn’t know what else to do. I figured he could still get away. I figured the attackers were just bluffing and all he needed to do was run and he would be okay.

It’s always easy to assume that, to say that, but when you’re actually there, in the moment, staring at some creepy, breathless dude with a blade trained on your face, it makes way more sense to just stand still and let him take what he wants. All that runs through your head is the advice you always hear from people who’ve been through it before:

“Whatever you have on you is not worth your life. Whatever you have on you is replaceable, don’t fight back, don’t be a hero, that’s how people wind up being dead for no good reason.”

And it’s true. It very well could be the case that this guy is just figuring you’ll shit your pants and let him have his way, and he never planned on using the weapon, but it’s equally as likely that he is a deranged lunatic who would just as soon slice your head off as look at you. It could be a guy on a power trip, a guy with something to prove. How does one determine how crazy somebody is by looking at them? How does one measure at a glance the desperation and fury in a man’s soul?

Now imagine there are five of them. You’re in the middle of darkest Africa. And they all have rusty machetes raised above your head, shouting in broken English to give them your money.

I stood about twenty-five feet away, ignored, watching it all happen. Ralph stood in the middle of the crowd, calmly saying “No, no. Come on. No...” as the five assailants picked at his pockets. I knew I couldn’t leave him here, I couldn’t run away, but what could I do to help? What should I do?

I walked back over toward Ralph and two machete-wielding assholes quickly converged on me. Just like Ralph, I was strangely calm. I was crossing my fingers they were not the type to actually use those machetes and glad to only have $10 on me, tucked away in a secret zipper pocket of my pants. I raised my hands like a police negotiator walking in to a bank heist.

“Give us your money!”
“I don’t have any money.”
“Give us your money!”
“I don’t have any!”

I watched over their shoulders as Ralph tumbled into the street with one of the other attackers. I was confused--why didn’t they just take what he had and run away? What was this guy going to do to him? I didn’t even want to consider the possibilities.

Traffic stopped on the somewhat congested thoroughfare--rush-hour traffic, I suppose--as this guy sat astride Ralph in the middle of the street. One of the guys accosting me at the time grew frustrated with my tack, yanked out my right pants pocket, and sliced it out with his panga. Then the guys all ran away.

I figured I might only have one shot at this guy on top of Ralph, so I’d better make it count. I ran as fast as I could, into the street, straight at the guy, leapt off the ground, raised a knee, and smashed into his ribs. I knocked him to the ground. His machete went flying.

I went over to see if Ralph was okay. He was. He got to his feet and we were both standing in the middle of the street, cars honking at us. We turned to see a crowd of people running right for us and froze in fear.

Luckily, they were not coming to finish the job; they were the good guys. Well, actually, as it turned out they were coming to finish the job--our job.

Not thirty seconds after Ralph’s attacker fell to the pavement, a total stranger was booting him in the face with abandon. Then another went after his ribs. One by one, a mob of people--regular people, the Arusha version of you and I, commuters waiting for the bus home, students, etc--ran over and stomped on this guy. He cowered from the blows, reacted to the blows, but did not avoid them, did not run from them. Was he too weak? Was he too injured from the first one? Did he simply know that at this point his fate was inevitable? Was he doing penance? Was he surrendering to death?

Several of the bystanders ran across the street, grabbed enormous railroad-tie-sized pieces of wood and beat him til they broke.

I scrambled to see what of our possessions we could recover--I found my pen, oddly the most valuable thing I owned at the time--next to my passport, and Ralph’s White Sox hat, but that was it; my brother’s Tanzania guidebook was gone. I felt really bad about that; I know how much he loved it.

Ralph turned to me with a look of despair.

“They got my passport. And my credit cards. And my license, and my cash, and my checkbook...they got everything. Everything!”
“What the fuck? Why did you have all that on you?”
“I don’t know!”

I checked the back pocket of the guy being beaten and found a wallet. I opened it. Nothing whatsoever inside. Empty.

Two guys approached Ralph and I and asked us, in English, if the attackers got our passports. We told him they got Ralph’s. They checked the beaten guy’s front pocket and found his stash--amazingly, Ralph recovered his passport, credit cards, and driver’s license. The guy with his checkbook (useless here) and cash ($50) got away.

In a surreal detachment from the scene playing out before us, from what had just happened to us, we felt strangely fine--violated, for sure, but, at the same time, lucky that things didn’t turn out as bad as they could have. I was now missing a pocket and we were down $60--could have been much worse.

And then we realized the mob was planning to beat this guy to death in the street. They were not stopping. It was not a beating to teach him a lesson, it was a beating to teach others a lesson, to teach others that if you steal they will show you no mercy, they will kill you with their hands and feet and anything else nearby.

And so our consciences thrust us into the awkward--and potentially dangerous--situation of trying to rescue our attacker. We shouted at the crowd to stop, told them it would do no good to kill him, that it would solve nothing, and tried to shoo them away. We even got between them and their victim.

It worked about as well as I could have hoped, with only the occasional strike venturing through the white-man’s invisible, waved-hand force-field.

Ralph told the two guys who knew English and helped us earlier that he wanted to talk to the cops. They told him the cops would not come, but Ralph still wanted to wait for them. Since I didn’t necessarily want to start the scary journey back to the hotel just yet, I didn’t mind sticking around for a bit, surrounded by people, waiting; but it was not like I really wanted to stay there, either. Ideally we would have been teleported back to our beds at the hotel.

At some point, a security vehicle--think Tanzanian Rent-A-Cop--pulled up. I had seen the same vehicle drive by twice before and not stop, but for some reason it did this time. Perhaps somebody flagged them down and they were bored enough to see what was the matter.

At any rate, they came over and dragged the unconscious, beaten criminal into the back of their pick-up SUV. Turns out one of the guys who spoke to us in English earlier had also been robbed by these guys, not long before us, and he wanted to take this one to the station and press charges, file a claim.

“If you want to talk to the cops, you have to come with us.”

Ralph and I looked at each other, unsure.

“Is this cool?” Ralph asked.
“Sure.”

I didn’t think it was a great idea, but I also couldn’t think of a better one and I figured it would be one more leg of the adventure, so why not? At least we were together, at least we were not injured, at least we were not alone, at least we didn’t have to walk the gauntlet back to the hotel.

As we sped through the pitch-black streets, Ralph shouted over the wind at our newfound friend, who stood up in the back, holding onto the rollbar, clutching aloft the assailant’s rusted panga, planning to submit it as evidence.

“Where’s the police station?”
“Close.”
“How far?”
“Not far.”
“How far?!”

Ralph was shouting, impatient, wanting information. I started to get freaked out--where were we going? Where would we end up? How did we know we were being taken to a police station? What would the police be like?

As an unstoppable chill cruised up my spine, I suddenly felt a hand on my knee.

I looked down to see the no-longer-unconscious attacker, covered in blood, grabbing at my knee, mumbling something in Swahili. I instantly realized I did not want this guy’s blood on me, because of what may or may not be in it and because this was my only pair of pants--and it already had a fucking pocket sliced out, thanks to his friends.

I booted him in the face.

“Get the fuck off me! Get off me!”

I booted him a few more times before he got the hint. I think he went unconscious again. We rolled into the parking lot of the police station and everybody hopped out.

The Rent-A-Cops dragged the assailant’s body inside. We followed. They deposited him underneath a flip-up counter-top, like you might see at an old coffee shop or library checkout counter. A large police officer immediately walked over, flipped up the counter, and booted the criminal in the face. He then dragged him by the collar and propped him up against the back wall, about twenty feet from where we were standing.

Another police officer passed through the area on the other side of the counter and gave our assailant a boot in the ribs, us a thumbs-up. I did not return the gesture. Where were all these guys when we needed them? A vicious brawl in the middle of the street at 7:30pm, and not a cop to be found? And yet here they were plentiful as pollen.

Another officer smiled at us as he kicked the guy.

“Good job!”

We didn’t know how to respond. We didn’t.

The police station was an insanely strange place, to say the least. It felt like the customer counter at an electronics wholesaler; you know they have a huge warehouse in back, they have everything you could ever want in stock, and plenty more you don’t want, but you are only granted access to a tiny room staffed by four or five guys that come and go as they please, bringing you only what you specifically ask for after perusing their 9000-page catalog.

This particular warehouse just happened to have jail cells behind it that looked like they belonged in the Count of Monte Cristo. The history in here was sickening to think about.

The scrawny young deskbound officer assigned to our case started asking us questions about what happened and quickly gravitated to the other victim who rode with us in the Rent-A-Cop SUV, since he spoke Swahili. This being the case, he got to tell his story first. I zoned out and watched the desk clerk at work.

Rather than pull out a form of some kind (Victim’s Report, Witness’ Account, etc), he grabbed a blank piece of paper from under the desk. Next, he grabbed a nearby book (pleasure read) and used it as a crude ruler to draw straight lines on the blank paper. Once a satisfactory grid was formed, he began writing down the facts, I assume, since I can’t read Swahili.

I laughed to myself--they can’t even afford to have a pre-made form? They have to draw lines on paper every time they need to write something down? Who is ever going to look at this form? It is just going to end up in a stack of papers in a corner somewhere, never to see the light of day.

Ralph called Kakasii on a borrowed cell phone--the guy who had retrieved his passport earlier had driven over to the police station to see if he could be of any further help to us. Talk about an all-around swell guy. Luckily, Kakasii had given us his business card that day, for no discernible reason. Luckily, we got it back from the guy who stole it from Ralph.

As Ralph stepped away to place the call, I had a look around the room.

Next to us, a guy about my age, but bigger, stronger, more incensed, local, snatched his belongings, one by one, as a shit-scared man on the other side of the counter, the criminal side, emptied his pockets of its contents. He must have dumped out seven sets of keys, all apparently belonging to this guy next to me, along with a cell phone, money, and whatever else. It seemed to go on forever. I wondered how his attacker was apprehended, but didn’t ask. Next to him, it seemed as though the same thing was happening with another guy; I was watching a regular assembly line of botched thievery.

Along the back wall, our attacker was conscious again. He was moaning at us, loudly, unintelligibly, pleading with us in Swahili. A police officer walking by looked at me.

“They’re always sorry when they get caught.”

He then booted him in the ribs and dragged him into a nearby cell.

Ralph told the desk clerk his account of the incident. The only thing the desk clerk wrote down was '60,000'--the amount of Tanzanian shillings stolen from him. The clerk had no desire to write down Ralph's name, Kakasii's name and phone number, or any information about the attack.


Kakasii arrived at the police station with Clemence #2. I guess they had gone out to dinner after our Kilimanjaro meeting, probably to catch up on their lives and talk about us. So far from home, in such a strange situation, after such a shocking predicament, it was good to see a friend.

Oddly, Kakasii insisted on seeing what our attacker looked like, in case he knew him. He wanted to go back into the cell and get a look at him. He had to ask one of the officers several times, had to persuade him and his supervisor, and finally got his way. A compromise--they would bring the guy back out into the area behind the counter. They did. Kakasii stepped behind the counter and took a good look; he did not recognize him.

One of the officers dragged the assailant back into the cell, where he would most likely die overnight from internal injuries. I mean, it certainly didn’t seem as though he would be receiving medical attention anytime soon. He was an asshole, for sure, but did he deserve to be beaten to death for his crime? No.

A man walked over with a bucket of water and a towel and began sopping up the large puddle of blood that had formed where the guy had briefly rested. I thought about what might be in that blood, about how that guy might have cuts in his hand, about how that guy is probably being paid $0.50 a day to mop up blood in the jail all day, with his bare hands. How many times can one play Russian roulette before one loses? But, then again, if it’s between gambling with AIDS and starvation from lack of employment, the choice becomes easier, I guess.

I hope I never have to make that call.

Sitting in Kakasii’s safari-modified Nissan SUV, outside the police station, he and Clemence told us an interesting fact about the police in Tanzania. They do not go out at night because they will be killed. During the day, they can be undercover, and supposedly every fifth man is a cop, and you will be informed on and arrested for such petty crimes as ‘speaking ill of a woman.’ At night, they must wear their uniforms, and so they all hide in the police station.

Kakasii and Clemence both clucked their tongues, wishing it were not so, but aware they are powerless to change things on their own.

“That is the problem with Africa,” they said for neither the first nor last time.

Kakasii drove us to check our email at some other hotel, despite the fact that neither of us wanted to at this point. Ralph and I sat at two computers, our backs to each other, and made a pact that we wouldn’t tell anybody about this until we returned safely home, so as not to worry anybody any more than they already were.

Ralph asked me why I had tackled the guy in the street and I told him I thought he was going to do something awful, because I couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t just run away once he got what he wanted.

“He was trying to run away--but when I saw him grab my passport, I locked my hands around his wrists and wouldn’t let go. He tried to run away anyway and so we fell into the street.”

Even though the incident was now safely in the past, I was relieved to know that my worst fears were not true. I was also relieved Ralph has the finger strength of a Terminator. Had his passport been stolen, we would have had to cancel our mountain climb and spend 3 days in Dar Es Salaam waiting for a new one from the embassy.



Five days later, as I stood atop Mt.Kilimanjaro--19,340-feet above sea level--towering over the rest of the continent, limp from exertion, crying for no particular reason, it was hard not to reflect on our trip, on what we had been through, what we had accomplished. We experienced first-hand the love and warmth of strangers in an impoverished but jovial rural village, snorkeled the pristine Indian Ocean off the coast of Zanzibar, watched as twelve lions tore apart a fresh zebra carcass in a national park, toured a hospital packed with lost causes, been held up by five desperate guys with machetes, and watched one of them get beaten in the street by onlookers. It was a hell of an adventure and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Except next time, I’ll take a cab to check my email.

The Lineup

March 17, 2008. Los Angeles.

This past Wednesday, I was supposed to be at the police station on Venice Boulevard at 5:30pm. I was late. I had forgotten it was so far away. And I had been dreading it all week, so it's not like I was in a hurry to get there.

The Detective on my case called to make sure I was on my way and I was surprised to hear how nonchalant he sounded; I had expected a reprimand of some kind, or at least a little sternness or something. Nothing--I might as well have been calling a friend to tell her I'd be five minutes late for drinks.

I parked right out front and approached the front door to the station. A large black woman blocked the doorway, on her way out, moving at a remarkably slow pace.

"We closed."

"Huh?" The police station is closed? How...hard to believe. I stood there for a second, planning my next move.

"You lookin' for the traffic school?"

"No..."

"Oh, you want the next door. That way."

"Thanks."

I walked over to the next set of doors and they clearly led to the same wing that was now evidently ‘closed.’ I looked around a series of obstructing columns and saw another set of doors. A handful of schoolchildren stood in front of them. White lettering informed me to USE OTHER DOORS. I kept walking in the same direction, to find more and more doors. Police cadets were lined up in formation along the walkway. They looked at me funny. There was such a random assortment of people buzzing around that I felt like I was on a movie set, where there is always a far-too-convenient assortment of people buzzing around, to make every scene more 'dynamic.' This did not feel like a real police station at all; I was getting creeped out. Where the hell was the main entrance?

Although I hadn’t done anything wrong, I was definitely feeling nervous. Walking into the hornets' nest, as it were. As a career sinner--at least in the eyes of the law--I am never happy to see cops, even when they're just innocently passing by, doing their jobs to keep me safe or whatever. I always expect them to catch me absentmindedly jaywalking or driving two miles over the speed limit, forgetting I had an open bottle of liquor in the back of my car, peeing in public, driving on an out-of-state license despite the fact that I've lived in LA for four years...you get the point. There’s always something.

Sometimes I get so nervous when a cop drives behind me, even while 100% sober, that I actually envision running somebody over while secretly watching my rearview mirror the whole time. This makes me even more nervous behind the wheel and, thus, increases its potential reality. I'd feel horrible. I'd go to jail. It'd be awful. And, to top it off, everybody would think I was stupid. I can hear the raspy, mocking voice of my psychopathic cellmate now:

"You ran somebody over while a cop was tailin’ ya?! Jesus, listen kid--if you're gonna run somebody over, do it when there ain't no COPS around...idiot. Now let me borrow your toe for a second..."

Were they going to smell something on me? Find something on me? Shit--I didn't even check my pockets! I even check my pockets and luggage with special care when I go to the airport, but I don't think of it when I'm going into a police station? Idiot! I'm not sure what would have been in my pockets, but if there WAS something in them, and I walked straight into a police station with it on me, and they searched me or something, as a standard procedure, and I got caught, I'd feel pretty stupid. I could see the headline:

"Man arrested after walking into police station for routine lineup with unlicensed firearm and kilo of heroin absent-mindedly duct-taped to thigh. 'I forgot they were there!' Moron says."

This is how nervous this lineup had made me. Why was I nervous when I had done nothing wrong? I didn't think I could identify either of the guys who robbed me.

Now, I'm normally a pretty observant fellow, which is partly why this story is so long, but that night my mind was racing too fast in too many directions. I was simply walking home from where I parked my car and then--WHAM--I was suddenly being robbed! Right across the street from my building! On one of the biggest/busiest streets in Los Angeles! I was freaking out. I was wondering if they had a gun, if they were going to kill me, if I should try to run away--I wasn't checking my assailants' faces for birthmarks and cheekbone prominence.

I never thought this ‘lineup’ situation would arise--how often is a suspect in a mugging actually apprehended? Yet, in this particular case, the police department investigated so thoroughly that they actually had a suspect in custody, without any help from me, who thought stupidly that it could not, would not be done.

Here we were. They got him. If I couldn't identify him, he could be set free; all that hard work, ON MY BEHALF, for naught. The cops left wondering why they even bother trying to help, when stupid people like me can't even do a simple thing like recognize the guy that robbed them. And so, my inability to identify said criminal might result in that criminal being on the loose once more. A criminal with my home address and apartment number (and cell phone, iPod, credit cards, etc). A criminal that might be a little pissed off about spending a month getting pushed around by 'the man' in the county jail. I almost wished that he had never been caught.

I was sweating. I was looking around and couldn't help but feel like I was in Paul Verhoeven's Detroit. Was this the police station he used for Robocop? It sure looked like it. The paint on the doorjamb seemed fifty years old, yet the station looked modern in design. Everything was hyper-institutional, drab, dirty, smelly, WORN. I expected a laser beam fired by a malfunctioning robot to end my days at any moment.

Instead, I walked into what had to be the main door, because there were none left, and a friendly officer standing behind the desk smiled at me and asked me if he could help. He looked at me funny. He was thinking hard; I could see it in his eyes.

"Wait a minute--didn't I do a report on you?"

I recognized him instantly; he was the officer who spent an hour taking down my story, and repeatedly got almost every detail wrong, including something as simple as the location of the incident, but was so genuinely kind I didn't have the heart to tell him, because it's not like they'd ever catch the guys, right, so who cared?

"Yeah, I remember you, too."

"Charlie, right?"

"Yeah. Good memory."

"Yep--I never forget a face."

He smiled broadly, and even chuckled, proud of his memory. I believed him--how in the world did he remember me? Was I his only report? His first? He did seem new at it.

"Hey--you ever go to court for your case?"

"No. But that's why I'm here. I'm here for a lineup. With Detective Sang."

"Oh, oh, yeah. The lineup. He's waiting for you."

Detective Sang came out from the back and ushered me inside the nerve center of the police station without saying a word. Two men in their fifties followed me in. I was confused. One of them spoke:

"All of us?"

"Yeah. You're all involved in the case."

What? Three of us? All robbed by the same guy? I guess that made him easier to catch, and more worthwhile to spend the time investigating. Maybe they'll know what he looks like.

I began to feel more at ease; the burden wasn't entirely on my shoulders anymore.

Detective Sang--never has the word ‘doofus’ seemed so appropriate when describing someone--slouched his way through an enormous room filled with cubicles, his head bobbing listlessly from side to side as he walked. I followed, eyes open in wonder. 'This is where it all happens,' I thought to myself. Signs hung from the ceiling, denoting certain clusters of desks as "HOMICIDE," "ROBBERY," etc. Pictures of officers' loved ones adorned their cubicles. Folders, papers, books, clutter everywhere. I was reminded of brief glimpses into the faculty offices at my high school.

Detective Sang retrieved car keys and a sportcoat from his cubicle. He told the officer across from him, who was in the middle of a phone call, that he couldn't find an important file and to see if he could find it for him while he was gone. The other detective said some other guy probably took it off Det. Sang's desk. I hoped it wasn't about our case; it wasn't.

We left through a back door and climbed into an unmarked car.

I rode in the back, behind Det. Sang. I instinctively avoided eye contact with the other two victims. I also didn't speak. I wasn't sure why, but I also wasn’t sure what I should say and do, and I figured I was entitled to that behavior, 'having gone through what I've been through,' and all. Hell, for all the other two guys knew, my life had completely crumbled to pieces as a result of the robbery and today was a very difficult, potentially cathartic, experience for me, and I needed to psych myself up for it and not be distracted by banal conversations with three middle-aged men I didn't know and didn't necessarily ever want to know. I thought about this and liked the element of mystery involved, so I stuck to it even when my social instincts screamed, ‘SPEAK! Don’t be so unfriendly!’

Instead of talking, I listened.

The first thing Det. Sang told us was that we should talk about anything BUT the case, so as not to influence our individual opinions of what the guy looked like. So, instead, I listened as Det. Sang talked in excruciating detail about some TV show I've never watched, but that apparently the other two men had watched every episode of--‘because their wives love it.’ It's a show about the nitty gritty of crime investigation, as far as I could gather--morgues, coroners' laboratories, etc. It sounded disgusting, but its existence makes total sense in these forensic-scientist-as-run-of-the-mill-TV-hero days.

Exhausting this topic, Det. Sang transitioned into a couple tremendously long, boring, and revolting stories about his own various experiences with rotting corpses. I looked out the window and tried not to puke as his descriptions got more and more detailed, but never actually interesting; let's put it this way--he is not and will never be a storyteller. The only interesting thing he said all day was that LA has only 9,000 police officers, whereas New York has 30-40,000 for a smaller area. I knew we were greatly understaffed, but not to that degree; it explains a lot. Like why everybody can speed like maniacs with little fear of getting caught--all the cops are too busy chasing serious criminals to worry about little things like speeding.

I noticed we were driving to downtown LA, which struck me as odd, but I didn't say anything. I also thought it odd that I never asked where we were going, but, whatever, it’s not like it would have mattered. I was in their hands, and here we were. Roll with it.

It being rush hour, the drive was long, and there was plenty more time to talk. The man riding shotgun revealed, when asked if he grew up in LA, that he was Filipino, born and raised. It turns out that Det. Sang's wife is “Filipina,” so he then started rambling on about different towns he'd been to when they visited the Philippines, and his opinion of them, as well as his opinion of the Philippines and Filipinos in general. The man sitting beside me, who had tattoos visible on his forearms and looked rather worse for wear, chimed in that he had been to the Philippines twice. Evidently his band toured army bases at some point in the vague past. I was the only one in the car who had not visited the Philippines, which struck me as odd when I considered the random assortment of people gathered inside it today.

This fact certainly aided me in my quest to remain silent, I'll say that much.

I smiled to myself, wondering what they must think of me. Did they think I was some kind of iceman, who never talks to anybody because I think they're all idiots? Did they think I was just shy, waiting for the right topic to be broached before I chimed in and joined the fray? Did they think I was mute? I could tell they were thinking about me--the feeling was palpable in the stale air of the bouncing, nausea-inducing cop car, but I liked it that way. I liked the mystery. I kept my mouth shut.

I listened to the three of them talk about the unrivaled dominance of Filipinos in the Asian music industry--evidently nearly every working band in Asia consists of Filipino musicians, which I did not know, but is now a fact I have in my pocket--and heard one interesting story about a singer who was shot and killed onstage for singing off-key during a concert in the Philippines.

This story immediately reminded me of the Columbian defender who was killed after his own-goal resulted not only in his nation's first-round elimination in the 1994 World Cup, but also allowed for the advancement of the much-hated United States national team.

Several wealthy, predictably-intemperate drug lords lost a lot of money as a result, and so:

"On July 2, 1994, [Andres] Escobar was shot outside ‘El Indio’ bar, located in a Medellín suburb. According to Escobar's girlfriend, the killer shouted ‘Gooooooooooooool!’ (mimicking South American sporting commentators for their calls after a goal is scored) for each of the 12 bullets fired."

 (courtesy wikipedia.org)

[Editor's Note: Please think about this. Do you know how long it would take somebody to shout "Gooooooooooooool!" TWELVE TIMES? And nobody stopped him until he emptied his entire clip...]

With this in mind, I thought about speaking for the first time. I thought about saying something clever, like "I guess Filipinos are as passionate about music as Columbians are for their fútbol." But I didn't. I chose to maintain my silence, which is probably for the best since it wasn't that witty. I tossed the sentence around for a while in my head, reconsidering my silence at every turn, thinking it might be an ideal moment to stop being rude. I figured these guys would forgive me the lengthy space between ‘Filipino musician’ story and my Columbian reference, since they seemed to hunger for the sound of my voice for any reason, worried about what my silence might mean, etc.

After a long stretch of dead air, I almost gave in and uttered a sound, but figured far too much time had passed and it would be weird to bring the topic up again. Besides, I was enjoying my role as the quiet, mysterious outsider too much. I like unnerving people in general, but especially if I am able to do so by doing absolutely nothing.

I think Detective Sang picked up on this and turned himself completely around, while driving, to ask me if I had to leave work early to be here today.

Unable to avoid this direct address, I told him I had the day off and everybody was visibly surprised.

"Really?"

"Wow..."

"Yeah. I work freelance...so...I have a lot of days where I don't work."

They seemed suspicious. Why would I not have to work on a Wednesday?

"I do film and event production."

Now it made sense--and everybody got really excited. People not in the industry always do, because they don't realize how mundane the work is on a day-to-day basis. I tried to calm them down, telling them I work mostly on commercials, which usually works, but then I remembered the last commercial I worked on--where we blew up a car on a residential street in a poor neighborhood (for some reason, they always choose the poor neighborhoods...). I decided to give 'em a rise and told them about it. They loved it. I went on.

"Glass went everywhere and the hood flew off over the houses, landed on somebody's roof. Could've killed somebody--it was incredibly dangerous."

I was now the center of attention. I revealed that I also work on large events a few times a year. Detective Sang turned around to face me again.

"Have you ever thought about working for the city? You know, the Cultural Department has people on staff that run the events the city puts on. Real big events."

"No...I've...never thought about that..."

Lord. Help! I immediately had flashbacks to every office job I ever had, which--no matter where it was--always involved fat middle-aged women talking endlessly about their cats' most recent operations.

I shuttered at the thought and tried to change the subject, informing them that I also write in my ample free time. This also excited them. Everybody has a script idea they've tossed around, everybody hears the rags-to-riches Ben Affleck-Matt Damon/Diablo Cody stories and retains hope they will one day conquer Hollywood, so I braced for the worst. Luckily, though, it seems these were the only three people in LA that had no desire to write a script and so I relaxed. The aged rock'n'roller informed me he works for CAA, the titan of talent agencies. I was confused-he didn't look the type. He had the shakes, quite frankly. And he lives in MY neighborhood. And he's over the age of forty. Turned out he works nights, putting covers on scripts.

"I got lucky--I was working there as a temp and they needed somebody full time, so I got the job. Been there ten years."

My heart sank. I had to look away. This dude, who is as old as my dad, who earlier was telling everybody about a TV show he used to watch as a kid--IN THE FIFTIES--was not only temping, but then felt LUCKY to be promoted to the shittiest 'staff' job in the industry. (Trust me, the mailroom positions are above this one--mailroom employees often have law degrees...it’s where you are forced to start out.) AND, he has done it for TEN YEARS? GodDAMN this man is never gonna give up on his music, at any cost. It was at once admirable and miserably depressing. I don't want to be him in 25 years. I don't. I promise. Please kill me first.

We finally pulled into the LA County Jail downtown. It's a sprawling complex. Very institutional, like an Eastern-bloc university campus. The inside carries over the theme. The lobby was very Modern Times/Art Deco/Soviet. Busts of Stalin would not have been out of place.

Waiting for us in the lobby were three people: the female Defense Attorney and two more-iconic-looking detectives. Slap a couple fedoras on 'em and they coulda been in LA Confidential. Every man in the room checked out the Defense Attorney--on the sly of course--many, many times as we waited for a photographer to show up. I felt sorry for her. She knew it was happening, but it's not like she could do anything about it. I'm sure it always happens--this woman hangs out in PRISONS, for Christ's sake. And she had a nice ass, so, you know, there it is. The fact that she was only marginally attractive is irrelevant. You take what you can get around here, in this female desert that is the County Jail, and it's not like all these men standing in the lobby had anything more pressing to focus on for the moment. Maybe she likes the attention (she was wearing tight pants...). Maybe she uses it to her advantage sometimes. Who knows? Women are so mysterious, aren't they? [Sometimes. -Ed]

Meanwhile, as we all surreptitiously checked-out the Defense Attorney, the cops grumbled about paperwork and overtime, per usual. I realized this is a quality they share with Grips, Electricians, and Camera Assistants in the film industry--always griping. The two more manly detectives wanted to know if Det. Sang thought they should get overtime for 'staying late on this one.' I tuned out and went to the bathroom to avoid having to hear, or get dragged into, any more chit-chat. I hate chit-chat.

When I returned to the lobby, the photographer had shown up and we were led through the secure doorway, into a hallway that immediately reminded me of high school. Trophy cases lined the walls, as did posters advertising fundraising campaigns and softball team practice schedules and such. The paint was drab and old, the linoleum floor had the same faux-marble pattern, the fluorescent lighting cast a greenish pall over everything. We stopped outside a door and waited. I looked around. A sweaty football-player-type left what must have been the weight room and said 'hey' to some other guy, on his way to the showers. We might as well have been in the hallway outside my high school gymnasium.

"Right this way, folks."

The four of us were led into a room resembling a small college lecture hall. There were about 80-100 seats. I can't imagine this scale would ever be necessary.

"Okay, Marty--bring in the 80 people who were robbed by this guy. They all have to see the lineup at the same time, for some reason."

"Yes, sir--we'll use the big room!"

We, the three victims, were led to the front row and told to leave an empty seat between us as we sat down. We did. One of the iconic detectives sat down on an elevated stage up front and spoke. His partner handed us each a blank form, a clip-less clipboard, and a pen.

"I'm Detective Murray and this is my partner, Detective Smith. We are here today to run the lineup; we don't know anything about your case, so we are unbiased. Now, have any of you ever done a lineup before?"

We all shook our heads no.

"Have you seen it on TV?"

Before we could even answer, he smiled, nodded knowingly, and continued speaking.

"Well, it's exactly like it is on TV."

Weird. Det. Sang had said the exact same thing on the ride over here. Is that really their official line? He continued:

"When we turn out the lights in here, and turn on the lights in there, this becomes a two-way mirror. You will see six men in front of you; all they will see is themselves in a mirror. You might see them fixing their hair or picking their teeth, because they're looking into a mirror. They can't see you."

I thought to myself, 'Yeah, but it's not like they don't know we're HERE, on the other side of the mirror, looking at them. It's not like they think they're being led into the bathroom for a group nose-pick before prison picture day or something.' I wondered if they would make faces at us, try to scare us or whatever. I pictured myself in this thug's shoes, or any of the other thugs' shoes, for that matter, and I could see myself confrontationally mouthing the words, 'I will kill you' and smiling maniacally. Intimidation, baby! It's worked for the mob for how long now? The detective went on:

"They will all be wearing a number from 1 to 6. If you ever need to look more closely at one of them, please come up to the stage and do one of two things: either walk slowly all the way down the black line, past all of them at the same speed, or move forward, up to the glass, and look closely at each one of them, so as not to influence the others' decisions. And if you have any questions, please raise your hand and either I or my partner will pull you aside and answer them in private, so as not to influence the others."

He said 'in-FLU-ence.' Both times. It bothered me, but I let it go.

Det. Murray told us how to fill out the form and asked if we had any questions. We did not.

"Alright, here we go."

He turned the lights off in the auditorium and turned the lights on in the lineup room. I was shocked at how close, small, and well-lit it was. I mean, I understand the concept of the two-way mirror, but it was still pretty surprising to see the reality of this situation in person. It was like a brightly-illuminated department store window at Christmastime.

'Which man do you want, honey?'

'That one!'

'Are you sure? Are you sure that's the one you want Santa to bring you? The scary-looking Hispanic guy with a mustache and knife-scars all over his face? The one who's clearly killed a man and gotten away with it? Are you sure you don't want a pony instead? Okay...I'll let Santa know...'

The men filtered in. It was surreal. It was so surreal that I just had to say, 'It was so surreal.' It was--there is no other word to accurately describe the feeling that washed over me immediately. It was like having an out-of-body experience; I was watching myself sit in this room watching this unfold.

Six huge Hispanic men in matching outfits, with numbers hanging around their necks, trudged in and faced forward. They wore yellow t-shirts that had the word 'LINEUP' printed on the back. I wondered whose job it was to design those, how many times they had to be redesigned, how many people had to approve the design in meetings, how many they had to order, how often they had to replace them, whether or not jail employees wear them out and about--as a joke, why they chose yellow, etc. Then I told the voice in my head to shut up and pay attention.

I looked them all in the eyes. They all looked like they had killed somebody, or at least tried to. They all looked overweight--gut-heavy, broad--which did not match with my memory of either of the two men who robbed me. They all looked guilty. Most surprisingly, they all looked SCARED. All of them. So scared that I have never seen six men with better posture, six men who maintained such rigidly identical body positions, six men who so perfectly executed sometimes-vague instructions dictated to them by the disembodied voice of 'the law.' Whichever five guys were not the guy who robbed me were all pulled from the prison population, so I'm sure they all had a right to be scared--they were all IN PRISON, getting abused by fellow inmates and guards, deprived of almost everything enjoyable in life, etc. I knew all this, in theory, of course, but I was still surprised to see how much it showed on their faces, in their body language. They did not move a muscle, their posture was perfect, their hands hung at their sides at an irregular, uncomfortable, uniform angle; their eyes screamed, "I AM FUCKED! I AM FUCKED! OH, HOLY FUCK--I AM FUCKED! DON’T LET IT SHOW! OH, FUCK! I CAN’T HELP MYSELF--I’M FUCKED! I’M SO FUCKED!"

Det. Smith was standing on the stage, on our side of the two-way mirror, barking tried-and-true commands into a wall-mounted microphone that, for some reason, had a faded, discolored windscreen on it. The windscreen looked like those faded old Nerf balls you would sometimes see on the side of the highway, dropped by misbehaving children, faded by the sun, as you were taking an emergency piss on a family vacation, hoping nobody could see your penis. It grossed me out.

"Number One, step forward. Turn to your left one quarter turn. Walk to the wall. Turn around. Walk to the middle of the room. Turn to your left one quarter turn. Look up. Look down. Turn around. Return to your number."

He repeated this procedure with each of the six men. My time was therefore predictably finite--as soon as he finished with the first one, we were 1/6th of the way finished. Shit--not much time. Who is it? What's the answer? Hurry!

I eliminated the last three from contention immediately, but then wondered if that was only because the other three were the ones closest to me. No, I confirmed, it was because they didn't look right. I looked at the first three again. The middle one looked almost black, which made me think that maybe the 'black' guy I got the best look at during the robbery was actually a very dark Hispanic man with a hood pulled over his hair. This might explain why the police, and everybody else I've recounted the story to has been surprised that a Black guy and an Hispanic guy would work together. Evidently, as I've also learned from paying somewhat close attention to the Obama campaign, blacks and Hispanics hate each other.

This realization did not instill much confidence in my observational skills--I got even more nervous. Regardless of the black/Hispanic dynamic, though, this guy simply seemed too big to be the guy that robbed me. The robber had seemed skinny to me and, besides, this guy's hands looked funny, sort of like Down's-syndrome hands, whatever that means. They were super chunky, short, like useless sausages. Wait a minute--was that why, when I had the knife stuck in my throat and my feet lifted off the ground, the 'black' guy in front of me asked ME to empty my pockets, rather than relieve me of my valuables himself? (My response to his request, by the way, was a sarcastic, "YOU do it!" to which he immediately obliged) Hmmm...it's an interesting hypothesis... Staying true to the idea that I was robbed by a black man and an Hispanic man, though, since I had to go with my gut in this situation, I figured we must be looking for the other guy here--the Hispanic guy who stuck the knife in my neck.

Unfortunately, I never got a good look at this guy, as he was behind me during most of the fracas. This being the case, Number 1 and Number 3 both looked like they could be that guy. They looked incredibly similar. Number One looked the most scared--he was clenching his left fist, which none of the other guys were doing. This, in fact, was the ONLY distinguishing behavioral characteristic displayed among the six men for the duration of the lineup. I wondered if it was an unconscious giveaway, or if it was mere coincidence, or if it was simply a red herring gleefully tossed in by the mirthful Lineup King backstage.

Surely I couldn't pick him simply because he clenched his fist. I looked at them again. I looked at their faces, their eyes, their hands, their bellies. Number One was also the skinniest--I thought the guys who robbed me were fairly thin, or at least not what I would consider fat like five of these six guys were. Number 1 was looking like the best shot.

But I was hardly sure.

The last man 'returned to his number' and Detective Murray asked if any of us would like to look closer. We all shook our heads 'no.'

"Okay."

He nodded to Det. Smith, who must have pushed a button or something, because all six of the men suddenly filed out of the room, as if instructed to do so by some guard off-screen, who heard the buzzer. My heart leapt--the same feeling I used to get when my teacher would announce 'Pencils down!' when I wasn't yet finished with the quiz. Who was it? Was it Number 1? Number 2? Number 3? I don't know. I can't pick. I couldn't figure it out. It should have been immediate, right? Or, at least, certain at some point soon thereafter. It wasn't.

I had no choice but to put an 'X' on the line that said 'I cannot identify the suspect.' I felt stupid, like I had wasted everybody's efforts. At the same time, however, I felt relieved. I came here with the best of intentions, I tried my best, I failed, oh well, it happens--end of story.

As the finality of that 'X' sunk in, though, I began to wonder about the Defense Attorney and her Defendant, the alleged mugger I failed to identify. I wondered how many otherwise clear-cut cases are thrown out of court before they even go to trial, because nobody can positively identify the guy in a lineup. I wondered how much evidence it takes to make a trial worthwhile for the city/state if nobody can identify the criminal. I thought about how hard it must be for anybody to identify an assailant in such a quick, frightful crime, especially when the authorities are required to line up other people that look almost exactly like the criminal. I wondered if this process benefits the criminal more than the victim. Obviously, I wouldn't want somebody to get railroaded, and so it seems fair that he/she should need to be identified, and yet, if every guy in a gang has the same haircut, the same physique, the same coloring, the same hooded sweatshirt...it seems like a really easy loophole to exploit.

But the effectiveness of the lineup as an element of due process is not what I was here today to judge, so I raised my hand. I was finished with my test. Det. Murray grabbed the piece of paper from my hand. I watched his eyes look down and notice the 'X.' I wondered if he was disappointed. I wondered if he cared at all. He probably just wanted to go home because he knew he wouldn't be getting any overtime today because the city's already way over-budget. He told me to go stand in the back of the room.

The Filipino man next to me was scribbling away on his paper--perhaps he was able to identify the guy? The rock'n'roller had turned his paper in right off, even before I had, and stepped to the back of the room. Once the Filipino man finished and joined the two of us, Det. Smith called the other Detectives and the Defense Attorney over to look at our three pieces of paper. Nobody said anything revealing like, "Aha! Got him!" or "Shit!" They just looked and nodded, as if being shown a TV Guide schedule for the night before. Det. Smith turned to the Defense Attorney:

"When is your next day in court?"

"The 23rd."

"You will have copies of the reports mailed to your office before the 23rd."

"Okay."

"Okay. Let's get outta here."

Det. Sang, the two other victims, and I waited outside for the others. Det. Sang told us he would be on vacation starting the next day, for two weeks, but then sheepishly admitted that it was not a real vacation. He was sending his mother-in-law on vacation, and he was going to stay home to watch his 10-month-old son while his wife worked. He also revealed, for some reason, that a few days before, he had taken the grates off of his oven, to clean them in the driveway, and somebody stole them as soon as he went back inside. They cost him $600 to replace. I laughed. Jesus, that sucks; but why did he own an oven that had $600 grates in it? How much did the entire oven cost? On a cop's salary? And where did he live that somebody would steal those so quickly, from a cop’s house no less? Why not buy a house in a better neighborhood, but have a shitty oven?

I was reminded of the summer I lived in Bournemouth, England, when I was 19, and had just downgraded bed & breakfasts because I still hadn't found a job and money was tight. This was a 'bed and breakfast' in name only, mind you--it was quite dodgy--and somebody stole my brand-new shoes while I was in the communal shower, a mere ten minutes after I had moved in. I told them this story and it was their turn to laugh at ME.

The others joined us in the hallway and we retraced our steps, outside, to the car--we sat in the same seats as before, an unspoken agreement--and drove off. Nobody said anything about what just happened. I imagine this conspicuous silence was a result of both our private reactions to the process, as well as not knowing whether or not it was allowed. Det. Sang informed us that we would all be served with subpoenas at some point in the near future. I wondered what the point of that would be if I couldn't identify the guy. I hope I don't have to do it. I hope I don't have to turn down a job because I have to go to court and say, for the record, "Duhhhhhh...I don't know..."

The ride back to the police station was much faster, thankfully, it now being 8pm. I stared out the window and tried not to vomit--Det. Sang is a horrible stop-and-go driver, and a poor merger. I was reminded of the opening line to Less Than Zero:

“People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles.”

It's true. My thoughts strayed to Bret Easton Ellis, and how I wish I can do what he has done. There's still time.

We pulled up to the police station and Det. Sang let the three of us out of the car. We all said goodbye to him, all shook hands with each other. Afterwards, the rock'n'roller and I were going in the same direction. We had already said goodbye, so this was a bit awkward, as usual.

The rock'n'roller immediately pulled a cigarette out from somewhere. He seemed nervous, like he wanted to exchange numbers and be friends, but wasn't sure if he should ask, if I would want to. He had even said something earlier, in fact, in the car, about staying in touch and maybe helping me get a script of mine on somebody's desk at CAA. It was endearing, but I'm a realist--we're not going to be friends. It's not worth it to me. It's probably not worth it to him, either. I broke the silence.

"So, you said you were in a band--what instrument do you play?"

"Guitar, and the harmonica."

He pulled a harmonica out of his pocket and smiled sheepishly.

"I play the blues. And Celtic music; I'm learning the Celtic Harp."

We got to the fork in the road. My car was a tantalizing few feet away.

"Cool. Well...good luck with your music."

"Yeah, same to you. With your writing."

He walked off toward the vast strip mall parking lot next to the police station.

I hopped in my Jeep, started it up, and drove away, not really sure how I felt about the whole affair. I had a vague nervous energy; I felt troubled, I guess, but I wasn't sure why. My brain was true whiteness--my thoughts were like all the colors of the rainbow, which combined to form a furious, pulsating blank slate in my brain--maximum energy expended, zero result. I was home before I knew it and hardly knew how I got there.

I had to get up at 5am the next day for work, sadly, so I went to bed almost immediately. Even if I had had the following day off, though, I imagine I would have done the same thing. It's not like I could've sat down to write, or watched a movie and been able to give it any thought, or pretended my mind wasn't twisted in a knot as I had a light-hearted drink with a friend. Unfortunately, however, sleep was impossible. The combination of getting out of bed at 2pm that day--which happened mostly because I knew I would be unable to accomplish anything knowing the lineup was happening later that day, and so was in a state of semi-mental-paralysis--my actual experience at the lineup itself, my ringing phone (friends wanting to know how it went, me ignoring them because I didn't want to talk about it yet and just wanted to lose consciousness), and my dread of the 16-hour soul-destroyingly-boring day ahead of me all conspired to keep me awake for most of the night.

The next morning, I felt like a truck had run over me. But I suppose it could have been worse.

I could have gone home to my post-menopausal wife, in my shitty Koreatown apartment, to watch some revolting forensic-science cable TV show, all the while pondering why I have to work as a menial office servant at the CAA 'Death Star' five nights a week in order to afford the privilege of playing music clearly nobody wants to hear, after 35 years of trying unsuccessfully to gain a following large enough to support myself in even a meager economic position.

I've still got plenty of time to reach that low--don't worry. And stay tuned!

Goodtime Charlie and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Month

This month has not been one of my best. It seems as though, in one near-fell swoop, the universe is desperately trying to offset the bottomless bounty provided to me upon birth (eyes, lips, hair, brain, humor, abs, nose, buttocks, charm, fashion sense, unit, fingernails, etc etc etc etc hahahaha...).

There is no God [or if there is, may he strike me dead on the spot...I DARE HIM! See? He didn't. That's just as much proof that he doesn't exist as anybody can offer me that he DOES exist], but if there were, I would tell him to go fuck himself. Why? Here are 9 reasons why:

(1) Until a few days ago, I hadn't worked in six weeks. I was (am) broke. And that was after taking a few months off to write a script. So I've been semi-paralyzed by financial woes present and future. Which is why I was looking forward to a free week-long trip to Big Sky, Montana. Montana was fabulous--skiing, relaxing, New's-Years-Eveing it in the hot tub--until mile number 2499, when (2) my car stopped working 2 miles from home.

Don't worry, though, it got fixed rather quickly, and (3) for only $1200.

No sweat. I'm loaded. Well, at least I thought I was--then (4) my only two paychecks for fall 2007 bounced because the payroll company went out of business due to yet another embezzling corporate asshole. Subtract $1000 from my bank account, leaving my balance (5) at an impressive -$660.

"Shit, dawg, my life majorly sucks right now," thought the douchebag inside of me, but he was wrong--it was actually pretty good at the time. Everything is relative. I went out to my car a couple saturdays back, only to find (6) my front license plate missing, as well as the license-plate holder. Huh. Whatever. Then I noticed (7) the tickets on my windshield--one for parking in the spot for more than 2 hours, the other for having no front license plate.

Later that night, despite the vortex of negativity ominously swirling around me, spirits were high after seeing 'There Will Be Blood' and having a few drinks with a friend. I drove home, parked my car, and walked three blocks to my building, thinking about whatever random shit runs through my head at any given moment (the lyrics to the theme song to Mr. Belvedere?). Well, right across the street from my place, a couple kids from the neighborhood decided to (8) stick a knife in my throat and relieve me of my new iPod, my phone, my car/house keys, my wallet, and the $6 cash that was inside.

Luckily, when I pleaded for my keys back ("Leave me my house keys or I'll pee on you through my pants!"), one of the gentleman was kind enough to throw them into the street for me. As a result, I thankfully didn't have to spend the night clutching my knees and muttering to myself, in a pool of my own filth, on a sheet of cardboard outside the post office, but instead was able to get inside and grab change to cancel my credit cards and such. Well, except for the one that was closed "until 9am Eastern for a system update," which was then rung up for a hundred million dollars worth of gas all around Los Angeles (you're welcome, oil cartel!).

I don't have to pay for the gang's gasoline addiction, obviously, and I have complete confidence that the police detectives who pound on my door every other morning at 7:45am "to get a few more details for the case" will catch the little shits and get my $6 back, but it still sucks. That little iPod was so cute!

Oh, (9) and I'm fat now, by the way. So that ain't cool neither.