With my nose almost pressed up against the map, trying yet again to figure out how I got so lost, I squint and move in even closer, like my face’s proximity to the map would make my destination easier to find if I wanted to go back into the night for another look. Then, a weight lifts from my right side. Nothing else. No sound, no other feeling, no brush of a hand – nothing. Just this sudden absence, so simply physical that it takes me a second to absorb the feeling. Before even my hand hits my side, I know that something has been lifted from inside my pocket.
I swirl around, see the get-away-guy and scream DROP IT! Ha, he’s surprised I’m not trembling with fright, panties around my ankles. I’ve actually scared him. He pauses; legs split, sneakers frozen to the concrete, face aghast. Head whipping back and forth, he looks for a quick exist and then sensing my fear (I am not actually throwing punches as my initial reaction threatened) he menaces quickly at me and calls my bluff. My apartment keys and wallet are in my shoulder bag and without those I’d really be screwed. Then, in my moments hesitation, he’s gone. Fuck pockets, fuck purses, fuck Wedding.
This is not the sort of submission I had hoped for. My destination had been Schwelle7, performance space dedicated to dance, yoga, body, movement, art and bondage. A tip from dancer / choreographer Rachel Brooker had led me here on this month’s full moon. Seems that the wrong sort of wolves were out.
Of course Wedding is not the only time I’ve been caught off guard. I’m reminded of running topless on a Miami beach after a man with a disposable camera, just minutes after I stripped down and started to relax. That time I got away with the camera, in exchange for throwing his wallet back into the sand at him after it fell out of his pocket on his way off up the dunes. For days after my trip to Wedding I revisited this feeling of the weight lifted from my person with a slight tinge of victim complex in my heart. And then, my older male friend tells me about getting his bag swiped from under a table by a fake beggar with an aimful cane tapping around each table and I remember: these things happen. God didn’t punish me because I tried to go to a sex party, I wasn’t targeted because my dress was too bright or my hair was out of it’s ponytail and it wasn’t because I didn’t look as tough as I think I do when I’m in New York. I just had some bad luck.
edited and published on CAKE
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