It was a very chili Monday evening in a dark December. The wind was so sharply cold that you could even feel it in your bones. She was coming home from work. It was around 7:30pm and she was tired after a long day at the office, where she dealt with tons of bureaucratic issues, so she was more than ready to have a cozy meal and go to bed as early as possible.
She got off at the 12th street Bart station and walked towards her home in Jackson Street, which is about 7 blocks from the Bart station. She was walking on Broadway Avenue, which at this time of year is way dark and empty, no stores are open, all offices are closed at 5pm. Nothing seems to be alive in that area, only the chili wind pushing the garbage on the street from one side to the other.
She had walked three blocks when she spotted a drunken guy in the corner, yelling and swearing. She wanted to avoid this guy so she crossed the street and went to the sidewalk on the other side of the street. She still could see and hear the drunken guy as she was passing several feet in front of him. Still scared of him she continued watching him while walking when all of a sudden a very strong pair of hands violently grabbed her right arm, she then turned and she could notice that the person grabbing her arm was a strong, tall woman in her twenties, who gave her a mean look and commanded her with a loud voice “give me your purse!”.
Well, you should know Simonita, she’s not your regular type of woman. Whenever you would expect a regular kind of answer from anybody she always comes up with something completely unexpected. Like the time Mahmud, her Jordanian journalist friend, and Luis her Cuban dance instructor were lively talking about the Cuban revolution. They both were highly praising el Che and making patent their contempt for the leader of the island, oh, he’s so this and that, oh, he should be like el Che, if el Che was alive, etc. etc.
A regular kind of person, like myself, would never dare to intervene in such a conversation, let alone contradict what they were saying. But no, Simonita is not like that, so she just plainly said “el Che is f*ing dead so even if he’s as great as you say he can’t do a f*ing thing now so move on with your lives!”. Both guys immediately stopped talking.
So why would she have to be any different now? So as this tall and strong woman was grabbing her arm Simonita looked at her and calmly said “do you realize what you are doing?”
She told me she said that because she was still confused but that really wanted to know whether the woman knew what she was doing to her (maybe that woman was only a little lost?).
Obviously the tall woman didn’t like what she had just heard, so she now grabbed a baseball bat-like stick with one hand while still grabbing Simonita’s arm with the other, and mercilessly hit Simonita on the back of the head … fortunately only once.
At this point, one might think (maybe because we have seen it so many times on the tv or in films) that Simonita would immediately faint. Right?
Well, no. She didn’t, and rather she turned to her torturer and told her “this hurts (pointing to her neck), do you know that?” This was too much for the thief so she raised her arm with the bat to hit Simonita again, this time even more mercilessly.
But then the drunken guy screamed “no, no, no, don’t do it!!” while nervously moving his arms in a “no” signal. The thief immediately released Simonita, turned her back and left the scene.
Still dazed and confused Simonita then resumed walking home. But after a block or two she realized that she really couldn’t see much, she first thought it was the tremendous blows she had just received, but finally realized this sudden lost of sight was because she wasn’t wearing her glasses. She must have lost them during the frustrated robbery.
As scared as she was, she gained strength from weakness, put herself together and asked a guy she saw in a nearby store (what kind of store could be open at that time in that area?) to walk back with her to look for her glasses. Fortunately for her he agreed, both walked back, but found nothing. She doesn’t remember how she got home that night.
Did you go to the doctor? Was the first thing I could ask her after listening to her shocking story. Of course not, she said, you know what I think about them. Of course I know but, I replied, you should at least get one of them to take XRays from your neck, that at the very least! No way in hell!! Simonita firmly replied.
Yes. Again, not your regular kind of woman. She strongly believes, and in part I agree with her, that physicians are all ignorant, greedy and arrogant and that what they all ever want to do is to stuff us with drugs so that they, in turn, and along with the corresponding industry can stuff themselves with our money. There must be some few good doctors out there, but you know, they all must be part of Doctors without Borders or organizations like that. Want to see a good doctor? Then go to Haiti or Rwanda. Here? No, no way in hell she’ll go see a doctor.
The only thing I could do then was give her a big and sencere hug and tell her ‘I don’t want that anything bad happens to you!’
I realized then, that this crazy woman is a very important friend for me. I realized that she is very dear to my heart.
