Unsweet justice

I saw a familiar face late tonight when I stopped by a gas station a couple blocks down from my apartment to buy a grape soda. The face belonged to none other than my mugger from last fall.

He came into my view right when I was pushing my way out of the gas station doors. My mugger was filling gas into his beat-up car, the same rusty Oldsmobile that pulled right up to me into a back alley on that fateful night several months ago.

My hands shaking, I opened up the grape soda can with a loud popping fizz. My mugger looked up.

And then a fantasy scenario came into my head...

...

DISTURBING FANTASY SCENARIO

MUGGER: The fuck you lookin’ at?

ME: You, motherfucker. I’m looking at you.

MUGGER: You gon’ try to say that to muh face, nigga?

ME: Certainly.

(I walk up to my mugger and grab him by the neck with one hand and pry the gas pump nozzle out of his car with my other hand. I then stuff the gasoline-spewing nozzle into his mouth, down his throat. The gas station attendant looks on, but is too terrified to do anything.)

ME: Do you remember my face, motherfucker? Do you remember?

(Tears in his eyes and his body painfully spastic, the mugger tries to cough up gasoline.)

ME: Well I haven’t forgotten you. You mugged me FIVE months ago. You took $40 from my wallet. I don’t want my $40 back, but what I do want is sweet justice.

(I look up around me. It’s 1 AM. The air is cold and the streets are quiet. No one will be saving him tonight. My mugger continues to gag as gallons of cold gasoline pour into his lungs.)

ME: At this station, regular unleaded gas is currently $2.39 per gallon. Pretty expensive, no? Well lucky for you, it’s not the $2.16 it was last week. That’s because YOU’RE GOING TO DRINK $40 WORTH OF THIS GASOLINE. That’s nearly 17 gallons. That’s more than the volume of your entire body. Haha... You are going to overflow.

(My left hand still clutching his neck, my mugger’s body goes limp and heavy. His still eyes turn amber yellow, while gasoline drips out of his nostrils. The river of gasoline tears running down his cheeks is enough to fuel a car on a nice road trip out of town. I take my fingers off the grip of the nozzle and hang it back onto the gas pump. A message on the pump beeps and says to pay the clerk inside. I lift my mugger's head towards my face and kiss him on the forehead.)

ME: Sweet justice, my friend. Sweet justice.

...

But what should have happened is not what really happened.

I quickly snapped out of it and thought about what I should really do, but nothing seemed to make sense. The obvious action was for me to run back into the gas station and ask the attendant to call 911 because a guy who mugged me five months ago was outside, but what would that accomplish? I would never be able to prove anything. Now I know how rape victims feel when they see their unpunished violator years later but can’t do much about it.

It then occurred to me that it probably wasn’t a good idea to just continue to stand there and stare at the man. Behavior like that would only get me mugged a second time. Plus, my heart was beating fast, which told me I was just too scared and unprepared to approach him. So I decided, for now, to just accept defeat. As my friend Stewart reassured me afterwards, now I know for sure that my mugger lives in Champaign-Urbana. I will see him again.

I turned around, took a small sip out of my grape soda, and gladly walked home.