Unsweet Justice

Before when I was living in Champaign, I got mugged in a back alley barely three blocks from this bar I was coming home from. The mugger looked like Wyclef Jean. He was much shorter than me, and come to think of it, the “knife” he waved in the air could have easily been just an upside-down nail clipper with its file drawn out, so who knows why I gave him forty dollars and then raced home, double-locking my doors, confusing the poor 911 operator with all of my hysterical sobbing and gasping. But what really put me over the edge was days later when reading from the Daily Illini about muggings taking place around that same part of town, by a man described as “African-American, about 5’5”, with dreadlocks” – kind of like that Wyclef guy, right? Apparently he only targeted Asian females, which to me was great, just fucking great, because that meant that not only did I react like a chick that night, he thought I looked like one too.

Every 3 am for about two weeks I’d pace up and down that back alley looking for this guy, calling for him to come out, daring him to try to mug me again. Growing my very first five o’clock shadow, I’d sip scotch out of a cheap flask, glaring completely wild-eyed at stray cats and anything else that moved. “Where are you, Wyclef, you son of a bitch??” I’d scream at the sky, spinning around in circles like Jennifer Love Hewitt, burning with an insatiable desire to deliver retribution. “I know you’re out there! Come and get me!!!”

He never showed up during those two weeks, and then soon two more weeks passed, and then two months passed, and then two more, and then I just simply forgot about him – on numerous occasions I had even walked home from that same bar through that same back alley, never once even thinking about him. Life went back to normal.

Until of course, one evening when it got warm outside again and I’d stopped by a gas station near my apartment to buy a grape soda. There he was. Wyclef. African-American, 5’5”, dreadlocks. My mugger. He came into my view right as I was pushing my way out of the glass doors. He 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 crack. My mugger looked up.

…

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 past midnight. 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. Ha ha... 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.

(I strut away from him in slow motion, sticking a cigar in my mouth and lighting it. I puff a few times, then fling the cigar over my head. The cigar lands into my mugger’s gaping mouth and his entire body quickly bursts into heavy, howling flames. Still walking in slow motion, I don’t even look behind me as the entire gas station explodes.)

...

But nothing happened. I looked in the complete opposite direction, turned the corner, then ran home like the devil. I fell asleep after screaming into my pillow for a good half hour.