Duck This Shot: Variations on a Theme

A thirtysomething woman claims the seat across from me by placing on the table a cluster of items: a brown Hermes handbag, a venti Starbucks coffee, a Blackberry, and a series of baby blue forms, filled out with a golf pencil in the waiting room. It's the morning after Christmas, and she does not look amused. She pulls out a folding chair from under the table, covers it with her long black coat, and sits. The chair squeaks as she settles into it. She immediately picks up and thumbs her Blackberry. 

Finance, I guess.

I peek at her papers: Former Employer: Citibank; Minimum Salary: $95,000.

Bingo.

I try to imagine the number of expletives she is texting her boyfriend, her former coworkers, her sister, her whatever, describing to them exactly how she feels about sitting on a folding chair in a windowless room on Varick Street with the city's newest casualties of the economic downturn the morning after Christmas for a mandatory How-to-Find-a-Goddamn-Job-in-Today's-Shiteous-Economy workshop (which our instructor helpfully summarizes thus: "give your resume to a well-dressed man in the elevator").

I pick up my iPhone to do the same, limiting my use of expletives to just two, and text Josh H.: "fuck this shit." What comes out instead is an autocorrected and de-filthified "Duck this shot." I think this is at once both super fucking annoying and super fucking brilliant.

It's November 28th and I am sitting in my bedroom, staring at the wall, wondering if bad things really do come in threes, and, if they do, when I should expect the third.

First, I was laid off; then, one week later, the day after Thanksgiving, walking home from dinner, I was mugged -- thrown to the ground by four guys, arms and legs held down, eyes covered, pockets rummaged, iPhone, wallet, credit cards, and driver's license stolen.

What next?

After weeks of rumors and speculation, I expected the layoff. Hoped for it, even. I had spent nearly two years working at a design firm working for a man so vile, so childish, so impossibly self-serving that the only way to describe him would be to render a mashup of Miranda Priestly, Joan Crawford, and the Crypt Keeper, but gay and with bad hair plugs. So when I heard that he would be making some major cutbacks to survive the new economy, and that my name was thrown into the mix, I cleaned my cubical, packed up my things, and waited. Two weeks later I was gone.

What will I do now? How will I survive? What next?

Action. I decide to run after the muggers and scream for help. There are other people walking on this street, I think, someone will help me. The first guy I plead with tells me to get the fuck away from him; the second instinctively puts his phone up to his ear and says "I'm busy."

Helpless, scared, shaking, I run home and log on to iChat and instant message my sister, who calls my mom (who is vacationing in Florida), who calls the New York City switchboard. The woman who answers tells my mom that she can't help her without my apartment's exact cross street. My mom, who had just given the woman my street address seconds earlier, says "What do you mean you can't help me? I just told you exactly where he lives."

"I can't help you. I need the cross street."

My mom gets angry. "I don't understand. My son was just mugged. He has no phone and no way to contact you himself. We don't know if he's hurt or bleeding to death and you can't help me because you need the fucking cross street?"

"I'm sorry, but I can't help you."

My mom hangs up, calls my sister, who sends me an instant message asking for my cross street, then calls my mom, who, again, calls the New York City switchboard. The police are at my apartment in minutes. Nearly an hour and a half after the incident. Too late.

A friend emails me that night to tell me that after this week I am now due for a pleasant turn of events.

I spend all of December waiting.

It doesn't come.

"Oh c'mon. You're not going to get mugged."

I turn my head to suggest otherwise and watch as the teenage girl sitting next to me brings her purse closer to her chest, faces her friend, and changes the subject to cute boys. "What do you think of Jeremy?"

"He's pretty attractive. For having gray hair. But I mean, I feel like he's that creepy drunk uncle at Christmas. It creeps me out. He hasn't been the same since he started dating that girl."

"Is she pretty?"

Appalled: "Noooo!"

Excitedly: "Really?"

"Yeah. She's not that great. She's really generic looking."

The N train arrives. They stand up and I get a better look at them. Faces heavy with makeup. Hair straightened and dyed dark brown. Black knee-length boots. Tights. Knit beret caps. Urban Outfitters bags. They walk toward the train and I see that they are escorted by their moms. Tourists.

I give their moms my best "your daughters are really, really lame" look and get in the next car.

As I take a seat I wonder if the third bad thing doesn't come from an external force. I wonder if, instead, it is something I inflict upon myself. The death of optimism. The birth of cynicism.

And then it hits me: I have become a New Yorker.

//Josh K.

Comments

[Giuseppe]

omg, you poor thing.

although it is all very new york...i'm jealous!

[Marc Chan]

I'm sorry to hear of all these terrible things that have happened to you. That you chose to share your experience with us, and in such a beautiful and compelling way, is testament to your courage, to your art, and to your resilience. Your writing seethes in anger, in pain, and, understandably, in bitterness, but it is astonishingly devoid of any self-pity. From a fellow New Yorker to another, I wish you only good things. Hang in there. :)

Marc

[The Gay Recluse]

Wow -- condolences on all of that (and especially the wtf mugging), but you're right: pessimism can be beautiful thing.

[joe c]

Holy effin crap. You poor kid. I've been mugged a few times myself and you have my sympathies.

You're a New Yorker, all right. I just wish you had an easier initiation ceremony.

[Brad]

I don't know who you worked for, but last I knew there were a few arch lighting firms in NYC that were hiring - thanks to Dubai.

[dan]

i hate to say it, but welcome to the real world....a world that is completely agnostic about your ups and downs. the best thing you can do is say, 'fuck it' and get right back in NYC's face and hustle for whatever reality you want for yourself. this too will pass - just get on with it.

[charles]

wow, i'm so sorry to hear!

perhaps you can pick up some of those projects you've shelved for a while.

when one door closes another one has to open. now just pick the door with the grand prize as opposed to the booby trapped one.

[Aaron]

I just moved out of NYC after seven years, and I can safely tell you the cynicism I acquired there doesn't leave, it's terminal. But I do know that I'd rather be cynical in NYC than anywhere else on the planet. So keep plugging away. It eventually has to get better.

[Ed]

My heart goes out to you. Talk about having a rough few weeks. I wish there was something that I could do to make it a little better.

I will tell you that you should report that 9-1-1 call taker. I work in Emergency Services and it is their job to find you and to figure out where you are not throw their hands up and say "sorry, can't help." A good dispatcher would have tried to figure out another way to get the cross-street (like plug the address into google maps or something!)

[Mike]

That's beautiful. ;)

[Brian]

Your old boss has a stinking ass

[scholiast]

It sounds like you're a New Yorker, alright, but not a happy new yorker (do they exist?)... Perhaps you should try again, start with this http://joshandjosh.typepad.com/josh_josh_are_rich_and_fa/2005/09/new_york_smile.html :)

[Jon-Marc]

My God Josh. I can totally empathize. I am going through my own hell and it ain't pretty. Hopefully things will get better for us both.

You can read my saga at my blog if you'd like.

[Becky]

It's awful that your experiences make for good writing, but it's true. Still, I hope you're reserving a little of your Midwestern self under the layers of NYC cynicism. Things will get better.

[Rita Miller]

One of your coworkers sent this out Friday.

Dear (keeper):

I am resigning my position as (assistant keeper) at (crypt) effective today January 9, 2009.

To the rest of my colleagues at (crypt):

It has been a pleasure working with such a talented, hard-working group of people. Best of luck.

[rob praino]

i.love.this.effin.blog.

Great stuff. well, shitty bout of luck, but great stuff. you guys are great.