--Mignon McLaughlin

(I'm still not done with yesterday, so I'm going to continue with Monday in this entry. Give that I'm trying to catch up again, tomorrow's entry will be about today, and so on for the rest of the week. And possibly beyond; we shall see, I suppose.)

So, after I left the courthouse, I went on to Jamaica, where I visited the Central library branch. After returning some books and CDs, and taking out some more of the former, I proceeded to the bus stop about two blocks away.

About ten feet from the bus stop, I heard somebody angrily shout something. I looked up, and for a fraction of a second, I met the eyes of the person doing the shouting, thus accidentally breaking Rule #1.

Rule #1 for New York City Street Survival:
Never, ever make eye contact.

"Do you have a dollar, Jew?" he demanded. I replied that, to my regret, I did not; all I had on my person was a MetroCard, which I needed to take the bus home.

"You don't have a dollar," he repeated, disbelievingly, as he grabbed both my arms and pulled me towards him. "No," I repeated, as I braced myself against him, trying to get free. "Just a MetroCard," he muttered. "Yes, but I need it to get home, where I need to go now, so let me go," I replied.

He spat at my shoulder -- although I wasn't certain of this until later -- and released me, saying, "You're in the wrong neighborhood, Jew!"

"Apparently so," I muttered, as I walked to the relative safety of the bus shelter.

(I suppose I should mention at this point that Jamaica is a predominantly black neighborhood. This has never been of concern to me, but it seems that this guy -- who was black himself -- had other ideas about that.)

1. It didn't seem especially newsworthy. I'm not certain whether it would best be filed under "The New York Experience," "Crazy Things that Happen to Writers," or "The Jewish Experience," but, in any event, as long as nobody was hurt, it's no big deal, in my book.

2. I try not to dwell on such matters, preferring to put them out of my mind as quickly as possible.

Besides, it gets better.

That he had spit on me was quickly confirmed, as a woman came over a few seconds later, pulled out a few paper napkins, and wiped it off, leaving one napkin between my collar and my neck, with instructions to discard it when I got home, and wash my neck.

A bunch of others at the bus stop chimed in with recommendations on what to do, with the overall consensus being that the person in question was clearly deranged, that there was no telling what diseases he might have, and that I should basically bathe in bleach and burn my clothes when I got home, just in case. And I should be careful not to rub my skin and accidentally break it.

There was also some muttering about the guy's comment that I was in the wrong neighborhood, as, apparently, he wasn't from that neighborhood himself.

On the whole, the whole thing served as a fairly heartening reminder that most people out there are nice, friendly, and helpful, far outweighing the handful of lunatics out there.

(I suppose I should mention at this point that all of the people offering advice and stuff were also black. Again, this shouldn't matter, but if I'm gonna mention it in the one instance, I'd darn well better balance the picture out.)

So I washed up some more, and looked at the shirt -- a standard white dress shirt -- and considered the following:

• It was pretty old, had a permanent case of Ring Around the Collar, and really should've been replaced long ago.
• The blood seemed unlikely to come out in the wash.
• The dire warnings of everybody else at the bus stop had succeeded in striking the Fear of Disease in me, even though I knew better.
• I really wanted to put the whole thing behind me...