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 There was no one else on the street. I suppose I could’ve crossed the street to avoid them, but I was intent on not giving in to some sort of irrational fear.
-As I passed by these kids, one of them reached out and grabbed me
+As I passed by these kids, one of them reached out and grabbed me. It
+was the guy in the basketball jersey.
+Even at this point, I thought it was some sort of joke—that they were
+horsing around somehow. But they weren’t. One of them said,“Don’t move,
+cuz, or I shoot you!”
+He stuck something hard and metallic into my ribs. It could’ve been a
+gun. It could’ve been something else. All I knew is that something unpleasant was being pressed into my ribs and I didn’t want it there. One of them
+held onto the back of my jacket while the basketball jersey said in a low,
+steady tone, “Give me all you got, cuz.”
+I didn’t feel fear for some reason. I reached into my pocket, pulled out
+the sixty-two pennies, and dropped them at his feet.
+He just stared at me for a second. “That’s all you got?”
+I nodded.
+“You lyin’to me, cuz?”The jersey started patting me down, from my chest
+all the way down to my pants. Now his voice wasn’t quite as low or steady
+anymore. “’Cause if you lyin’ to me, cuz, I’m gonna shoot you!”At first I was
+confident that nothing bad would happen because I didn’t have any money
+on me.Then I realized that something bad might happen because I didn’t
+have any money on me.
+As the jersey patted me down, I glanced at his friends. They were wearing black hoodies over their heads, glancing nervously from side to side.
+They had no need to be nervous. No one was around, except us.
+“Shit,” Jersey said as he stopped patting me. “You the poorest white boy I
+ever met.” He sounded disgusted with me. Perhaps this was their first time.
+Of all the white people they could’ve mugged in Torrance,CA, they chose the
+one with no money. I almost felt bad for them. I felt the need to explain.
+“I don’t make much money,” I said,shrugging.“I write for Paranoia Magazine.”
+“What the fuck?” one of the lookouts said. He seemed pissed. I thought
+for sure they were going to drag me off into the nearby alley and beat the
+crap out of me—or worse. But then the lookout said, “Is that the one with
+Bat Boy on the cover?”
+It took me a couple of seconds to process what he was saying. “You’re
+thinking of the Weekly World News,” I said.“Paranoia Magazine doesn’t have
+Bat Boy in it. I wish it did. Paranoia Magazine comes out of Providence,
+Rhode Island where H.P. Lovecraft”
+R O B E R T G U F F E Y • 253
+“Shut the fuck up!” Jersey yelled and gave me a violent shove that almost
+knocked me to the ground. “Turn around!”
+I did as I was told. Jersey pressed the palm of his hand against the middle of my back and pushed me. “Just keep on walkin’, cuz, and don’t look
+back.”
+I walked, and didn’t look back.
+I kept wondering if they were going to come up behind me again and finish the job. Perhaps they were just toying with me?
+After a few blocks, I turned a corner and picked up my speed a little bit.
+That’s when the fear kicked in. My heart started racing.I kept glancing to my
+right to see if they were circling the block to ambush me. But they weren’t.
+The second I returned home I called my friend Wendy.Wendy told me to
+call the cops. I didn’t bother. What would be the point? I suspected I knew
+exactly which house on the block these kids lived in.(Think about that.You
+have to be a real amateur to mug people in your own damn neighborhood.)
+But the idea of me and a couple of mustachioed cops strolling up to a house
+full of black people while the Boys in Blue ask me to finger these idiot kids
+seemed like a potentially fatal idea. “Are these the scumbags, sir?”“Yes, officer, they most definitely are!”“And how much did they steal from you?”“Absolutely nothing!”“Well . . .we better toss these assholes in jail for a day—just
+teach ‘em a lesson they’ll never forget!”Twenty-four hours later they’re back
+out on the street, circling the neighborhood over and over again, waiting to
+see me. That wouldn’t take long.
+No, I decided just to forget about it.
+But I couldn’t forget about it. I felt cheated and violated. I was pissed off
+that I was out sixty-two cents. Most writers can’t afford just to throw money
+around like that. So the second I woke up in the morning I slipped on my
+jacket and returned to the exact corner where the teenagers had assaulted
+me. I wanted my pennies back.
+But when I got there, I was surprised to see that they were all gone.
+I glanced around in some nearby bushes, but couldn’t find even one of
+them. Eventually, I just gave up and went home. For a long time afterwards,
+I avoided going out alone after dark.It took me awhile to get over that residual fear—a few months, at least.
+I sure hope they didn’t spend all those pennies in one place.
+THE END
 {{Review}}
 {{DEFAULTSORT:Cents}}
 [[Category:Short Stories (MR)]]