It’s a Friday night in 1994, and I’m with my friend Ann on our way to Veniero’s in the East Village.  On most Fridays, we both waitress at a local Mexican restaurant, but we have this night off when our restaurant is shut down by the Department of Health because the ceiling over the smoking section is collapsing.

At a little after 9 pm on this pleasant spring evening, the two of us cross First Avenue at 11th Street. I can see Veniero’s red neon sign. A few customers are sitting at tables on the sidewalk, eating Italian pastries. Soon, we will be joining them.

I’m practically skipping, so thrilled to know that I’ll be eating fancy gelato and splitting a piece of cake with Ann. My whole face is tilted upwards with my silly ice-cream-eating grin.

Suddenly — my buttocks are grabbed. A split second later, a man wearing a horizontal striped shirt pushes past me, laughing, and clutching a 40 oz bottle of Olde English Malt Liquor in his non-groping hand. He strolls past me as if what he’s done to me is just a way to have fun on a Friday night. He doesn’t run. He doesn’t even speed up.

I take a few quick steps after him. My fists pound his meaty back, while a stream of cuss words spew out of me as if I’m possessed. For a moment, a thought crosses my mind — he’s really, really big. This thought is knocked right out of my brain when my skull is bashed from behind. The whole top of my body jerks forward from the force. I almost fall, but catch myself, tripping a bit.

I’m still upright when I feel another blow to the back of my head. A group of six or seven men breeze past me, laughing and gripping their own bottles of malt liquor. Glancing to my right I see Ann on the sidewalk, her hands clutching both sides of her face in horror. Just behind her are the stunned faces of people sitting at Veniero’s outside tables. Ann must wonder why I suddenly started pummeling the man in the striped shirt.  There’s no way she could have known he groped me from behind just moments ago. 

Everything feels thick and dizzy and slow.  I’m jolted back to the present hearing the continued laughter of the men who are now slapping each other on the back as they stagger away from me. They’re in no hurry as they amble down First Avenue.

I spot a nearby payphone, race to it, grab the receiver and press 9-1-1.

A woman answers, “9-1-1. What’s the location of your emergency?”

Where am I? I put my hand to my mouth and taste blood. I must have bitten down on my tongue. I stare at the blood droplets on my fingertips.

“Hello?” The woman repeats.

 “I was just attacked.”

“Where’s your location?”

I glance over at Ann. She’s several feet from me, still in the same place she was when I was hit. Looking up, I see the street signs. “I’m on First Avenue and 11th Street…some guy groped me, so I hit him. Then his friends attacked me.”

“Okay, I’ll send a cruiser right over. Stay right where you are.”

Just as I hang up a yellow cab pulls up to the curb. The driver sticks his head out and asks, “What’d they look like?”

I rush to him, lean over to his open window and say, “They were big, and one had a striped shirt…”

I’m interrupted by the blare of sirens and flashing lights as a blue cruiser swerves up and stops. 

I run up to the cruiser. Ann is right behind me. Two young male cops are inside. The dark-haired one in the driver’s seat says, “Get in the backseat!”

Just before I get in the police car I point and tell them, “That nice cab driver over there tried to help me.”

“Yeah,” the dark-haired cops nods. “He’s one of us.”

Ann and I scramble into the backseat. As soon as the door is shut, the siren wails, lights flash and we barrel through red lights. 

 A red-haired cop on the passenger side turns to me. “What’d they look like?”

“I didn’t get a really good look at their faces cuz they came from behind…” Suddenly a gust of laughter bursts out of my mouth. I shake violently and try to muffle the laughter. I’m afraid they won’t believe me if I don’t stop giggling. Why am I hysterical? I glance at Ann. She’s quiet and terrified. What’s going on with me?

The red-haired cop says, “It’s alright. Sometimes people have this reaction. Just keep looking out the window and let us know if ya see the guys.” 

We speed up and down the streets and avenues of the East Village, which are packed with people on a lovely Friday night. It is a blur of happy faces. No one looks like the group of guys who attacked me. Once we hit Tompkins Square Park the red-haired cop grabs a bullhorn telling a group of young men on the sidewalk to stop and stand still.

“Is that them?” he asks me.

I glance out the window at the confused guys. “No.”

The men are told they can go. This doesn’t feel real. A few minutes ago, I was about to get ice cream and could smell the strong coffee and sweet scent of Italian pastries and cakes. And now I’m in the backseat of a cruiser next to Ann, speeding past familiar blocks in my neighborhood looking for my attackers. The cops stop a few more guys, but I tell them they aren’t the ones. The cruiser slows down and they turn off the siren, but the lights still blink and flash. 

After about twenty minutes, the red-haired one turns to me again, “I know this might be difficult, but you should try not to fight back with these guys. It pisses them off ya know, and you could really get hurt.”

I listen to him. It never occurred to me not to fight back. Suddenly I lurch forward and a sob bursts from my belly. I cover my eyes as sticky hot tears stream down my face. I’m more embarrassed by my crying than when I was laughing like a fool. 

The cop watches me for a second then says, “I’m telling ya this, but ya not hearin’ it from me. Get ya self some mace or peppah spray.”

I nod and bend over and wipe my face with the bottom of my green cotton sweater. Ann pats my shoulder, and I manage to smile at her.

“Are ya hurt?” the cop asks. “We can bring ’ya to the emergency room.”

“No, I’m ok.” I don’t tell him that I bit my tongue, and my vision is blurry. It seems to be getting slowly better. I don’t want to go to the hospital. 

“Awright, but let us know if ya change ’ya mind.” We circle a few more blocks and end up on Second Avenue when finally one of the cops says, “Well, I don’t think we’re gonna’ catch ‘em tonight. They probably are long gone. We can drop ya two off at your apartment, or wherever ya want.”

I look at Ann, then ask, “Can you drop us at Venieros?”

We drive down Second Avenue until we reach 4th Street to make a turn to First Avenue to drive back up to Veniero’s. Past 4th Street is a No-Man’s-Land. It’s a darkened part of the avenue where there are no restaurants and just a few stores that are only open in the daytime. It’s where homeless guys sell junk laid out on the sidewalk. They drink and fight there as well. Tonight, a trashy-dressed woman is pointing at the homeless guys and yelling at them. They yell back at her. She looks like one of the hookers who work a bit further down just south of Houston Street, in Sara D. Roosevelt Park.

The cruiser slows down and stops near this verbal altercation. The red-haired cop tells us, “We gotta break this up before we drop ya off. You ladies stay here.” The two cops get out and amble up to the chaos of the screaming homeless guys and shrieking prostitute.

Suddenly, the trashy-dressed woman catches a glimpse of me and Ann, sitting in the backseat of the blue police cruiser. She jerks her head back in surprise, stops screaming at the homeless vendors and totters over to us in her high heels.

She bends down for a better look at me and Ann sitting in our Gap outfits with our hands folded on our laps. She smirks conspiratorially and then raps her knuckle on the window.

I roll it down. 

She clucks and rolls her tongue to one side of her cheek. Chuckling with glee and waggling her finger, she asks, “Mmm, mmm, mmm? What’d you two get picked up for?”

Ann and I open our mouths and look at each other. I turn back to the woman, her face is rippling with curiosity. 

I shrug my shoulders and say, “No. We were just going to Veniero’s…to get ice cream. And cake!”

The woman throws her head back, guffaws, then dismisses us with a wave of her hand. “Yeah, right. I’m gonna use that one next time the cops take me in.”

***

Coree Spencer arrived in New York City on February 4, 1989 from Athens, Georgia. Ten minutes after arriving in the city on a bus from Newark Airport was robbed of her wallet trying to get through the turnstile at the Cortlandt Street subway. She has waited tables and worked in the catering industry most of her 35 years here in the city.

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