Mark and Alexis held up at gunpoint

The following is an edited version of e-mail from my New Orleans’ son:
Last night, I was robbed at gun-point. It was a traumatic experience. For me, it was traumatic because I absolutely hate to have control taken from me. There is no more effective way to dominate someone than to point a gun at them.
My wife and I were just leaving the ATM, being goofy as we walked to the coffee shop near our house. We saw this guy and his friend approach. “Hey, man, can I talk to you for a sec?” he asked.
I responded, “What’s up?”
“Give me what you got.” He flashed the gun. It seemed so surreal that it didn’t hit for a second or two that he was trying to rob me.
I know it sounds silly, but I couldn’t believe his audacity — taking advantage of friendly banter to rob someone — that violates all kinds of social protocols. He had stepped outside of bounds of common sense and was betting I would just cave in.
I pulled out my wallet and looked hard at the $30 I had just taken from the ATM. I was so slow in handing him the money that Alexis worried that I was going to do something crazy. She was babbling “Don’t shoot, We’ve got three children. Mark, give him the money.” There wasn’t much I could do to calm her so I just handed the man the money and kept my wallet.
He took the money and walked slowly down the street with his friend, cool as a cucumber. Alexis ran to the coffee shop to call the cops as I watched them. A bum, who happened to be passing by, dropped his bag of trash. Its contents scattered. He bent to pick them up, oblivious to the whole thing.
The pair turned left at the next cross street, so I went down the block the other way and turned right. I turned the corner and there they were. When they saw me, they turned and ran back around the corner.
That’s the last I saw of them.
I went back to the coffee shop where Alexis had called the cops and we waited. Eventually, too upset to talk and tired of waiting for the police, we went back home, picked up the kids from the neighbor’s house, and put them to bed.
Later, the officer came over with mug shots. I didn’t recognize anyone. I’m one of those people you read about who remembers the gun, but not the face of the perp.
Now I’m mad. I hate having crazy goons ruining the first night out we had had in a long time. I hate having my wife getting scared so that she won’t venture out after dark anymore. I hate how they took control with a few simple words and the flash of a gun.
Now, I have this battle going on in my head. I’m trying to avoid dwelling too much on how I could have psyched them out by ignoring them the whole time. I’m trying to avoid thinking about how we should have run when we saw them making an obvious move to close in on us.
I’m trying to avoid thinking about all that. Instead, I’m thinking about all the reasons I choose to live in the city in the first place. Our neighbors play a major role in that decision.
The people who were watching our kids that night, for example. Good folks who share a border with our backyard; godparents to our oldest daughter. They lift their own grandchildren over the fence to play with our kids. They are great people and this experience helps me understand how much I value that particular relationship.
But beyond just that couple, we know practically everyone on our city block. Our kids play with theirs and we’ve grown much closer over the past few years than a lot of people have the opportunity to do nowadays. Its common for many people to not even talk to their neighbors, but here we have a block full of neighbors that we talk with on a regular basis.
When I tell someone from outside the city what happened, they ask “When are you going to move?” Or “That’s why I moved!”
But, why should I let a couple of two-bit punks, dishonest men, who were scared to face me on a crowded street, ruin the relationships I have where I live? Why should I move away from the good people because a couple of dishonest ones robbed me of $30?
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times.)