People hate Michael Jackson.
But at a time, his music was the only one that I was privy too.
The morning started like any other. The skies over East Los Angeles were overcast but the day would eventually turn hot and insufferable. At the moment though, I felt relaxed and jaunt listening to the tunes of MJ’s Dangerous album on my hard earned Walkman.
It was at the corner of Hammel and Gage Avenue that the altercation happened.
He was a young man about my age but experienced beyond my years I think. He wore a crisp white shirt, a cleanly shaved bald head and a taught laundered pair of khaki pants one size too big.
At the intersection he stood. Confident and wearing a killer look that I interpreted as meaning business.
I took it seriously.
He hastily asked to empty my pockets. In shame and knowing that it wasn’t much I showed the the paltry allowance I had earned for bus fair. He did not care. $7.00 was enough and I gave it to him as I looked as what I considered to be a gun but was obviously his hand pointing at me under his clothes.
As items felt out of my pockets he laughed!
A pencil? A skinny wallet filled with school ids and lunch tickets?
Finally there was my Walkman. The one that had taken me months to earn. The one for which I had saved every penny, dollar and dime my parents had given me.
And now this bald headed ruffian wanted it.
I was scared and I gave it to him.
I wanted to live and I didn’t want to take the chance that there was a real gun under his shirt. People had died in my neighborhood for much less..
He looked at it and smiled and then took the CD out?
“Michael Jackson?, what kind of stupid music is that?” he said and chucked the delicate disk on the floor.
Then he ran out onto the streets.
My ego was hurt! He had stolen from me. He had laughed at my music.
He took my safety net away.