My brain says, “Let’s dance!” My body says, “You’re really sick.” My brain says, “Dance out the congestion!” My body says, “hungry…headache…” My brain says, “Either way, you’re not getting any sleeeeeep because I’m going to think think think.”
I’m not sick like I was in the winter when I was borderline delirious, and all I could do was lay on my couch and watch Pushing Daisies. I’m restless either way. I want to write and revise, but my head hurts. My thoughts are racing. I miss dancing. I don’t understand boys. Everything I want is not in my control. I’m surrounded by so many wonderful people. I need a new dresser. Should I look at furniture this weekend? I want to go on a bike ride.
The CVS on campus was sold out of all kinds of cold medication, so I had to bike down to another one on my way to work. The traffic lights were out. As I neared work, I saw a police car driving the opposite direction, and I waved because I thought I recognized the officers. Later, when I was leaving work, it was raining, and the police officer said he saw me riding my bike. He put my bike in the back of the paddy wagon and gave me a ride home. It was the second time I was in a police vehicle.
The first time was in Madrid when the police gave me a ride to and from the police station after the man tried to mug me and I tried to file a police report. A woman in the building emerged in the stairwell as I slowly climbed up the stairs. She knew some English, enough to ask if everything was all right, and I said no. What I really wanted to say was, “Why didn’t you come out earlier?” She called the police.
Three police officers stood in the apartment as I tried to explain to them in my terrible broken Spanish, “Un hombre mesa [hand gesture] mi bolsa.” I had only briefly glanced through the Spanish phrasebook and saw bolsa in reference to purse (as in Mi bolsa! Mi bolsa! if someone snatches your purse), and he said, “Dame tu bolsa,” over and over. I recalled mesa from meso la barba from that El Cid book we read in high school Spanish.
Words I struggled with to describe the man: black hair, black leather jacket, jeans (I forgot this word and most likely pointed at my pants), white plastic bag. I could not explain how he followed me into the building, pretended he had a knife, and when I didn’t let go of my bag, dragged me down a flight of old wooden steps, and they kept asking if I were hurt or if he hit me. My knee hurt from going down the stairs. There were bruises on my arms but nothing serious enough to go to the hospital. I don’t know if I could have done that on my own. They tried to have me speak to someone on the phone, but he couldn’t understand me because I spoke too quickly or I sobbed too much. One of the police officers, she kept saying, “Tranquila. Tranquila.” I had a lot of tissues to blow my nose because I had been so sick in America (I hadn’t tasted food in a week) and my first night in Spain.
On the way to the police station, they stopped the car on a street where two policemen holding a man, and they asked if that was him. It wasn’t. He didn’t have black hair.
They couldn’t take my statement that night because there was no translator, and even though there was a woman there who knew English and Spanish well enough, she couldn’t because she wasn’t official. She translated the directions for me to go back there in the morning, and the police officers drove me back to my building and walked me all the way to the top floor.
He tried to mug me and didn’t succeed. None of this matters. I thought of this as I sat silently in the back of the paddy wagon. Tonight, the police officer gave me a ride because it was raining.
