You f&*kin' monsters

So my cell phone rings a little after 11pm on Sunday night. I didn't recognize the number, but it was a 212 and we have plenty of friends in NYC, so I picked up. It was my friend, Tracy.

My heart started that slow, heavy thumping when the first words out of her mouth were "Dagfinn's OK, but he's in the hospital"

Aparently our friend Dagfinn (Yes, that's his name. He was born in Norway, it's pronounced Dahg-fin) walked out of a bar in the Lower East Side on Saturday night/Sunday morning and headed for the subway that would take him home to Brooklyn. He thinks somewhere around Delancey & Allen, he was attacked. He woke up in the hospital around noon on Sunday remembering NOTHING about the incident.

He managed to remember his home number well enough to call his roommate, who was fortunately home. Mark, being the fantastic guy that he is, started making the necessary phone calls including the one to Dagfinn's mom in OH. By Monday, Mark and Tracy had rallied much of Dagfinn's friends to visit him at Bellevue and Mrs. Senturia had made it in on a noon flight.

When my friend Laura and I got there, Dagfinn was not long out of surgery. He had 6 plates and 32 screws put in his face because he had multiple fractures. He's missing one of his front teeth, has a broken nose and a VERY impressive shiner. We none of us, least of all Dagfinn, can figure out exactly what happend. All the damage to Dagfinn is on the right side of his face only. There are no defensive wounds or any other brusing anywhere on his body.

Dagfinn is one of the nicest people I know, not to say that I would wish this on someone I didn't like. But of all people... He's the quietest, most unassuming of all the charaters I've ever met. And just so DAMN nice. And, oh God, he looked so awful and small in the hospital bed...

The true kicker to all of this, NOTHING was stolen from him. We all (including Dagfinn) agreed that we could almost justify the crime if his wallet or something was missing. But to do this to another human being for no good reason but that they were there.

I know, I know... Wrong place, wrong time.

I know the safety issues, I work in a public library in Newark, NJ, for God's sake. And I've had shotguns pulled on me twice in the rural South (in both cases, the person on the other end thought I was the tax assessor, which I wasn't). And as a woman, I know the score and take reasonable precautions...but you FUCKING MONSTERS!!!! YOU ANIMALS!!!! YOU BASTARDS!!!! How COULD you be so INHUMAN!!!!

Venting over for now...but this has really shaken me and all of Dagfinn's friends.