The only drink dispenser in this building that I'm aware of still holding Diet Coke is geographically the most distant machine from my classroom. It is upstairs and catty-corner from my cell down here in the catacombs, up the clogged stairwell and through the teeming halls where students walk four abreast at bovine speed and stop dramatically to add emphasis to their conversation. Sometimes their bodies shift left and right like schools of fish sensing the presence of a predator, frustrating my attempts to slip by on their margins.They seem to know instinctively that I'm feinting to the left and move in coordination to block my path.
I had six minutes.
A young man was standing before the machine I wanted to use, adjusting his ipod with swipes of his thumb. Making a prod out of my first three fingers and thumb, pinky finger curled in, I pushed him gently aside and began fishing for my coins. In Europe they have done away with single denomination paper currency, it's all coins. How much easier if we didn't have to feed limp paper dollars into these slots, if we were given coins that rolled smartly into the slot, making complex mechanical noises indicating the working of invisible machinery and the inevitable clunk of the drink rolling out. You feed those sweat-limp dollar bills into the slot and you keep thinking about middle age and it's poignant and melancholy.
Perhaps cash-point machines have affected me more than I suspect, but whenever my drink or candy bar clunks down into the dispenser, I always look furtively over my shoulder to make sure a thug isn't standing by to beat me down and run off with my beverage. Or something like that. There was no thug this time, the usual crowd swirled around me and past me - but then two young men caught my eye because they were very obviously and flagrantly wearing ball caps. Usually students have a sixth sense about this sort of thing - they feel your eyes on them and they pull the hat sheepishly from their heads and hold them low, their body language proclaiming surrender. These boys did not - they swept towards me at low speed, insouciant and full of attitude.
"Hats, boys," I said. Usually that's enough. They know the game is over and they doff their hats and nobody cares any further - but these boys didn't even meet my eye. They certainly didn't make any motions towards taking the hats off. My fight-or-flight gland began pumping adrenaline into my system. My face was suddenly hot and my pulse jumped in my throat. They were right in front of me now and clearly not looking at me, but they were aware of me, clearly, because their mouths and eyes were turned up in contemptuous sneers. I stood up holding my cold bottle of Diet Coke and the crowd of students in the lobby faded into the background - like a predator, I was locked on my targets. They took their hats off just before going into the cafeteria for their Free Breakfast, but without haste or humility.
I know how these things work out. I was already moving through the crowd, slotting left and right. I could see them through the window of the cafeteria door and one of them was already putting his hat back on his head - but he never got it there. I was right behind him, plucking it off and snatching it away.
"Mine, " I said, already turning away. "You can get it back at the end of the day." But the words came out strangled because my throat was beating with my pulse. I felt that hot mix of triumph and emotion - I wanted to strut triumphantly but my voice gave me away. My knees were stiff and I have a feeling I pogoed like someone with Aspergers.
It occurred to me as I disappeared into the crowd that these were freshman and didn't know my name. He would never know where his hat went - and perhaps he didn't care all that much. But I did, I cared. I carried his hat down to my room and displayed it like a scalp.
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