not even a security alert

In the verdant gardens and clean sidewalks of downtown New Haven tonight, I was getting Chinese takeout and a creep grabbed me on the way back to the car and started jerking off. I screeched and yelled and a bunch of people came out and chased the guy off, but I was utterly furious. Even after people came out he Would. Not. Let. Go. Most pervs are total cowards, but not this douche. There are a LOT of crazies in New Haven, there are mental hospitals all around the city, but in our oh-so-Caucasian, oh-so-safe state, I learned tonight that most of them have discharged their patients and closed down because mental health isn't very fucking glamourous and therefore isn't worth funding. On Sunday I have to file an assault report with the notoriously corrupt NHPD.

I expect this from New York. I expect it walking home after work or after volunteering in Prospect Park. But no. There are families out, there's a security camera in my building's hallway, there's crowded streets full of people who always want to know each other's business. I never felt so unsafe as I do in the suburbs, but after tonight I wanted to explode with frustration. I'm not even thinking about the what-ifs of tonight, I'm not upset or scared or teary, but goddamnit am I mad about the factors that allow shit like this to happen. People have this perception that cities are cesspools of murderers and rapists and maniacs, which of course they are. But in the suburbs, there are just as many creeps and nowhere to put them and no one out to chase them off from their victims. There is no fucking Holla Back Hartford County. Unlike cities, the 'burbs ignore what a huge risk it is to close down prisons and hospitals--exactly what CT just did--and that leaves me shaking in my car with the doors locked, a baseball bat in one hand and a fruitless phone call to the police in the other. I'm not saying cities like NYC are safe havens by any stretch, but spacious lawns and deserted parking lots are their own particular brand of hell.