(no subject)

[nibot]

The lingering question is, did they intend from the beginning to mug me, or was it a more spontaneous endeavor?

On our way to the liquor store I checked the time and it was 1:42 or something like that. The guys seemed to indicate that I could spend the night with them, and the youth hostel's curfew -- I supposed -- was only fifteen minutes away. Eric and Pilar and Rob had probably gone their various ways, and I couldn't retrieve my stuff until in morning -- I didn't need it for the night anyway. So I figured that staying with these guys was as good a bet as any at that point.

We reached the store and one of the guys selected a liter of Estonian vodka and a box of orange juice and it came to 125 crowns. My share was 25 crowns and I gave them fifty, trying to be friendly.

They say that good vodka is tasteless, and the Estonian vodka certainly is tasteless, except for a rather unpleasant `aftertaste' that's not a taste but a feeling in the back of the throat. Orange juice eliminates the aftertaste, and tastes good too, so drinking vodka and orange juice is kind of like just drinking orange juice. That is simultaneously the principle advantage and fatal flaw of the technique.

After this we wandered about for a bit, and all was good. Not too long afterwards it was decided that we'd go to an apartment, where one of the kids lived. Four of us got into a taxi, leaving behind two, and we were off.

I was kind of excited to be going somewhere outside central Tallinn, and for some reason the circumstances of doing so did not bother me at all at the time. I was a little worried about how much it would cost, as it was a fairly long taxi ride, but I checked and saw that the taxi meter was running at what could only be a `local' rate (as opposed to the `outsider') rate and saw that all was well.

Eventually we arrived (``here is place'') with a taxi fare of about a hundred crowns, and I paid my share. It was a place completely unlike central Tallinn. In my memory the sky was blue and lit by the moon. On a snow-covered plane, two or three giant apartment blocks rose from the landscape.

I followed the kids into one of these apartment blocks, and we took the elevator up to his (family's) apartment. It seemed to be a pretty nice apartment. The kid turned on a computer and showed me photos of Estonia in the spring summertime, everything green and the sun shining, and his friends. I munched on pepperkakor (gingerbread cookies) that were passed around.

After awhile we left that apartment and went to another one in the neighboring complex. Apparently that kid's parents were coming home and we had to leave before they arrived (``dad coming home, must go to new place''). We went to the other kid's apartment but soon had to leave for the same reason. One kid had become insistent that I drink more vodka. I didn't want more vodka, and said as much, but he insisted still. I then pretended to drink vodka and that seemed to pacify him. This worried me a bit.

We set out across the snow again towards another apartment block, on the other side of the road. We sleep there, it was explained, and I was happy for that because I was ready for some sleep. We stopped at a kiosk by the road and the kids bought a couple bags of potato chips, and offered me some. After loitering there a bit, we continued across the road and down the path towards the apartment building. It couldn't have been more than 100 meters away.

So, we're walking down that path, and then suddenly, WHAM! I'm face down in a snowbank, with a mitten-covered hand over my mouth and some guy on top of me, while hands search my person for anything interesting. wham, wham! periodic blows came from somewhere. Aside from finding air to breathe, I didn't resist. I was insulted as much as anything else, thinking, if they're going to do this, then why didn't they just do it right off instead of bothering with all the mock-friendship stuff? My mouth free from the hand for a second, I expressed my indignation verbally. Eventually they were done probing my various pockets for goodies and ran off, but not before kicking my head a few more times for good measure...

I pulled myself out of the snow, and promptly fell down into it again on the other side of the path. One eye I couldn't see through, and sight through the other was very blurry. I watched some people disappear into the blur, far away down the path. I realized that the kids were indeed gone, vanished into the morass of identical-looking Soviet-style apartments. There is no way I could have remembered exactly which apartments we had visited.

I picked myself up out of the snow again and began walking/staggering in the direction we had been going, with some vague notion of trying to follow the kids to see where they had gone, but mostly because there was no particular reason to go any particular direction. Quickly I ran into a group of people. A couple, and, I think, a third person. They looked at me in a very concerned, worried, way, and asked what happened. I hammered out a few sentences and all three of them whipped out their mobile telephones and dialed 112 (the european emergency number) as if by reflex. The number was busy. Perhaps because they had all dialed simultaneously. Then they got through and asked for an ambulance. In the meantime, they asked me who these kids were, and I explained as best I could in two and three word sentences what had happened. The woman said something like, in a very sympathetic way, ``You fool-boy, you, fool-boy. This is Lasnamäe.''

The man held me and held me up. I began to feel very, very cold, and sought the little bit of body heat available. They lead me up to their apartment, half leading, half carrying me. Once there I sat on a chair shivering intensely and feeling very, very cold. I'd lost my scarf, mittens, and beenie when I was attacked, but was otherwise very warmly dressed, with multiple layers, culminating in a warm down jacket. I think shock must have set in or something, but in any case, I was freezing cold. The woman brought me some hot tea which I eagerly drank. As far as the cold was concerned, though, the tea was only `a drop in the bucket'. Someone fetched a hair dryer, and the man blasted my face with hot air, and it felt wonderful. He stuck it down my shirt, and in this way I was thawed.

Then the woman received a telephone call on her mobile phone -- the ambulance is here. They rushed me into the elevator, downstairs, and into the ambulance, handing me a scrap of paper with their telephone number on it on the way. In the ambulance I wrote on another scrap of paper for the paramedic, ``My name is Tobin Fricke, I live at ... , etc.'' Writing was far easier than speaking for me, and probably easier for them to understand as well. Furthermore, there'd be a permanent record.

I reached into my pocket and discovered that I still had the scrap of paper from Rob saying ``If we get separated, call this number: 06....'' I handed this paper to the ambulance people.

The ambulance ride took a very long time, and I became increasingly worried, in a sort of disconnected, paranoid way. ``Where are we going?'' I asked, perhaps more than once. They assured me that we were going to the hospital. Where is the hospital? They assured me it was in central Tallinn. I couldn't help the nervous feeling that I was just being taken to the outskirts of town only to be dumped in the snow again... (`whom can you trust?') it was taking far too long. There was nothing I could do about the situation, so I just chose to believe them, and went to sleep.

At some point I consented to X-ray and ultrasound.

The doctor in the hospital seemed a benevolent fellow, with brown hair entering the grey end of the spectrum, and a silvery mustache. He seemed confused about what to do with me. I had no identification, no hotel reservations. Nothing but me and a little piece of paper that said ``if separated, call this number.'' I was a stranger in a strange land.

``Do you have travel insurance,'' he asked. ``No,'' I replied, ``but I do have medical insurance.'' ``I don't understand,'' he said. I asked for the time. It was 6:30am. I noticed that writing on the plastic curtains between gurneys was in Cyrillic. Then I went to sleep again.

Eventually someone woke me up saying, ``it's time for you to go! there's a taxi waiting!'' She found my jacket for me, and we went off down the corridors to a waiting room, where I waited. I felt rather forgotten there. I was feeling a little bit more awake, and considered simply leaving the hospital on my own accord. I was vaguely wondering how I would pay for the ambulance and hospital as well. Eventually someone came and told me to go outside for the taxi. Indeed, there was a taxi there, and it was for me.

The woman driving the taxi had the address of Rob and Piret and had been directed to take me there. I said I didn't have any money, and she said that the people at the address could pay. I asked how much it would be, and when she said sixty crowns ($3.43) I ceased worrying. ``I recognize this address... is it the film maker?'' she asked. I said `yes,' and thought this an interesting coincidence. I explained what had happened, and she replied ironically ``Well, happy new year!'' and then looked at me, saying, ``poor you, poor you...''

We arrived at Piret and Rob's apartment, and they threw down money for the taxi from their window, in a plastic bag with something heavy in it to `act as a stone'. I paid the driver and Piret and Rob let me into the apartment.

It was eight in the morning. I looked at my face in the mirror and couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculous I looked, with blood all over my face and one eye swollen completely shut. I washed the blood off, called my parents, and went to bed.