I Am Younger Than Mick Jagger

At the end of the CRC's meeting the other night, Chris and I were standing near the exit waiting for Dana, when this old guy came up to us. By old, I mean he was older than me. Ancient. He said he was 63, the same age as Mick Jagger.

He just started talking, I don't know why. He started telling us how at least in California, when he was there, a gay person (he didn't say gay person, he said "one of them") could do anything to you, and you couldn't do anything to them. They could hit you or anything, and nobody would do a thing to them. But if you hit them, the cops would come after you.

"If he hit you, that would still be assault," I said. "It wouldn't be a hate crime, but it would be a crime."

He looked toward where I was standing as if he had detected a sound coming from that direction.

He took a thoughtful, reminiscent breath and told us about a time in 1964, when he was at Fort Ord, in California, and a guy came up to him in an alley and said "Hey, you wanna have some fun?"

"Not with you I don't," this guy said. "Well, he came up to me and he put his hands right on my ... privates. So you know what I did?"

"Uh, you decked him?" I guessed.

"Yeah, I turned around and Boom! Down he went. Just like that. Boom!" He seemed to love making the boom sound. "Down he went."

"Okay," I said, because basically I would say that if a guy puts his hands on you uninvited in an alley, if you're a woman a shot of Mace in the eyes or a hard, fast knee to the crotch is appropriate, if you're a guy I'd say a solid right to the jaw might give you some room. Especially, this guy was pretty big, six-foot-plus.

Chris said, "So, in your sixty three years, this has happened to you one time?" He nodded. She said, "You ought to be glad."

Flipping a thumb toward her, I said, "Hey, it happens to them all the time. Guys are always grabbing women."

"Yeah, well, I turned around and Boom!" the guy said.

Don't tell me Mick Jagger is this old, OK?

He continued. "Then I took his wallet and threw it in a dumpster, threw his credit cards and everything in a dumpster, so it'd look like a robbery, then they couldn't say I hit him because of ... you know."

I said, "You took his wallet?"

"Yeah."

"To make it look like a robbery?"

"Yeah, cuz you can't hit those guys in California, at least you couldn't back then, I don't know about now. They can hit you, you can't hit them or they'll come after you."

"Did you realize that you really did rob him?" I asked. "You took his wallet."

Again, that look: had there been a sound?

Something attracted his attention from the corridor outside the door and he turned and continued out the exit. We didn't talk to very many people at the CRC's meeting. A few, not a lot, at least I didn't.