What’s in a Name: Lopes the Addict
One Saturday during the summer, many years ago, I left my little condo in Beacon Hill to pick something up at a convenience store located at the bottom of the hill. It wasn’t late, maybe 8:30 or 9:00, but it was already dark. On my way back up the hill, I noticed a man standing in the doorway of the laundromat located on the corner of the block where my home was. He was fairly tall, with an athletic build, wearing a light-colored, long-sleeved shirt and dark pants. A youngish adult, not a skinny adolescent. I continued the remaining half block to my home, not giving the man from the laundromat another thought. But when I reached my door and stopped to retrieve the key from my handbag, the man was standing right next to me. He looked down at me unspeaking for a split-second. The next thing I knew, he had grabbed the strap of my handbag and I was lying face-down on the brick sidewalk in front of my home, the strap of the handbag in the crook of my elbow. I think I must have lost consciousness as I hit the ground because I don’t remember how I landed there. He was dragging me along the sidewalk, tethered to me by my handbag. When I realized what was happening, I screamed as loud as I could, but he was a lot bigger and stronger than I, and after a few seconds, he wrestled the handbag from me and sprinted up the hill and around the corner.
Then a miracle happened! Similar incidents had been happening in my neighborhood in recent weeks, and undercover police were stationed nearby, hoping to apprehend the malefactor responsible. So, when this athletic thief ran off with my purse, he literally ran right into the police, who, alerted by my scream, nabbed him. Just before they arrested him, the policemen saw him throw my purse under a parked car, and one of them retrieved it and returned it to me.
As the adrenaline waned, I took stock of my situation. I had been dragged along a brick sidewalk, face down, and my face was all bloody, as was one of my knees. I must have hit the ground hard, because the glass over my watch was shattered, and one of the silver earrings I was wearing was dented. As I sat alone in my condo a little later, I realized I had probably had a concussion and optimally should go back down the hill to nearby Massachusetts General Hospital and get checked out, but I was too frightened to go outside. It would be a long time before I’d be able to go outside after dark on my own.
In the aftermath of this theft, I was called to testify before a grand jury and at a probable-cause hearing. The police told me that the man who had assaulted me was named Lopes. I don’t remember his first name. He had no criminal record, but had apparently acquired an appetite for cocaine, and unable to fund it otherwise, had taken to mugging people in Beacon Hill and using the proceeds to fund his habit. Mr. Lopes received a seven-year suspended sentence. I never heard any more about him.
Although that Saturday night incident was terrifying, I’d like to think some good came from it. For one thing, that string of muggings came to an end. But I’d also like to think I may have helped Mr. Lopes. Maybe after his arrest, he was forced to kick his cocaine habit, and maybe I was the last person he would assault.
In PARALLEL LIVES, there is a scene in Bellevue Hospital in which a drug addict is so high that he flips over his heavy hospital bed. I gave that addict the name Lopes, thinking that this may have been how the real Lopes might have ended up if things had gone differently that one long-ago Saturday night in Beacon Hill.
