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I soon became busy with one of the books I had set aside to read during the summer and forgot about my feelings of unease with both Beth's cautionary note and her last words. I planned to immerse myself, for a number of hours, in Commitment and Identity by Robert Wickersham, do a load of laundry that was approaching the size of the national debt and, then, go out for a movie later that night.

The movie theater which I was planning on attending featured second-run and classic films. This week they were focusing on a variety of science fiction movies - popular, obscure and experimental, from different periods of the fifties, sixties and seventies.

The show finished around 11:30 p.m.. I decided to stop in at a local donut shop and pick-up a few snacks for the home front.

After purchasing a dozen, or so, of various kinds of donuts, I headed off in the direction of my parked car, on a side street about four blocks away.

The price of tickets at the review cinema I had just attended were on the low end of the entertainment spectrum. The prices also reflected the section of the city in which the theater was situated.

This part of town was somewhere between full-scale urban decay and up-scale, uptown glitz and glamor. There was considerable political discussion concerning the precise nature of the direction in which the area was considered to be headed.

Along the way to the car, I saw a number of individuals whom, I presumed, were among the increasing numbers of homeless people who seemed to be generated by the ramifications of political decisions, irrespective of the character of the direction in which the economy of a given area went. One of them, who was sitting on the front steps of an apartment building, extended a hat, turned upside down, in my direction, seeking an offering of some sort.

I took the change from my pocket that had been left from the transaction at the donut store, added a dollar to it and put both in the waiting hat. For reasons which were not entirely clear to me, I had a sense of awkwardness and embarrassment about the whole process.

I felt badly for the man who had to ask me for a hand-out. I felt badly about the social conditions that led to such a necessity.

I wondered about the propriety of giving more than I had. I wondered about the metaphysics of why him rather than me.

The man said: "God bless you, sir."

I smiled or grimaced, or did both, in a mute acknowledgment of his gratitude. Soon, I moved along with my life while the man was left sitting with his.

Following the interchange, I was preoccupied with thoughts of politics, economics and social policy. There still were several more blocks to the street on which my car was parked.

A few moments later I vaguely became aware of someone rapidly approaching me from behind. Suddenly, something hard was jammed into the small of my back, and I heard the words: "Just keep moving and don't turn around if you want to stay among the living."

At first, I thought the man on the stairs, or one of his colleagues, had decided that I had more to offer than I had given. Another thought that flashed through my mind was that I was about to receive a lesson, at yet to be determined tuition fees, in what so many academics and politicians like to talk about, but, concerning which, few of us have any direct knowledge.

However, the next words I heard forced me to revise my initial appraisals of the situation. "Stay cool, Professor. Don't go dumb or heroic on me. Just keep moving until I tell you otherwise."

Either my assailant was using "professor" as a form of general address, like some Maritimers use "captain" and certain Britishers use "governor", or the guy knew who I was. I wasn't sure which I preferred: an old-fashioned mugging by a stranger or an attack of, perhaps, more sinister proportions by someone who, in some way, knew me or knew of me.

While walking along and waiting for the curtain to rise on the main part of this drama, I busied myself with trying to sort through various possibilities, on the assumption that the person behind me was caught up in my life in some fashion, prior to tonight. I suppose I was in a state of shock because I seemed to be dealing with a rather bizarre and, potentially, dangerous situation in a rather detached kind of way.

First, I considered my financial situation and whether or not there might be some irate creditor that I consistently had been overlooking. I quickly eliminated such a possibility since I was pretty much up to date with everything except the paper boy, and I didn't think thirteen year old Bobby Vlasco would carry things quite this far just because I was a week behind in paying him.

Next, I wondered about the college. Maybe, one, or more, of my students felt I had given too low a grade in the finals or on a term paper.

I was just about ready to start assessing the personalities of my students, when I heard: "Turn down the next street on the right," from my newly acquired companion.

As I reached the corner, I complied with the directive that had been given to me. I took three or four steps down the street and was told to stop.

Things were quiet for a few seconds, and, then, I heard: "When I tell you to turn around to face me, do so, but do it slowly, keep your eyes closed and turn to your left." This was followed by about ten or fifteen seconds of silence, although the person behind me seemed to making motions of some kind, as if in preparation for my turning around.

The command finally came: "Turn now and slowly."

I began to turn around. When I reached a certain position, I was told: "Alright, you can stop now, but keep your eyes closed."

As soon as I stopped, something was blown into my nose. I started to feel dizzy almost immediately and was experiencing difficulty in breathing.

I collapsed to one knee and reached out gropingly for the ground with my hand in order to try to steady myself. I missed the ground with my first attempt, and lost whatever tenuous balance I had. As I flailed away in a desperate attempt to regain some degree of stability, I toppled over completely with my donuts spilling into the street.

My eyes were open now, but everything was spinning despite lying in a stationary position on the ground. Events were registering but in slow motion and as if experienced through a dense fog.

My perceptions were quite distorted. I felt like I was looking at things through the wrong end of a telescope.

A car pulled up. Voices. Shouts. Someone running. More shouts. Cars doors slamming. Screeching of tires. Silence. Someone kneeling beside me, speaking to me, helping me to my feet, consoling me, leading me into a house or apartment.

Sometime later, how much later I don't know, the fog began to lift. There still was a slight dullness which seemed to have taken up residence in my consciousness, but my perceptual capabilities had returned to their normal levels of distortion.

I found myself lying on a couch. As I turned my head, I saw a man sitting at a table looking at me.

The man appeared to be in, maybe, his mid-to-late thirties or early forties. He might even have been older. I couldn't really tell.

He had a well groomed but relatively short beard. There were a few flecks of gray sprinkled about the beard as well as in the hair near his ears.

Although I could not be certain, given my reclining position and because the man was sitting down, he appeared to be a tall man, somewhere on the far side of six feet. He also seemed to be physically fit.

There was something familiar about him. I closed my eyes trying to remember where I had seem him before.

I was about to open my eyes from a failed effort to recall why he seemed familiar to me, when an image invaded my awareness. The image was of the black man on the steps to whom I had given some money.

I remembered his clothes as being more ragged than they now appeared. Moreover, he seemed to have a scruffier look to him on the street than now was the case.

Both of these impressions may have been due to the lighting conditions prevailing around the area in which we had our brief encounter. Or, perhaps, I had been looking at him through my own preconceptions and biases without really seeing what he actually looked like. I wasn't sure what processes might have been operating at that time.

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