five. man on second avenue at 2:00 a.m. (n.y.c.): "This guy I know was walking with a friend of his around West Street. They had gone into one of the bars and had a beer and after they left they were walking down the street when this car from Jersey cruised by ... kids came around all the time throwin' bottles and screamin' 'QUEER!' and then taking off--so this car cruised by them real slow and some kid leans out the window sayin', 'Suck my dick!' and my friend flipped him the finger and said something; all of a sudden the car slams on the brakes and give kids come piling outta the doors and start kicking the shit out of my friend ... for the next ten minutes about a hundred guys came outta the bars and from around the corner and surrounded these five kids beating the shit outta my friend--his friend took off right away and later my friend found out that he'd just run home, didn't other calling the cops or nothing ... and all these guys crowding around watching five guys beat up one guy and none of them said or did a fuckin' thing ... my friend said the five kids stomped on his head and chest and broke a lot of his ribs and stomped on his legs ... at one point he could hardly feel them hitting him--they were jumping up and down on his head and arms and legs and finally he said he remembers jumping up and plowing through the crowd and running ... his face was just a puddle of blood ... the kids chased after him but he ran faster and faster and through the streets and outta the neighborhood and he kept running till he collapsed somewhere on some side street ... later he woke up in the hospital and found out that he had been unconscious for about six days ... the doctors told him that he was found y the cops unconscious on West Street surrounded by a bunch of guys who didn't do nothing; apparently he had hallucinated the whole thing of getting up and running away ... he had never gotten up ... the kids from Jersey got away before the cops even got there..."

-David Wojnarowicz, "Close to the Knives"