Excerpt: The Night Death Came Calling

NOVEMBER 22, 1992 – As general manager of a five star Restaurant in  California, I worked long hours, especially on weekends. This particular Saturday night was a typical busy dinner run, and the second seating was well underway. Things were about to slow down.

Earlier in the evening, a waitress had had a verbal run-in with two male guests at the bar. I intervened, and one of the men left the restaurant immediately. One of the owners was at the restaurant that night, and I asked if I could leave early, as I had been there since 10 a.m. I noticed that the second of the two problem guests left about the same time I walked out the door.

When I reached home about 12:30 a.m., I noticed that the homeowner’s dogs did not bark the way they normally did when I opened the front door. I had to walk through the living room to the other side of the dining room to turn on the light.

Before I was halfway across the dining room, the light came on and someone threw an afghan over my head. The man snarled, “Shut up and sit down!” Someone grabbed me from behind and shoved me to the floor with my back against the dining room wall.

“Who the hell are you?” one of the intruders demanded. “What are you doing in this house?”

I explained that I rented a room here and was coming home from work. I then heard another voice coming from the hallway, so with my fingers I slyly opened the afghan a little to see who was speaking.

The first man slapped me hard on the head and said, “Keep those fucking fingers inside or I’ll kill you!”

The second man ordered, “Leave him alone! Let’s get this done and get out of here.”

For the next hour, every time the first man came near me, he slapped me on my head and said, “You asshole.” One of the men eventually asked me to hold both of my hands up outside the afghan. He saw my rings and asked for them. I could not remove the ring from my left finger.

The first man said, “I’ll get it.” He cut my fingers on the inside and used my blood as a lubricant to remove the ring. He then asked if I had anything around my neck. Without giving me time to answer, he threw off the afghan, ripped my gold necklace from around my neck, kicked me and said, “Don’t fucking move!” He then covered me with the afghan again.

The second man said he was going to get the car and ordered his partner to leave me alone. I heard the front door open, but not close. Soon afterward, I heard a car pull up in front, and the man returned to the house. Both men made many trips to and from the car, obviously hauling out valuables they had found in the house.

When they were finished, the first man came closer to me. His partner said, “Come on! Let’s go!” Instead, the angry one picked me up and shuffled me down the hallway. From the angle that he held me, I could tell he was short of stature. The afghan still covered me.

Before he left, he stabbed me in the chest, and I fell to the floor. I sensed he was still in the room, so I told myself not to breathe or he might stab me again. Eventually he left, but I lay on the floor for an unknown amount of time and eventually blacked out.

When I came to, I knew I had to get to a telephone. The homeowner worked nights and would not be home until later in the morning. I pulled myself along the hallway floor and into the dining room, where one of the phones was wall mounted. I must have stopped three times in that short stretch of hallway, as there were three pools of blood on the floor, according to what the police later told me.

When I reached the other side of the dining room, I had to stand up to reach the phone. I dialed 911. “Help me! I’ve been stabbed!” The dispatcher asked for the address, but I couldn’t remember it. I tried to tell her the name of the street, but the words failed to come out of my mouth correctly.

“Don’t worry,” she reassured me. “We know where you are. Help is on the way.”

I must have passed out again. I awoke to see men in jackets emblazoned with POLICE working to cut my clothes off. I remember the sound of thumping footfalls of the men carrying me on the gurney. I also remember the shiny silver door as the gurney cleared the entrance of the ambulance. I was in shock, shaking terribly hard.

“We’re losing him!” someone said with a tone of urgency. “We’re losing him!” A sharp pain surged in my chest, as if someone injected me with a needle.

I returned to consciousness in the emergency room, when a nurse asked, “Do you have insurance?” I responded weakly, “Yes.” Another nurse instructed, “Count backwards from 10.”

When I awoke, I was informed that I was in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Before me stood two nurses, three police officers, the chef from the Fish Market and one of the restaurant owners.

My eyes traveled down my body, astonished to see staples in my stomach and tubes running into me from every direction. The police officers kept asking me questions, but I was groggy from the anesthesia. Since I could not describe my assailant or his partner, the police left.

More than 20 days later, when I was nearing my discharge from the hospital, the chef of the Fish Market agreed that I could rehabilitate at his apartment in his spare bedroom. I was thrilled because no way would I return to the house where I had been attacked. Arrangements were made to rent a hospital bed. 

Twenty-six days later, I was discharged from the hospital. According to what I later learned, the knife that my assailant used – that was never found – must have been the size of a chef’s knife, judging by the width of the stab wound and length that caused internal damage to me. The knife had cut the heart sac and punctured the lower part of my right lung.

I stayed in the chef’s apartment for merely two weeks; then I had to get out. The chef was at home only in the morning, and after work, when he brought people home to party. The apartment was so cold that the stapled wounds in my stomach hurt. No one was ever around during the day, but I did have a telephone so I could call for a heating pad. 

Finally, through the help of a friend, I rented an apartment. We moved the rented hospital bed, and some other friends went to my storage unit and picked up more furniture for me to use.

I had received approval from the State of California Disability Department for total disability for the rest of my life. The doctors estimated that my recovery would take six months. They scheduled physical therapy for one month, followed by four months of mental therapy. After 13 weeks of bed rest with physical therapy, I returned to work 42 days after the stabbing.

I have dealt with flashbacks of the incident ever since. Many times, in my mind’s eye, I believe I recognize the man that stabbed me, so I quickly shake the image from my mind, afraid to have him see me peering into his eyes. I still have nightmares, but I have accepted them as part of my life. I accept what happened and consciously placed it in my memory box.

The traumatic event changed my life. I have an ongoing fear of someone rushing toward me with a knife. For some reason, I no longer have patience to tackle hard tasks or the desire to overachieve and strive for excellence, as I once did. I miss the driving force I used to have and my inventive imagination – things were taken from me needlessly.

Whenever I bring all this forward in my thoughts, I weep silently. I have forgiven the man who stabbed me, and hope that he has found healing for his troubled soul and peace with himself. Each year the effects of the attack diminish and become less mentally stressful.

I needed to get my life back on track. I created a driving force within myself to accomplish a goal and to stand taller than ever before and put this horrible incident where it belonged, in the past. I worked mentally and physically to get back on my feet. I prayed and received guidance. As a result, I achieved results swiftly.

People often ask if, when I was stabbed and left for dead, my life flashed before me or I saw a bright light or felt a warm touch. Actually none of these things happened, but during the home invasion, I thought, ‘I have to get out of here. Maybe I should dive through the picture window in the living room.’

When I knew the robbers were about ready to leave, I had no idea that I would be harmed. Maybe knocked out only. When the mean man picked me up and dragged me down the hallway, I knew then that something bad was going to happen. I said to myself, ‘Father, please help me.’ From then on, I felt uncharacteristically comfortable and unconcerned about my life.  

My spiritual bags had been packed since 1988, four years earlier. Perhaps that is why I was not more traumatized.