I kept my head down and drove forward. I focused my determination on the lamppost across the street, while men poured around me and into me, shouting and chanting, and the sound of smashing glass went off like a series of bombs. I don’t think they even noticed me; they were intent on a larger purpose than one foolish white woman and her damn bicycle. Someone stumbled into my rear wheel and swore and moved on. A shoulder banged against mine, but I think that was an accident. As I reached the other side of the street, I looked up and traced the stream of humanity down Bay Street. About a hundred yards away, a truck bearing the Coca-Cola logo was parked against the curb. A man stood at its open rear door, handing out crates and crates of bottles, and the rioters were pitching them through windows, into walls. I clapped my hand over my mouth and turned back, but in that moment of inattention, a force took hold of my bicycle. I looked up into someone’s ferocious face.

“That’s mine!” I snapped.

He didn’t bother to reply. Why should he? He was twice as big as I was, propelled by rage. Without any effort he tore the bicycle from my hands, lifted it above his head, and carried it down the sidewalk. I darted after him, shouting incoherent, laughable things about property and rights. A Coca-Cola bottle sailed past my ear. The man stopped, as if he’d found what he was looking for, and hurled my bicycle right into a beautiful plate glass window that had gone untouched until now.

“Oh, you bastard!” I screeched. Glass covered the sidewalk, razor sharp, and my bicycle lay just inside the broken window, in the middle of a display of fine leather goods. Already a man was picking his way inside. Blood streamed down the side of his face and stained his shirt. He bent down, kicked aside my bicycle, and gathered up an armful of pocketbooks.

Well, I wasn’t going to stand for that, was I? That was my damn bicycle. And I had work to do, I had my camera to collect, I had news to report, a whole world waiting for this story! Without a thought, I stepped forward onto that mess of broken glass and bent over the ruined window frame to grab the bent front wheel.

And I think I succeeded. I think I did grab that wheel. I may even have lifted it a foot or two. But the victory was a Pyrrhic one, I’m afraid, because in my haste and fury and determination, I hadn’t given due attention to the glass remaining in the frame. I only noticed the glitter of one transparent shard an instant before it sliced across my forearm. Split my skin clean apart, the way you butterfly a loin of lamb.