281 CHRONICLESnfair shake. Everything Goetz has everndone — and I mean everything — isngiven a negative twist. For instance,nafter he graduated from NYU in 1971,nGoetz worked as a nuclear engineernfor Westinghouse Corporation. Therenhe complained constantly at the wayncorners were being cut in the manufacturingnof nuclear reactors; he wasneventually fired, essentially for being an”whistle-blower.” In the case of at leastnone of his protests, Navy men who sailnon ships powered by Westinghousenreactors still owe Goetz a major debt ofngratitude. But Rubin manages to seenGoetz’s work at Westinghouse not asnan example of careful and praiseworthynconcern for nuclear safety, but rathernas an example of Goetz’s “compulsivenperfectionist standards” and also (getnthe point?) his “intolerance.” WhennGoetz later worked on his father’snconstruction projects, he similarlyntried—and failed—to get better workmanshipninstalled. Is it really justifiednto use this behavior, too, as evidencenfor incipient violent psychosis? Again,nRubin never pauses to ask herself whynGoetz’s ex-wife can speak of him morenwith sadness than with bitterness.n(“He’s a nice person, good and kindnand gentle” — though his idea of anromantic gift was a cute automaticnsaltshaker.) Nor does Rubin ask herselfnwhat psychologically positive qualitiesnmight have gone into making Goetzneventually a success as a small electronicsnentrepreneur. That occupationnrequired not only careful investment innelectronics gear; it also required at leastnsome minimum sensitivity in the handlingnof other human beings (for instance,ncustomers). At the time of thenChristmas incident, Goetz was on hisnway to dinner with friends. ReadingnRubin, you’d be surprised to find outnGoetz had any friends.nNow, it’s a general failing ofnpsychohistory that it concentrates onnpathology, mental illness — not onnpsychological strengths. I supposenthat’s natural, given the origins ofnpsychohistory in medical practice,nwhich has a similar (and proper) concern.nNevertheless, just because ofnthis emphasis on pathology, psychohistoricalnmethods and jargon —nwhen in the hands of a devotee trulynout to trash someone — can easily degenerateninto plain old-fashioned characternassassination. That, I suspect, isnexactly what happened in LilliannRubin’s book.nAnd in one crucial way Rubin reallynis spectacularly unfair to Goetz, failingnto present to us the complete man andnhis history. For amazingly, she virtuallynignores the fact that three years beforenthe Christmas subway incident, Goetznhad been mugged and brutallynbeaten — moreover, mugged and brutallynbeaten in the subway, and bynthree black youths. If one were lookingnfor a psychological trauma in Goetz’snpast that might have had a devastatingnimpact on Goetz’s actions when confrontednwith four black youths in thensubway in 1984, surely this is it. Whynconjure up the baroque “Five DollarnTheory,” based as it is on a smallncoincidence with an event 25 yearsnold, when an absolutely eerie parallelnexists between the events of 1981 andn1984 — when the obvious is staringnyou right in the face?nYet Rubin dismisses Goetz’s priornmugging in a short and remarkablynbland paragraph, and she never returnsnto a discussion of it. She is especiallynuninterested in the permanent injuriesnGoetz sustained in 1981: They receivenhalf a sentence (and she gets themnwrong!). Rubin’s lack of interest innGoetz’s physical and emotional sufferingnin 1981 is all the more striking innview of her in-depth descriptions of thendamage done by Goetz’s bullets inn1984, and especially her pages andnpages on the ordeal of Darrell Cabey.nNo detail is spared there; every effort isnmade to wring sympathy from thenreader. This was the point where Inbegan to realize just how far Rubin hadnloaded the dice against Goetz (and innfavor of her own pet theory?). Thensituation is all the more bizarre becausenRubin knows that the 1981 muggingnmade a large impact on Goetz: Shennotes in an irritated tone that he wasnalways complaining about it! On angenerous interpretation, Rubin is justnbeing unbelievably obtuse here. Butnfrankly, not to give a prominent placento Goetz’s previous mugging and thenspecific circumstances of that muggingnverges on deception of the reader whonwishes truly to understand the eventsnin the subway in 1984.nIt’s deceptive because Rubin choosesnto emphasize a deep-seated rage innGoetz (allegedly deriving from hisnlong-ago childhood) at the expense ofnnnanother possible emotion: fear.nNo doubt there was a lot of anger innGoetz, beneath his classic wimp-ofsciencenexterior. There was anger atnthe pain and violation he’d suffered inn1981, at the fact that only one of hisnassailants had ever been caught, at thenfact that that case had dragged on fornover a year, and that the mugger (bynmeans of plea bargaining) ended upnserving only four months in jail on anmisdemeanor—while he was left withna permanent knee problem. Goetz wasnespecially angry, it seems, that evennafter the mugging, the city denied himna gun permit on grounds of “insufficientncause” — although his occupationnoften required him to carrynaround expensive electronics gear,nmaking him a likely target for thugs (asnhad happened, precisely, in 1981).nYet anyone who has ever been brutalizednby muggers will tell you thatnthe main and longest-lasting psychologicalnimpact is terror: permanent terrornthat it might happen again. As onenvictim told me (she was the personnwho threw down Rubin’s book in disgust):n”People who have been muggednhave a sort of ‘black hole’ — insidenthem — a terrible fear of it happeningnagain, and an absolute fear of anyonenwho looks like the person who muggednthem before.”n”An absolute fear of anyone whonlooked like the person who muggednthem before …” Surely here we approachnthe heart of the matter and thenmost plausible reconstruction of whatnhappened when Bernhard Goetz steppednon board that IRT #2 train onnDecember 22, 1984. It must havenseemed to him that he had suddenlynstepped back into the past, back intonhis own worst nightmare, a horrifyingnreplay of the trauma he’d sufferednthree years earlier. Once again, as inn1981, he found himself alone andnconfronted by a band of threateningnblack youths. It was the misfortune ofnthose youths (Barry Allen, DarrellnCabey, Troy Canty, and JamesnRamseur) that they accosted someonenwho had obviously vowed “The nextntime, I’ll be ready” — someone whonwas not only terrified, but also armednwith a gun.nThe central question, of course, isnwhether Goetz was in fact not merelynprepared but over-prepared: whethernin his paranoia he misinterpreted then