vituperation

July 31, 2003

I have but two questions: Why me? and Why when Robyn’s gone?

I walked again today, taking the same circuitous route through my neighborhood and around my little section of town I normally do. I kept my eyes peeled for errant cat pieces, and I’m pleased to announce that I saw none. As a matter of fact, my walk was completely uneventful.

Or so I wish.

A car sat at the end of the circle in which I live, lights on and engine idling. It was about 4:45, and I was on the final leg of my walk. When the car was fully in my sight — the same time the driver would be able to see me coming — it suddenly accelerated and drove past me. At the intersection to my back, the one I’d just passed, it braked like the driver was going to turn, then came to a full stop. The street sign ahead of me suddenly lightened, and I looked over my shoulder at the car. Its reverse lights were on, and it was backing erratically down the street toward me.

I continued to walk, turning the corner into my circle. The car backed beyond the turn, then turned into the circle so it was going the same direction I was. It crept up behind me, driving on the wrong side of the road so that it could pull up next to me. Casually, I shifted my Walkman from my left hand to my right.

Long-time readers already know why.

“Excuse me, sir?” The male driver looked to be about twenty-five with dirty-blonde hair, and appeared to be wearing a white shirt and a tie. His face glowed in the lights from the dashboard, but he didn’t look to be in paradise. I pulled my headphones off with my left hand and transferred them to my right. Turning to face the car, I slid my left hand a little higher on my hip, stopping a fingerlength from the breakaway holster there.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Do you live in this neighborhood?”

This is the point where I made what I fondly call “dumbass mistake number one.”

“Yeah, sure do,” I said. Then, to dig the hole a little deeper, I pointed down the circle. “Right down there.”

“Do you know where 231 Fakename Street is?” Fakename Street is the street at the end of Pseudo Circle, where I live.

“Well,” I said, gesturing with my right hand, “I think that’s the 100 block that way, so I guess the 200 block would be down there.” I pointed back the direction I’d come.

“No, no. I know where the house is. I live there. Do you know? 231 Fakename Street. It’s the house that burned down. I live there. You know where that is?”

Late last year there was a spectacular fire at the house in question, a fire that required the house to be razed and completely rebuilt. The family moved back in about two months ago. I see them from time to time in the yard, because I drive by the house every time I leave the neighborhood.

“Sure, I know the house.”

“I live there, and, well-”

He reached and turned off the ignition, then opened the car door and started to climb out. I took a step backward and slid my left hand a hair higher up my butt cheek, resting my fingertips against a completely different butt, this one made of steel and nestled in the small of my back.

(Note to the anti-gun folks out there: Situations like this are precisely why I have a permit to carry a concealed gun. Please note that I didn’t whip my gun out and start firing blindly at the guy, as many of you are wont to believe us gun owners will do at the slightest provocation.)

The man walked toward me, extending his hand. He wore black or navy blue slacks, loafers, an untucked white shirt, and a loosened tie. “My name’s Something-or-other,” he said. Unfortunately, I was too busy watching his movements and his name sailed right into one ear and out the other.

“I’m Fred And3rson,” I said as we shook hands. I returned my hand to near my ass.

“I live at 231 Fakename Street. I just got off work, and, well, I’m locked out of the house.”

Ah, I thought, he wants to use my phone to call a locksmith.

“Do you live in this neighborhood?” he asked a second time. I repeated my first answer.

He looked down the street toward my house.

“My parents are in Florida,” he said, “and I’m locked out of my house. I just got off work.”

“You need to call a locksmith?”

“Actually-” he looked down at the ground, “-I was wondering if there was any way, if I left my driver’s license and credit card with you, if you could loan me twenty bucks so I could crash at a hotel?”

The warning bells clanging in my head were almost deafening.

“Ah, I, uh…” was my carefully crafted response.

“I could leave my driver’s license and credit card with you.”

You’ve got to have a driver’s license and credit card to get into a hotel, my mind whispered.

“I’m not sure if I have twenty bucks,” I said. “I don’t keep much cash around the house at all.”

“Man, anything you could do would help me. I’ve got nine bucks of my own.”

Against my better judgment I agreed to check and see what I had. The money wasn’t the issue, it was the creepy (though nicely dressed) guy sitting at the end of my circle at 4:45 in the morning two days after me and my hyper imagination found a severed cat’s head on our last walk. I felt like there should be a couple of big bright arrows pointing at my house with neon “Fred lives here!” on one and “Please rob him!” on the other. I walked to my house, with him driving alongside.

“Man, you don’t know how much I appreciate this. I just got off work and it just sucks to be locked out. I’m sorry I messed up your jog.”

“That’s okay,” I said, “I was almost home anyway.”

Ask him if he likes cats, my mind, the troublemaker, whispered. I ignored it, and focused on keeping an eye on the guy next to me and my hand near my gun without looking too odd.

In the circle, he parked the car while I crossed to my driveway.

“You want me to wait out here?” he called.

Like I’m going to invite you into my house, I thought. “Yes, please,” I said.

I went around back, making a mental note to start taking a key with me so I could deadbolt the door when I left, and went into the house. In my wallet, I found a twenty and a bunch of singles, and remembered that I’d gotten an extra twenty at the grocery store Saturday morning so I could get my hair cut, something I ended up not doing. I took the twenty and went out through the front, turning on lights the whole way. When he saw me coming he started walking toward me.

I was like the bionic man, my eyes jittering all over him to make sure he wasn’t carrying anything or reaching for something hidden. I could practically hear the little doo-doo—-doo-doo-doo sounds as I scanned him. I kept my left hand near my hip.

He took the money, thanked me profusely, shook my hand twice, told me his name again (and again it zinged through my head like shit through a goose), and swore to bring it back. Then he did the creepiest thing of all.

“Fred And3rson,” he said, and nodded at my house, like he was making some sort of mental association.

And then he got into his car and left, leaving me to spend the hour before getting ready for work laying on the bed and quietly freaking out over the many weird things that had transpired: his offer to leave his driver’s license and a credit card even though you can’t get a hotel room without them, the fact that no hotel anywhere around here is even close to $29 a night, the weird after-the-fact way he mentioned that his parents were in Florida, the spooky way he seemed to be mentally tying me and my house together right before he left. The more I thought about it, the weirder it was and the more convinced I became that he wasn’t on the up and up.

Maybe he’s casing the neighborhood, I thought, or maybe he’s a serial killer, or maybe he really lives there but was stretching the truth, like maybe he got kicked out or something.

And then, on the way to work, the kicker. When I drove by his house, his “parents” were home — three vehicles in the driveway and one (not his) pulling into the garage as I drove by. So now, as I can see, there’s only one thing I can do.

I’m off to visit his house, to talk to his “father” and see if the story holds up. Wish me luck.