Scary

It has been a long-time running joke among several of my friends at work that I am a serial killer. It's because of the way I dress. I suppose it really began a few years ago when we dressed up in costumes at work for Halloween. I still lived on Elm Street at the time, so of course, I was Freddy Krueger with the mask, hat, sweater, glove, and foul mouth--the whole kit and kaboodle. Well, it was a fun time, and I became Freddy every Halloween at work. When I wasn't in Freddy guise, though, I typically wore a red and black plaid flannel jacket. As all of us slasher geeks know, Freddy wears a red and green striped (Christams) sweater. This didn't matter to my co-workers, however, as they began calling the plaid jacket the 'Freddy jacket,' and they told me how my long hair and bushy beard was creepy, that I was, in fact, a serial killer on the prowl around campus. Our recent outbreak of sexual and physical assaults on campus here at Big Ten University fueled the fire.

Anyway, the point is that, in the past, with my long hair and mountain-man-esque beard, lumberjack coat, etc., I am usually the imposing character that people see and then quickly decide to change directions when walking toward one another at night.
Yet, just last week, I was the one encountering the stranger stranger on the street. I was trying to decide what to do for the night--it was about one'o'clock in the morning. I had parked the car, which was my bed for the night, on Oregon and was returning from the park water fountain where I had brushed my teeth. I was walking around aimlessly, trying to decide if I could find a relatively concealed but still comfortable spot to sleep or if I should go to the twenty-four hour diner for the night and try to stay up until dawn and write part of the story I was working on at the time. It's funny when you don't have a residence to sleep at for the night, you almost have to remain awake for the night and then sleep during the day. Sleeping in public during the day can be taken as an innocent nap, while sleeping outside at night is clearly a sign of vagrancy and the closely following tag of degeneracy.

So I was walking along the scenic route, trying to come up with something to do that would decrease the amount of time I'd have to sleep in the discomfort of the front seat, past the library, my old apartment, my old house, the pleasant hippie-yippie-town bungalows of those neighborhoods. I was cutting through the playground of one of the small elementary schools in that area, and I happened to look down one of the alleys where a silhouetted figure was walking toward me.
I continued past and perhaps it was my mistake of taking the second and third glances back behind me to see this individual's movements that provoked the whole thing. I saw the figure come out of the alley across from the school, he turned right in the opposite direction of where I was now, around the corner from the school looking across the grounds. When I looked back a final time to confirm his going the other way still, I found that the man, now visible in the street lights overhead, had completely turned around and was now coming my way. I was back on Oregon now and heading east toward my car. The man turned down Oregon and was walking about fifty feet behind me on the sidewalk. I was on the left-hand side of the street, in the street since most of the sidewalks are busted up around here when they don't disappear altogether. I wasn't worried because I can take care of myself, but I didn't like the fact that the guy had changed directions after clearly seeing me walk past.

I slowed my pace, noting the closing of the distance between us out of the corner of my eye. When he was only about ten paces behind me on the other side of the street, I stopped at this beautiful garden and moved to the sidewalk to smell one of the irises. I pretended to casually sniff and not pay attention to this guy. He seemed to be somewhat interested in this because at this point he crossed the street to the sidewalk where I was standing. He was rather lean, wearing khaki pants and an orange t-shirt, and had black square framed glasses and a crewcut. His eyes were the oddest thing. They were intent and unblinking, focused. His brow crinkled slightly as if he were trying to work out in his head what was going through mine. I got the sense that there was a storm behind the calm. He looked me dead in the eyes and held the gaze for a few moments too long. But he continued down the sidewalk.

I allowed him to get a good distance ahead before I started back up, now behind him, once again in the street. A reversal of fortunes, or at least positions. I was walking rather slow in order to maintain the distance between us. I had no intention of engaging or suggesting anything to this latenight wanderer. Still, it was not long, before I noticed, despite my slow pace, that I was gaining on him. I watched him for a few strides and saw that his gate had become slug-like, that he was deliberately moving at a snail's pace. A minute later, I was even with him, and he was glancing over at me every couple of seconds. I tried to withhold it but a grin snuck across my lips as I couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of these trifling maneuvers--I wondered if this guy wanted to sodomize me in the hot summer night. We reached my car, and I didn't even look at it, wanting to give no hint that it was mine and that I intended to sleep there later. I walked at a brisk, but not too brisk--as that would indicate worry or fear, pace. He kept up with me, continually glancing at the back of my left ear and the side of my temple. We reached the main cross street which is the east boundary for campus. I stopped walking. I stood dead still in the middle of the street, forcing him to show his hand if it was going to come to that.

He looked at me oddly, puzzled, still trying to figure out what it was that I was thinking or desiring to happen. Again, he crossed the street in front of me. He was mere feet away. Again, he held my eyes too long. I forced him to pick his direction, so I could choose mine. He chose north down the cross street. I waited for him to commit to that direction before I crossed this main street, still heading west, appearing to head toward campus. I looked back as I had done before, watching my ass as it were. He went a half block north, and then do you know what that son of a bitch did? He turned, he crossed the street. He was behind me again. I said FUCK IT. I feigned west slightly, and turned south down the main street, south to where there is nothing open at night. At least the street along there is well lit. He must have judged that I was going onto the campus, though, because he had begun to cut across a parking lot at a diagonal that would have intercepted me had I continued west. I didn't care. I was walking south, and if this motherfucker followed, I was going to grab the fallen branch that most resembled a baseball bat. I was tired of playing around.

Somehow, this must have been communicated across the night air because he didn't follow. I glanced behind me and saw that he had done a one-eighty and was crossing back over to the other side of the campus border street. I expected him to follow along the opposite sidewalk, but instead he headed north again. I watched him as he glanced back at me a few times. Then I continued to head south so as not to appear like a flake as this guy clearly was. I walked to the south end of campus where all of the athletic facilities are located. I stood for a few minutes under the street lamp of the last illuminated intersection. Then, I turned around and retraced my steps. I returned to my car, tilted the seat back as far and as straight as it would go, laid my head down on a pillow, pulled the blanket up to my shoulders, and went to sleep. I slept the best that night that I had all summer, car and couch and bed included. It was a deep sleep, and I woke with the sunrise and the birds chirping, only three or four hours later. But I felt like a million bucks, and I felt like my ass was safe, and I felt like I could take a nap somewhere in the daylight and no one would know.


Day 12 One, two, Freddy's coming for you. Three, four, better lock your door. Five, six, grab your crucifix. Seven, eight, better stay up late. Nine, ten, never sleep again (in a car). What a beautiful song.