okay. anyone who knows me thinks i’m a little paranoid. watch too much dateline. is a bit too skeptical of the common folk. but honestly, why are you not? is that just being paranoid or prepared? or someone who’s been through shit and doesn’t feel like having to nunchuck their way out of the cornfields again. honestly, if you listen to the people on those shows tell their stories, they’re nearly always begging for someone to have believed them, to have listened to them, for someone to have just looked a bit closer at that neighbor that was a little off. the ice cream guy that was a bit too nice. and not to forget about the woman who delivered your mail being so friendly to your dog at the mailbox. dog-nappers are real, too.
yes, whatever, gimme your best eye roll. i don’t care. but let me spin you a little tale…
my husband, boyfriend at the time, was out of town. i was 22 maybe 23. just picked up some Asian takeout for myself. it was around 6:30pm, dusk. the sun hadn’t quite set yet but was low in the sky. warm, early autumn evening. i rounded the blind curve to enter our apartment complex parking lot to see a man standing over a woman. she’s laying on her back in the middle of the lot, motionless, me, behind the wheel, nearly shitting my pants. i immediately put on the brakes. does he have a gun? is he robbing her? is she alive? what the fuck is happening? why am i always fucking by myself when this ghetto ass shit is happening? these were the thoughts i was combating as i was performing a sorry attempt at a three-point turn in a blind curve made blind by a random flower bed for a single tree. no hate to trees, but it was so senseless in that moment, and potentially life-altering. acknowledging that i could not turn around, that i had no choice but to creep forward, the man looked up, surely seeing my antics in his periphery. how could he not – i felt like a cat slipping around on ice skates. he sees me and frantically waved his arms. ok, no visible weapon. i immediately felt a surge of relief, or maybe it was the BM. nevertheless, there was the need to crack the driver window.
he didn’t shut up. “oh my god it’s Amanda, Amanda! she won’t get up! we just got home from dinner and she just fell…won’t you help me take her inside?”
it was as if red, wailing sirens came slamming into my face, draining all the color, the reassurance, the hope that this wasn’t some bullshit afterall. my heart fell to my stomach, which fell to my ass, which clenched to avoid further failure of said organs.
i managed to respond through the crack in my driver door window. “umm i’m happy to call the police. we can call ems.”
pause.
why is he pausing.
dude. you look so bad right now.
guilty. guilty is the word, actually. you look guilty, my dude.
say something i’m giving up on you 🎵
he finally said, “yeah, umm i called them, uhh, just need help with Amanda.”
in no way was “Amanda” overweight. this guy wasn’t built by any means but honestly, gender stereotypes clocked the gut here pretty accurately. I knew my boyfriend wouldn’t ask a young woman for help if i was out of commission; same with my brother and his wife, and same logic applied with my dad and mom. like dude, no fucking way. drag her and your sorry ass away from me. my pad thai is getting chilled.
i don’t really remember what i said to get this guy to stop talking…i think maybe i just was like fuck it, you’re in a car, he’s on the dry land, drive off, bitch. so i rolled up my window and drove off. except, it’s a closed parking lot. so i didn’t pull up right at my building because i didn’t want him to see where i lived or sniffed around. i didn’t want to claim stomping grounds, i suppose. whatever. so i am sitting in a spot, triple checking the doors and windows to be locked, and monitoring the mystery man in my side mirror. i call my boyfriend. i’m talking to him. he’s telling me i’ve made the right decision,
~don’t get out, do they look familiar, no they don’t, i’m scared, why did you leave me, let’s not start that, yada, yada, yada~
suddenly, the guy needing desperate help with Amanda dashes away in between parked cars. my stomach turned. my uvula turned.
relaying this recent shift of events to my boyfriend, i watch horrified, staring in the side mirror, and see the woman, rise up from the paved gravel lot, look both ways, and quickly disappear between the cars.
the confirmation. the holy-shitness of that moment.
so yeah, didn’t leave my car until the cops came. and evidently, there were several petty theft type crimes reported in the area recently.
“this was likely a set-up – you’re lucky,” a burly cop said to me.
lucky – that word just stings. it’s not luck. i’m just experienced with humans.
