A bucket of emotions, I feel guilty, mad, scared, angry and sorry. I’m pissed I feel that way. As I was packing my bike into my truck this morning, a dude walked by the house. We live in a neighborhood that’s a pedestrian thoroughfare from adjacent neighborhoods to the nearest stores. Dudes and dudettes, young and old, are a daily, sometimes hourly occurrence. By now, I recognize most of the people that frequent our street. Some say hi, some don’t. I don’t recall seeing this particular dude before. Like a scruffy George Costanza, he was stocky, maybe in his late 30’s to mid 40’s wearing a yellow shirt and baseball cap with a shirt tied around his waist. Just a week earlier I had read a neighborhood newsletter asking residents to be aware of petty theft, primarily from vehicles. The paranoia wick was lit.
As I fidgeted getting the main part of my bike into the truck, I looked out of the corner of my eye and saw that he was watching me. He turned away. As I put the wheel in the truck, he looked again, looked away and looked back again. “What the? Is this guy casing my bike or what,” I thought. By this time he was past my house, and looked again. “Oh-my-God. What is with this guy,” I thought as the warning light when off in my head. In my mind he was taking a mental inventory of the contents of my garage. In his mind, I can only imagine.
Just as I got concerned, he stepped up the curb and walked into the sliver of a park across the street and disappeared through the brush on a short trail that leads to the railroad tracks. “Huh, just passing through,” I thought. I finished up, double checked the house alarm, nervously put locks on the remaining bikes in my garage, backed out, and made sure the garage door closed.
As I drove away, I could see him in the rear view mirror walking back down the street toward my house again, in the direction he had come from only a minute or two ago. “Dammit,” I thought. Not to look like I was worried, in a disguised paranoia I went on my way. I decided to get some gas a few blocks away and loop back toward my house. Five minutes later, I saw him again. By this time, he was well away from my house and walking down the main street toward the stores. Maybe it was nothing, I thought. Two people awkwardly crossing paths in their daily routine.
On my way to work, about 3 miles from home the situation stewed and worked its way under my skin. I called the police non-emergency number and told them there was a suspicious guy in the neighborhood. They took a description and other details and said they’d check it out. I hung up and the guilt set in. What if he was just another person walking through the neighborhood? Maybe he thought I was giving him the evil eye and watching him. Or, maybe he was casing my garage. This emotional stew sucks, but I guess it tastes better than having my bike stolen.
