I had to drive around a few times tonight to find a good parking space. The two I usually use were both full. And to make this clear, I should say that Bay Street has two sort of access alleys that branch off it so one can get the the garages of the houses, which are all detached and behind the house itself. Quite cute. So I'm driving along and can't really find a spot.
Needing to turn around, I head for the roundabout. And that's when my headlights sweep across the thing standing in the center of it, among the flowers in the circle of juniper bushes. At first, it looks like a scarecrow.
But its arms are moving. So I turn right, onto Bay again, and I take a left into the opposite back street from the one I usually use, and there's a space ... but I can't get that thing out of my head. So I pass the space and take a left out of the alley, heading back to the roundabout.
It's still there. It's moving its arms, rhythmically, down near what I assume are hips, the same way one would shake pudding off one's hands ... only it's constant. And I realize that I've been sitting there for a while, with the headlights lighting this thing up, and the car is completely still.
Except it's not still, because I've slowly been rolling closer, trying to see it better. I can't tell what the shape of the head is. I can't tell if it's someone with a burlap sack over their head or if this person is just horribly deformed. And I am looking at it from the back, so it's hard to tell what's up with the face. For a moment, I chuckle: from the back, it looks like Grandpa Simpson.
But when I laugh, it goes still. And my hackles are up. And it's the same peculiar electric feeling of being watched that I had the other night when I thought I saw someone behind the truck down the street from where I parked. It seems to be listening. And suddenly I realize that I am way too close to the juniper bushes and that if I want to get away from this thing, I have to back the car up. But my steering's all fucked up right now, and when I'm going under 15 mph, it makes a sound like a giant baby bird being put through a corn thresher. So now I'm frozen in place, not wanting it to see me, not wanting to look away or move to make sure the passenger door is locked. If it heard me chuckle, what else can it hear?
Its head is beginning to loll from side to side, left first, as though it is ecstatically hearing music and drunk. And suddenly I realize, this is just some kid wearing a hoodie! She or he is either drunk, stoned or heavily medicated -- maybe even mentally problemed -- and is listening to an iPod or something. I realize that I need to do my Good Samaritan bit for the day and get this kid home. I am, after all, adjunct faculty at Solano College. This is the kind of thing I should do.
So I get out of the car and as I open the door, the kid's head cocks sharply to the left and she or he begins to turn to me; my sleeve catches on the emergency brake for a second -- when did I set the brake? -- and I'm distracted. But then I'm up and out of the car and the kid is gone. But I didn't hear it run through bushes or anything. And I can hear breathing. And it's right on the other side of the juniper bushes.
And it's watching me.
© 2010, Edward Hightower. All Rights Reserved.
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