Nocturnal Prey In NY

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Amskeptic
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Nocturnal Prey In NY

Post by Amskeptic » Tue May 15, 2012 7:44 am

I have happily declared since 2002 that I haven't had a speck of trouble with my fellow human beings while out on the road, camping wherever I like, conversing with all number of local law enforcement at all hours of the day or night, but it only takes that one time, doesn't it?

While in my Homeless Banker Sleeps In His Lexus mode here in upstate New York, I crashed out in the abandoned old store WalMart parking lot because it did not have annoying LIGHTS. Nesting in the back seat, I awaken in the dark to a poorly idling V8 engine with bad exhaust, the sound of a radio, the clap of a lousy metal glove box slamming shut. My heart is pounding now.
Slowly I inch my head up to see a pick up truck parked diagonally across the front of my car. This is a several hundred parking spaces lot, and I am the only one parked there . . . was the only one parked there. His proximity is extremely bad, in the body language of parked cars. It suggests intent.

I tell my heart to please settle down, we need to conserve our energy. The figure silhouetted in the truck is rocking back and forth. My imagination decides he is having an earnest soliloquy, "please don't kill again, please don't kill again". My heart responds to my imagination. He lights a cigarette in the darkness. The radio falls silent. I see a beer bottle profile hoisted to his lips. I am terrified. My keys are in the center console, so far, I have been motionless. His face turns to look in my car, illuminated by another drag of his cigarette. He is wearing an orange jacket, and I hate him with a deep deep loathing, I am his prisoner and I long-ago swore off being anybody's prisoner ever again. He turns and bends down towards the passenger floorboards, "to pick up the axe," suggests my helpful imagination. In that brief space of time, I whip open the console and grab the keys (my fiercesome weapon of choice against axe murderers in pick-up trucks) and curl back down. So insane is my terror at this point, that I am reverting to hopeful infant where it is my prayer that if I cannot see him, he cannot see me, so I hide my face behind the edge of the sleeping bag. My heart actually follows this wishful thinking, and settles down a tad. Now what? I peer up and this guy is snorting coke off a cell phone screen. This is not good. My imagination says "he is working up a good rage against life, it will be all my fault when he buries the axe in my face and steals the $24.00 from my Lexus-driving banker's wallet." Now he is ping-ponging his head against the headrest and the steering wheel. Great time to review my life, was it worthwhile? What's it like to not have a wife and children grieve my violent end? Will I slip into the vast forgotten past quickly? I peek again and he is down at the floorboard again, musta dropped the axe, clumsy dumbass, so I take this opportunity to sit up and hide my half-verticalness behind the jackets hanging from the left rear grab handle. I hate this bastard more than anyone I have ever hated. My cell phone is in the locked glove box with my wallet. Can't get to it in my still-hopeful notion that he doesn't really know that there is a person in this car he has blocked off. I so very have to pee.

I have two potential paths to the driver's seat.
One is over the center console with a difficult leg slide down to the pedals ("do not damage the cup holders or spill the half full can of Diet Coke," my last words on this mortal coil)
The other is to spill out of the rear door and whip into the driver's seat, but the driver's door is locked, and I would have to waste precious time unlocking the door "hang on mister, don't even wield that axe until I have the door open."

I hear the door of the truck creak and pop open, and I wrap myself in the jacket with pounding heart again hoping that if I don't see him, he won't see me. I am almost having a flashback to places I never want to go again, I can feel it, a spastic full-body seizure, I wonder if this is just what all animals have to do to fight to the death, I am ready to give this stupid wreck of a human being as good as he delivers. I am sober. I am way sharp. My muscles are in better shape than usual. But, my pounding heart is a pansy-ass frightened little wuss that will stop cold if he says boo. His orange jacket, illuminated by a far away street lamp, fills across the right rear door glass. Did I mention that I am in my socks? I am ready to kill first. With my keys.

He rummaged in the bed of the truck. "Shovel, lime, rope," my imagination chimed in, but it was just a monster 24 pack of beer (beer? in the bed of the truck?). He gets back in his truck and slams down another beer and another cigarette, and just sits there. He just sits there like a damn cat holding down the mouse and acting bored. What is this? Some sort of perverse game? Is he waiting because he has all night to build up to his murderous rampage on my car with me in it?

I slowly unhook the jacket and shirt from the left grab handle and try to move it exactly towards his line of sight so that it will not appear to be moving. I need unfettered exit from the left rear door. That bastard! Why did he park across the front of my car? I have only a foot to back up to the curb, then swerve to clear his truck. I note to myself that my car will start more quickly than his truck, and will be able to hammer the potholes in the curve out of here better than a light solid axle truck. I just want to sleep! says my tired brain.
... to be continued
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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hiwaycallin
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Re: Nocturnal Prey In NY

Post by hiwaycallin » Tue May 15, 2012 8:40 am

Good first chapter for another book! =D>

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yondermtn
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Re: Nocturnal Prey In NY

Post by yondermtn » Tue May 15, 2012 8:52 am

at the edge of my seat here!
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sped372
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Re: Nocturnal Prey In NY

Post by sped372 » Tue May 15, 2012 9:00 am

Aw c'mon! What happens next? It's like one of those old-timey radio shows where we have to tune in next time to find out. I hope I can find my decoder pin.

Whenever we've stayed in sketchy locations I've left the keys in the ignition and made sure the vehicle is arranged for a quick jump into the driver's seat. I've seen too many zombie movies.
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ruckman101
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Re: Nocturnal Prey In NY

Post by ruckman101 » Tue May 15, 2012 9:12 am

Keys can be deadly held in a fist protruding between fingers.

Seeing as how our narrator is narrating, I suspect the finish of the tale won't be a gory note of the day's local news.



neal
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Sylvester
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Re: Nocturnal Prey In NY

Post by Sylvester » Tue May 15, 2012 9:49 am

This was the stuff I wanted to get from Colin to put in a book of his memorable adventures! The Fillipino family rousing Colin one morning to get pictures of the Warrior and himself, or his narrow escape from the Grim Reaper in the Warrior with the head on collision! Who can forget Colin using a razor blade on the Warrior's case and washing engine parts in the sink!

I gotta get some popcorn!
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue, I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace. Where never lark, or even eagle flew. And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod, The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

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poptop tom
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Re: Nocturnal Prey In NY

Post by poptop tom » Tue May 15, 2012 11:08 am

:happy1:
Mr. Blotto wrote, "Boy - thanks for the offer, but a month in poptop tom's world means 5 years"

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jimbear
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Re: Nocturnal Prey In NY

Post by jimbear » Tue May 15, 2012 12:42 pm

Rapt attention...



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bigbore
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Re: Nocturnal Prey In NY

Post by bigbore » Tue May 15, 2012 3:03 pm

So your telling me you don't pack a pistol or a stun gun or something like that right?

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Vdubtech
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Re: Nocturnal Prey In NY

Post by Vdubtech » Tue May 15, 2012 9:07 pm

I say it was a dream. Like when JR was shot on Dallas. We're waiting.....

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glasseye
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Re: Nocturnal Prey In NY

Post by glasseye » Tue May 15, 2012 9:33 pm

Sylvester wrote:This was the stuff I wanted to get from Colin to put in a book of his memorable adventures
And me. Endlessly. Annoyingly. In fact, he hates me. :sunny:

Only those who have spent the night in empty parking lots can sense the tension described.

Breathless, we wait....
"This war will pay for itself."
Paul Wolfowitz, speaking of Iraq.

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jimbear
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Re: Nocturnal Prey In NY

Post by jimbear » Wed May 16, 2012 4:30 am

glasseye wrote: Only those who have spent the night in empty parking lots can sense the tension described.
Breathless, we wait....
True that. I had several experiences that caught me off guard while living and traveling in my buses in the mid-90's.
'74 Hardtop Westy
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Amskeptic
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Re: Nocturnal Prey In NY ii

Post by Amskeptic » Wed May 16, 2012 8:38 am

Peeking around what looks like my dementedly proffered jacket on a hanger "don't kill me, I will give you this $19.95 leather jacket?" I see his face is lit from below by the cell phone screen. My feet cannot get into the left rear footwell of the Lexus because my travel bags and the camera are all there. I am distinctly at a disadvantage both in flight or fight mode. He turns on his interior light and goes into the glovebox, which is my cue to open the door, yay! my interior light had been switched off! so all I have is a little puddle of light on the ground from the door lamp! Feeling like a hunted fool rabbit with no dignity, I slither to the ground and get the key in the driver's door (don't scratch the paint or I'll kill you myself!) and shut the rear door while I open the driver's door. I am not looking at this guy, if I don't look he doesn't exist, ask any 10 month-old. Car starts, hit reverse for two feet, into drive, headlamps, swerve left, miss side curb, and look back in the rearview mirror. His interior lamp is still on, I imagine a stupid whu the fk? expression on his face. The truck recedes in the distance, I am still
a. tired
b. have to pee
c. pissed that the interior of my car looks "dishevelled"
d. heart still pounding
e. shoeless

Turn on the main drag out of this desperate dying town known as "Brockport NY" interested only in getting on the highway south until sunrise. Stop at the dark Sunoco/Yellow Goose convenience store at Route 259. Take care of b. behind the Trane High Efficiency 1200 Heat Pump out back, take care of c. with a little tidying up, wash the windows of the bird crap out at the barn, and pull onto the road to the entrance ramp of NY 631 that will take me to Interstate 390 south!
But no. Mr. Officer has lit up the night with his disco strobes and pulls me over. Heart pounding anew I am ready to jump out of the car and rant, "why don't you go chase parked pick-up truck axe-murderers!?!?!?" but instead I hand over my license and registration with that Winston Smith telescreen look of "mild optimism" that Orwell pungently wrote about in "1984".
"What were you doing back there?"
"I was washing the birdshit off my windows."
"Why there?"
"It was the last parking place before the highway."
"Where were you washing?"
"What?"
"Where were you washing?"
"What? Where on the car? Where on the property? What? It is 3:30AM, talk to me like I am tired and stupid."
"Where on the property?"
"In the parking lot."
"Were you anywhere else on the property?"
Now I am thinking, did he see me taking care of b. above with his infrared goggles?
"I took a leak behind the store on the parched grass."
"Hang on a minute, sir, I'll be right back."
This officer gets in his Crown Vic and peels backwards, pulls a sloppy u-turn, and drives over to the Yellow Goose. He is walking around with his flashlight. I can see all of this in my outside rearview mirror. I am aghast. A pee-sniffing pervert policeman?
(God? It's been a great life, can I leave now?)

Officerman all charged up with whatever floats his boat, roars back to my car and skids to a halt with his lights still flashing all over the place. Now it is my turn for the questions.
"Can you tell me what the hell is going on, and what the hell you were doing?"
"I just wanted to check to see if you broke in over there, if you were a business and some car is parked there in the middle of the night, wouldn't you want the police to check it out?"
"I would want my alarm system to work, but anyways . . . "
"Well, have a nice night, here is your license and registration, drive safe."

Maybe Mr. Coke-sniffer Beer-Swiller was just terribly lonely and could not bear to park all alone in the middle of that vast dark parking lot while he attempted to blot his lot in life?
Maybe Mr. Officerman was overcome with tender concern for the Yellow Goose?
I do not know, but I drove until 9:00AM and spent a morning in the sunshine on a country road, reveling in views that over-arch our small little human dramas with a seriously welcome readjustment of perspective...................

Image


..........like this tree. This tree told me that even if you get blown out right in the middle of your very being, deal with it!

Image
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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glasseye
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Re: Nocturnal Prey In NY

Post by glasseye » Wed May 16, 2012 8:43 am

Ahhh. A happy ending. Especially with the tension-releasing landscape photographs afterglow. Ahhh.

:salute:
"This war will pay for itself."
Paul Wolfowitz, speaking of Iraq.

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jimbear
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Re: Nocturnal Prey In NY ii

Post by jimbear » Wed May 16, 2012 11:19 am

Amskeptic wrote: ..........like this tree. This tree told me that even if you get blown out right in the middle of your very being, deal with it!
Image
Amskeptic wrote:"Were you anywhere else on the property?"
Now I am thinking, did he see me taking care of b. above with his infrared goggles?
"I took a leak behind the store on the parched grass."
AHHH...honesty...the only way to be.


Why I :heart: visiting IAC and reading/listening to Colin's...rantsmonologuesdiscoursesrulestolivebyphilosophy
'74 Hardtop Westy
Pretty much stock engine setup

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