Dangerous People

“Tell me … what’s your passion?” a formidable, far-older woman once asked me. Formidable, far-older women are always asking me things.

I was sitting at the bar of a subpar pub. On the stool next to me sat a glittering heap of rouge and jewels which proved to be a woman of advanced years. She couldn’t’ve been a duchess, not at O’Finnegan’s. But there was something distinctly aristocratic about the way she fingered her pearls.

As she leaned in expectantly, I downed the rest of my beer and answered, at last, “Walking.”

Then I walked swiftly towards the door.

I didn’t glance back, but assumed the woman was squinting at me disapprovingly. Through opera glasses.

I was telling the truth, though. It’s important to tell the truth, even when you’re running for your life. Walking is my favorite activity on earth, my passion—particularly when it’s in the direction of a coffee shop. In fact, I once walked for over six hours in pursuit of an above average java. I’m prouder of that than anything.

Walking is a cheap hobby and good exercise, too. Best of all, it’s a great way to meet dangerous people. Or interesting people, at least. The distinction may be meaningless.

On my urban rambles, I’ve met a few interesting and dangerous people.

Quite a few…

***

En route to the supermarket one evening, I made the poor choice of cutting down a dimly lit back alley

A man emerged from the shadows. He was about my height and build. As he stepped closer, I could see he wore a beard, too. And glasses.

I felt a blast of panic. I once read that if you encounter your doppelgänger, it’s a sure sign you’re going to die soon. I’ve been on the lookout ever since.

The man blocked my path. When I saw the jagged, diagonal scar running from his forehead to his chin, I breathed a relieved sigh. My face is scar-free.

My almost-twin requested a financial donation. His knife wasn’t very big. I figured it was big enough.

“I’m a writer,” I told him. As he breathed on my empty wallet.

Scarface looked disappointed. Depressed, even.

“You can have the wallet, if you want,” I said, consolingly.

He sniffed it.

“Is it leather?”

I shook my head.

“It’s pretty convincing, though.”

The man didn’t look convinced. He passed the wallet back to me.

“Sorry about that,” he said.

My would-be mugger shrugged back into the shadows. And I went on my way.

***

I was standing at a crosswalk. None of the cars would stop. I’d been waiting ten minutes. The same people who hold the door open for you at the grocery store will try hard to flatten your skeleton with their cars.

“Hey,” said a guy behind me. A sunburned man. With a mustache.

“Can you guess what I have in this bag?”

He was straining to carry a large black garbage bag.

He was smiling.

I didn’t guess three Texas mickeys of rum. That’s what it was.

“I stole them from the liquor store,” he said. “And stuffed them down my pants. One down one leg, one down the other.”

“What about the third bottle?” I asked.

The man only laughed. His eyes were like puddles of rum.

He laughed again.

He shook my hand.

Then he ran into traffic.

Tires screeched. But he made it to the other side alive.

“Next time you see me,” he hollered, “call me Buddy Boy.”

“Okay,” I hollered back. And went back to waiting.

A few days later, I was at the crosswalk again. As usual, no one would stop for me.

I saw an opportunity…

I took one step off the curb. If I’d taken two, a cop car would’ve flattened my skeleton.

I only caught a glimpse of the back seat passenger. But I’m pretty sure it was a sunburned guy. With a mustache.

“Buddy Boy,” I whispered.

Then I ran across the street.

***

You can meet non-dangerous people, too, on a city walk. If you have time.

The Poet of 13th Avenue (so I christened him) seemed harmless to me. He was an engorged man with a belly-length beard who passed his whole life, it seemed, sitting on a bench in front of the cathedral across from my favorite ice cream shop.

I sat beside him, sometimes, licking my rocky road or butter brickle.

From time to time, the Poet pulled a notebook out of his pocket and wrote down a word or two. It looked like poetry.

It might’ve been a grocery list.

We never talked, really. We just sat there and devoured ice cream.

One night, as we both looked on, a man dashed out the cathedral doors, across the street and into the ice cream shop. He didn’t even check for traffic.

The Poet squinted at him, unsheathed his notebook, and jotted something down. It looked either like ennui or eggs.

I leaned closer but he snapped the notebook shut. And picked up his butterscotch sundae.

I didn’t see the Poet for a couple months. I was trying to lose weight. Then I did see him.

Only not on the bench.

He was on the news.

He’d called in a bomb threat at the casino.

I guess he was dangerous after all.

***

They’re more than passers-by — those interesting and dangerous, nameless people we encounter on the daily. Spotting the more familiar among them becomes as much a part of one’s own routine as an evening cigar or a morning coffee. Bloodthirsty or not, we’d miss them if they weren’t around.

For months on end, a stick-swinging woman flashed past my bedroom window every morning around four, howling an aria of obscenities. The authorities caught up with her, eventually. Though she was armed — and most definitely dangerous — I was almost disappointed.

Four in the morning is quieter, now, true. But it just isn’t the same. 

 

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Tagged: Essays