Adventures after Nightfall

Night. I have to turn my back on the sidewalk to load my bags in the passenger seat of my car. A perhaps emotionally disturbed man who might be homeless, who might be mentally impaired, or who might be on drugs tries approaching me from behind. I tell him, “I’m busy, have a good night.” He gets up close behind me. I don’t know what he’s capable of, but my hands, arms, elbows, and body are not in position to fight in any way. I am alarmed and frightened so I raise my voice over my shoulder, “BACK OFF, NOW!” He moves away, which is promising, but he hovers close saying something I can’t make out because he’s mumbling and because my ears are ringing with adrenaline and I’m about to disassociate in fear + anger. Time has slowed down and I’m taking in every piece of information and analyzing it. There’s good lighting, I’m near the front of a grocery store, there’s likely a camera, but the goal is to stop whatever this is from going down in the first place because I don’t want to deal with police reports or hospital bills, and I would have to muster the energy to do all that and heal by myself all while I hear criticisms about being a single female because that (and the bad behaviors, inabilities, and fragilities of former and would-be partners) is something I’m blamed for too. He comes back close and reaches past me and drops something on the hood of my car—a notebook that I might in another situation be curious about, but yes, he’s close enough and tall enough to stand behind me, trapping me and reaching past me and over the open door of my car to drop this notebook on the hood and I’m trying to avoid smelling him because I’m afraid of what I might learn from that. I turn around to face him using some sort of move I know from salsa and garba dancing. I’m still trapped by the open passenger side door, but am prepared to defend myself in whatever way I might. Mental inventory: slightly impaired still-healing right ankle, somewhat stable block heel sandals, and a skirt limiting my range of motion that unfortunately won’t rip but that I can hike up to mid-thigh so I can kick after a throat punch—lucky that I parked close enough that I’m loading the car while standing on the curb instead of standing in the gutter. I don’t want to escalate to physical yet, so I use the other effective tools I have, my voice, volume, tone, and alarming/aggressive word choice. I look him in the eye and pronounce, “BACK OFF, I’M GOING TO MAKE YOU EAT YOUR OWN EFFIN EYEBALLS!!!” This works. Shocked, he shuffles away. 

As I close the door, toss the notebook off my hood, and deliberate my steps to the driver side, aware that I can’t discreetly lock my passenger door yet and he’s not far away enough, I’m livid that this happened. I would have preferred to be kind, but he scared the S out of me. THIS is not the way to approach a female at night and it’s not my job to teach this. 

Side note: color doesn’t matter in this and similar situations. Yes, he was white. Yes, I’m flippin curious about that notebook.