Last night, on my way home from visiting my daughter at college, I approached a traffic signal that had just gone green. I passed a line of vehicles in the right lane who’d been waiting for that green glow and then noticed a pair of headlights crowding my back bumper. I could tell they belonged to a large pickup.
I stepped on the gas, put on my right blinker, and slid in front of the car on my right. The shiny, late-model, white Ram 2500 zoomed past on my left. “Sweet,” I thought, “Bear bait.” So, I signaled and then merged into the left lane to ride in this commercial vehicle’s wake.
I followed at a distance because the pickup had a huge steel towing setup in the bed and no tail gate. (A few years ago, a ladder blew off a contractors truck in front of me, making me wary of accidental projectiles.)
After we passed two green traffic lights, the truck slowed even as speed limit signs appeared with numbers 30mph higher than the ones between those traffic lights. There weren’t any vehicles in front of him. So, I let off the gas and put on my blinker to pass him in the right lane. Then he signaled and moved over there to block me.
I stayed in the left lane. I dropped into fourth and passed him on the left. I felt a weird vibe coming from dark windows I didn’t look into. So, I took my MINI up to almost 90mph to catch up with a pack of cars and slid in between two cars for cover.
I was relieved when I got to the exit for the two-lane road that leads to my subdivision. Then I noticed the massive white pickup get off at the same exit.
I gunned the throttle, racing to the first entrance into our subdivision (believe it or not called Ryan Drive). I turned off my headlights, hoping to lose the road rager in his company truck. But then I remembered that my MINI has large reflective Biplane Productions branding on each door and the rear bumper.
I wouldn’t be able to hide.
He turned onto Ryan Drive, too, right after I had turned onto—not kidding—Crystal Lane. Seeing he was now obviously stalking me, I turned my lights off completely.
I should’ve driven around the maze that is my neighborhood of 10 streets and roughly 200 houses. Crystal was only 10 minutes behind me; and she has large reflective Biplane Productions branding on her vehicle too. I should’ve taken this dude on a wild goose chase.
Instead, I slid down the hill to my house and parked in the grass of my front yard behind my friend’s SUV. I saw the Ram’s lights crest the hill and then slowly light up house by house on his descent toward my driveway. He passed the deputy’s house, the double-Tesla house, the barbecue house.
I bent down below my windows as he crawled across the road frontage of the conservation easement and then our address.
I saw his company’s logo after he passed: an industrial-looking dark blue B or P or maybe R. He drove up the next hill to the cul-de-sac, turned around, and then crawled to a spot a few driveways west of our house, his headlights shining on my friend’s vehicle parked in front of me.
I hit the button for our garage door to shed more light on the situation. Then I called 911. I quickly and quietly answered the dispatcher’s questions before telling him I was unarmed and didn’t feel safe making a run for my house. He told me to stay in my car with the doors locked.
He dispatched an officer.
A few minutes later, the timer for my garage opener’s light clicked off its bulbs. My garage went dark.
I couldn’t see into the Ram’s cab, as the streetlamp between us reflected off its windshield. The amber marker lights on its roof told me this truck was probably GPS tracked by someone in an office somewhere.
The Ram’s headlights started to move toward me. I ducked again to get below the window line. The truck inched toward Cooper Way to take the long way—a different way—out of our neighborhood.
I called 911 with the update and then backed my MINI around my motorcycle and into my side of the garage. I was still in my driver’s seat when Crystal arrived home. I told her and our friend what had happened. Then we walked our friend to her vehicle, hugged her goodbye, and returned to the house.
A lieutenant called me 10 minutes later to confirm they had swept our neighborhood and found no vehicles matching the description. Tow truck drivers never forget a place, and I felt little relief from the officer’s report. An angry man knew where I lived. He’d seen my motorcycle in the driveway with the same big, reflective logo on the side case facing his headlights.
Suddenly, the flashy tax deductions that wrapped my vehicles weren’t the cool graphics that little boys love in public parking lots. My company’s logo felt like a tattoo that marked me in a different gang’s neighborhood.
An hour later, Crystal fell asleep curled up next to my shoulder, but it would take me another hour before my adrenaline pumper and breathing both slowed enough to let me succumb to sleep.
I have a choice today to worry if I’ll ever see that road rager again, if he’ll be parked outside on some random night. I’m posting this to free my mind from rehearsing the story.
And I guess that’s why I wrote my latest book—so my brain can move onto other stories, other adventures, and other nights’ sleeps.
