Wednesday September 24th, 2003
Bad Neighborhood
Recently I've gotten mail from people who have trouble believing some of my journal entries. They usually say they don't believe that one person could have this much bad luck or this many eventful experiences. To these people I feel the need to point out two things.
1. I don't do a journal every day.
I have my boring days like anyone else but unlike a lot of blogs I don't write about them. I don't write about how my Everquest character gained a level or how I think it's funny that my change from seven-eleven was $11.10 and my birthday is November tenth. If I don't find it interesting, I'm not going to type it up so you can read it and be equally as bored.
2. I don't have bad luck.
As stated above, I only post about once or twice a week. I'm willing to bet that if you went out regularly and tried to subject yourself to new experiences on a daily basis (as I do) you'd have more than one interesting experience a week. (You might not get poisoned or have your computer blown up, but that comes with having a site some people hate.) Add to that the fact that my experiences aren't really bad luck. Is it bad luck when a tubby balding short guy gets shot down trying to pick up a girl in a bar? I think not.
That aside I have absolutely no doubt that some people will have trouble believing the following journal entry, since I myself have trouble believing it, and I was there.
With the tragic loss of the August entries some of this entry won't make sense so I'll just clue you in that my brother moved in with me in mid August after Dan moved out suddenly.
Although my brother Scott had few options, it still took some degree of convincing before he was willing to move in with me. A combination of living with me for twenty years and a bad neighborhood were both strong deterrents. His hesitation was understandable and obviously I was able to convince him to move in since he's been living here for over a month. Although his expectation of early bedtimes and Star Trek theme parties were quickly dashed against the rocks of porn and video games, he still took issue with the neighborhood. The occasional homeless person made him a little nervous yet I was able to convince him that the area wasn't as bad as he thought. I'm pretty sure he was happy with his decision; well at least he was until tonight.
Rather than go into the boring details of the night I'll start where things became interesting, the ride home from taco bell. Parking on the street about a block from my apartment, we walked food in hand, towards the promise of Cherry Coke and Futurama re-runs. We noticed something on the sidewalk ahead of us but due to a lack of streetlights we couldn't make out the form. We began to walk more slowly, neither of us wanting to be the first to discover what was ahead of us. From how dark it was it could easily be a bag of money that fell off of a bank truck or a rabid dog escaped from the pound. It's times like these that an over active imagination isn't such a good thing.
A longhaired woman wearing a short black dress and high heels lay motionless on the sidewalk before us. Inching closer we both stared in disbelief. Face shielded by hair, panties around her ankles, assumptions were made. Not completely sure what I should do; I set my food on the sidewalk and approached her to get a better idea of what was going on. I shook her shoulder a few times and she was still motionless but seemed to be breathing. I quickly went to my apartment and called 911. Walking back outside on my cordless phone I gave my name, address, and details of the situation to the dispatcher. Due to the limited range of my cordless phone I handed the phone to my brother while I (at the dispatchers request) went back to the woman to check for injury.
The LAPD could not have cared less when my wallet was stolen, but they literally arrived here in less than a minute of my calling. At this point my brother is on the phone and I'm standing over a motionless woman, a spotlight beaming from a squad car in front of me. I met two police officers on the street as they walked from their car to the woman. Flashlights in hand, I explained what little I knew as we walked toward the woman, now fully illuminated for the first time. As they turned her head to reveal her face I couldn't have been more surprised.
I was expecting a beautiful face, a bloody skull, or maybe even a zombie. Instead I saw what appeared to be Fred Durst in a wig with an adams apple the size of a grapefruit. One officer gave him a few shakes and opened his eyelids with his thumb and Freddy suddenly came to life. A deep exhale released a stench of rum so bad I thought I'd have to burn my cloths to get the smell out. Another squad car pulled up as one of the officers took me aside.
At this point I expected the officer to take down whatever info they needed on me and I'd be on my way home. A couple from my building walks by just in time to hear the officer say, "This may come as some surprise but that's a guy." From the laughing in the background I was pretty sure my neighbors heard him. I told the officer that it was dark and I saw a figure in a dress and called 911. Once the light was on him I realized it was a guy. The three officers now gathered around the Durst look-alike and motioned for the officer I was talking with to join them. Since I haven't given my info to them yet I followed. Another officer approached me and stated that it was a guy. I thanked him for the info at about the same time I accidentally kicked over my taco bell soda drenching the cross dresser in Dr. Pepper.
Now the other two officers approached me and asked me a number of questions. "Was this the first time you saw this person?" Questions about my relation to her, I mean him, I mean, well whatever. After I said I'd never seen this person in my life I was asked why I was so angry. I was confused by the question because I wasn't acting angry at all. About then I realized they must have thought I kicked over the soda on purpose.
After a few more questions they started talking to each other about a baseball game and I wasn't sure if I was allowed to just leave or if I had to give any information before I left. I did after all call 911 and I've heard that they always need your info if you do that so I asked the officer if they needed any info from me. His exact answer, word for word: "Well I guess so." He then took my name, number, address, etc. In hindsight I think I should have just left. Somewhere in Los Angeles there's a police file that has my full name and personal information in it as well as details about a drunken transvestite with alcohol poisoning. Great. Since my burrito got wet when I kicked over my soda I made another trip to Taco Bell. This trip however was far less eventful.
