I Watched What He Did

(Fiction originally Posted at joecsmolen.com 8/9/22)

Driving all the way from the Oregon coast, before I got on I-5, I got GPS-ed through Willowdale where I didn’t know there’s an abandoned, forlorn old railway.

Later, hours down I-5 in Central Point, I pulled off the freeway into my dental office parking lot. Hot weather. To save some money, because he deals only in cash, I’d driven two hundred twenty-eight mostly I-5 miles to this particular dentist – Edward Gorey’s namesake of all things. The speed of the traffic on I-5 was unnerving, but I made better time than I expected, but right before my 1PM dental appointment, it was bad manners to eat. So grinding hungry, I was stuck with twenty-eight minutes to kill. I just had to wait there in the treeless, baking heat of the black asphalt parking lot and take it. Hungry, I was going to go in there and get drilled-on. I was in no mood.

 I spotted him right after I parked. I didn’t see where he came from. On sight, I didn’t like his looks. Smallish, skinny dude. Walked like he had all the time in the world. Knit hat pulled down over his ears hiding most of his identifying, mousey-white-guy weasel face. Counter-culture t-shirt. Ratty Levis. Back pockets practically at his knees.  Bored and bugged just at the sight of him, I watched what he did; he got into a little silver non-descript jeep-thing.

I wanted him gone, but he dinked around. I didn’t know what he was doing in there, but he sat there in his pretend SUV for at least five minutes – probably just texting – or gaming - and I couldn’t control my thoughts – couldn’t stop thinking graphically, about a burger and fries. I was stuck famished and waiting to get drilled on. Today was going to be the first step in the dental implant process where they drill into your jaw clear to your suffering brain and no amount of pain killer injections was ever enough and I resented the sight of that dinking dude sitting safe in his silver, fake SUV.

Finally, he backed out. High on the right side of his SUV, toward the back end of his nerd jeep-thing, I noticed a decal – black rectangle on the jeep’s silver skin. The stupid decal read “Renegade”.

I couldn’t imagine what renegade could possibly mean to a corn-dog punk like that! I started guessing at his life-spin  - tagger – gamer – or hacker – or baby-snatcher – or even worse, dog-snatcher - or a front porch package thief.

He really, really bugged me – just his doesn’t-work-and doesn’t-plan-to-work looks.

So I followed him. I watched what he did. I wasn’t doing anything for nearly half an hour. I was sitting there in the driver’s seat of my pick-up anyhow, so I cranked my engine and took off after him. I tailed him. He only went about five blocks when he turned into an apartment complex where, looked to me, like he had no business. Like a pig at a feeding trough, he parked head-in, got out and walked away.

I had to know. I had to see how a renegade wanna-be lives.

I was right. He was up to something. He didn’t belong there. He didn’t go to an apartment. He walked straight for the entrance to a paved public walking path that ran behind the apartments – the path board-fenced-off from the back yards of the apartments that abutted the path. The black-topped pedestrian right-of-way ran between the apartments and a dribbling little creek that I guess was supposed to provide the nature part of the “walking experience” back there.

The eight-foot-high wooden, privacy fence separating the back yards from the path tipped me off. I knew it. My renegade was a tagger for sure.

But he didn’t add up. I kept him well ahead of me as I followed him along the meandering path. The un-touched board fence to our left – a tagger’s heaven. But where were his spray-paint cans? He had to be carrying his spray cans on him, but I couldn’t see anything like that. I wanted to get him. I really did, but where were his stinking spray-paint cans? When he tagged that fence, I decided I’d just take care of him myself – right then and there. Just knowing in my gut he was going to tag that fence, my adrenaline was already coming up. Later, in the dental chair, I’d have to hide my nicked-up knuckles, but it was going to feel good to give a scawny tagger some negative feed-back about his “tag art” or whatever he was for sure gonna do.

He passed a couple of tipped-over, blue-handled grocery carts. There was a Walmart nearby. We passed a coupla empty plastic water bottles and three sun-faded, lidded coffee cups. It had been there a long time, too - I walked past a wadded, disposable diaper. Next was a chain-smoker’s pile of cig butts and a scattered string of plastic straws – all the same color. Drowned Covid masks dotted the creek bed.

But I still wasn’t figuring the spray cans. We came to a hundred-foot-long steel bridge spanning a gulch where the dribbly creek used to flourish. I stopped and dawdled on the bridge and faked like I was sunning myself over the gulch. I watched what he did.

A cluster of four women in looked-like dentist office scrubs caught up to me from behind and passed. Quick, one of them glanced warily behind her at me.

That’s where a weird thing happened. From the opposite direction a little brown mother strolling a baby and her four happy, black-haired kids in the sun appeared on the bridge. And she did! I saw her smile-flash at my low-life tagger, but then spot me, and turn back.

But at the far end of the bridge, my tagger stopped. Laying half in the path, there was a third Walmart grocery cart. He stopped and he grabbed it and stood it on its wheels and spun it and now he was headed with the cart right back at me.  

I glanced at my watch. Only fourteen minutes left, but I wanted to get him.

Now I could see for sure, though. No spray cans. I was baffled – and frustrated.  I wanted law and order. Even if I missed my dental appointment, I wasn’t going to let him get away with it. I’m telling you, I wanted to enforce what society wants, but doesn’t have the guts to. But I didn’t have “probable cause”. I just lurked there on the bridge and lifted my face to the warm sun with my elbows on the railing – and I let him walk by – back the other way, with his muddy Walmart cart.

I couldn’t see his game yet. He was sneaky. But you bet I watched what he did.

He picked up all the same-color plastic straws and he crammed the works in a plastic bag he found. Tossed the bag in his cart. He picked up the rotting diaper. Like a bargain shopper, he tossed that in the cart, too. He snatched-up the coffee cups and the water bottles. When he came to the other two carts, he stood them up and nested all three and shoved his cart-train along ahead of him. He worked no-particular-place-to-go slow. He made a project out of wading and fishing the covid masks out of the dying stream.

But I kept watching what he did. Stopping petty crime takes patience. I tracked him – the wet splotches of his feet on the dry path.

Emerging from our nature experience, at the 4-lane main drag, he boosted the back end of his cart-train off right, shoving the front abruptly left and starting up the sidewalk. Just like that, my sting was scrubbed. Only thing in sight, a coupla blocks up – was a big blue sign.

I tried to breathe evenly. I glanced at my watch. I had four minutes. Now I had to run all the way back to the dentist. I’d be sweating when I got in the torture chair. Mentally, I tried to shrug the stupid renegade off. It’s not a fair world. I work for a living. I pay my bills. My credit score is seven eighty. I deserve better. I deserve respect.

And at the dentist office, in the hands of an educated Professional, I knew I’d get it.

*            *            *

Real quick, before using his TBM(tunnel boring machine), my dentist gouged

jovially around in my mouth. Casually, he asked, “Hungry?”

There was a chuckle in his voice. I swear it to you.