Bike Dude in the Dark

Some guy was riding around and around the neighborhood in the dark on a bike, with a huge old backpack on. I think he was looking to rob somebody. I think he's looking for people obviously gone for the holiday. Then, I wondered, well maybe he's with the new neighbors, since at this hour, they're out working on a car or something.

I have no clue. I was going to go out and ask him, "What are you doing riding around with a backpack on a dark bike in the dark in the middle of the night? But then I thought better of it. Maybe he's methed up or something. I just don't know. But I don't think he's out for exercise.

It is a white dude, with short cropped hair. Big old backpack. Huge backpack.

So I finally see him up the sidewalk, just sitting there, on his bike, in the dark, after midnight, near a neighbors car. I'm not sure what I should do. If he's just some guy, acting bizarre at that hour, I mean, well hell, this is one strange world now.

So I come back in and think, "Now what is the protocol here?" Should I call the police, because I think he's trying to rob cars or something. And if he robs a neighbors car and they're raising hell in the morning and I did nothing, boy, that isn't going to endear me in this area and I'm not endeared anyhow.

So I call the cops. But they don't come. They never come. I don't think car prowls is high pri in this town.

So then I feel foolish for even trying and think, "Well, I better keep an eye on what he's up to. He sails down the block again. I think, well, nothing I can do.

But then I see the new neighbors prowling around their garage. One disappears, then after awhile, a second guy is leaving their garage on a bike with a big old backpack. What the hell? I think, "Did a gang of theives move in?" I don't know that. They're young guys and I'd like to stupidly give htem the benefit of the doubt and be just all super Mayberry RFD about it. My goodness those hardworking young men are baking apple pies in their garage, for the 4th. Yes, that's it. They're baking apple pies and delivering them on their bikes in the dark to the doorsteps of old veterans of foreign wars. I'm sure that's it.

Ok, maybe they were just working on a project that required heavy backpacks to carry out of there, and well, how would I know what is going on. I have no idea, but I might ask them tomorrow, and tell them it's scaring me and see if they have anything to say.

Well, I probably shouldn't do that. I'll just ask the a couple of the neighbors. Because it oculd be something completely innocent or something common to this area, which I've noted it is.

Can you tell I have no clue how to survive in a concrete cul de sac? I don't. There should be a manuel. If I was living in the woods or the forest, I'd sic some dogs on that sort of thing, or set out some snares for trespassers then see what they have to say in the morning. Or solve it with some overhead shotgun blasts. But you can't do that here. It's supposed to be all civilized, but it isn't. It's only enforced civilized for the law abiding while the theives do what they want.

So I have a friend who tells me the house next to hers is up for sale. She had told me once some Russians live there and that the woman once told her, at least I think it was the wife of the man of concern, that her husband was working for the KGB. I said "You're kidding me!" She said, "No! And he said he had some little manager job, but he's always flying out and travelling all over the world."

"No!" I said. "Managers don't fly all over the world. Do you really think he might be a Russian agent or spy?" "Maybe Russian mafia," she said with a nod of very worldy knowledge I can only take stabs at from watching TV.

Then a few months later I encountered her again. She was distraught. She said there had been a car parked across the street at certain times for months, with a woman inside. At specific times, she leaves, then comes back, like she's on a time clock.

I said "OMG, do you think it's an FBI agent?" She had not thought of that possibility, that the woman might be watching the neighbors house and not hers. She was instantly relieved, to think it might have something to do with the Russians rather than her. "That makes sense," she said. "Sure does," I added with an emphatic conspiratorial nod like I knew what I was talking about, which I don't and rarely do.


"It's either FBI watching the Russians or a state worker dodging doing any real work, and just going back to punch in her time clock, then coming out to sit in the car and read and nap. Or....." I went on, "It's somebody leading a dual life and can't tell their family they've lost their job or that their husband has left them...something like that I bet, cause I saw a movie like that."

I don't know who that woman really was or why she would sit there in her car like that. My friend never found out and all of a sudden, she didn't show up anymore.

So my friend tells me now that since the neighbors house is up for sale, she's worried about who might move in. She says she would rather have some older meth addicts move in than a bunch of theives or people with out of control dangerous dogs or dangerous unparented kids. I said "Really? You'd go with meth heads over bad parents?" "Oh yeah," she said, "and people who are so insecure they get pitbulls and beat them, those are the worst." I had to agree. So far, the house hasn't sold and she's happy I think about that.

She sleeps on the couch so she can more easily see and hear if anyone is breaking into somebody's place or car nearby. She says she doesn't do bedrooms anymore, with all the breaking in going on. Guess I don't blame her. Guess I'm going to go back to some cheap booby traps.

I've really got nothing worth stealing in here. Nothing. Even this darn computer lately is slower than molasses and keeps on shutting off for no good reason, I keep telling it. I tell it, "It's a baseball bat to you, if you don't behave, and it doesn't react for about an hour to that threat, so you can tell, it's not much good for long. That threat is real, to any PC under my control. I've smashed them before, with no regrets, when slightly frustrated with lack of performance.