Real Encounters

*Hey Girl, Are You Alone?*

About a decade ago, I'd gotten myself deeply addicted to opiates and opioids. Through mutual friends, I met a fifty something man named Ricky. Ricky had a fat prescription for methadone that he'd sell to me at half-price (he was more of a speed/coke aficionado, so he'd sell to me to buy his preferred drug. Everybody wins, right?).

Ricky was barely over five feet tall, and emaciated enough that one could see clearly the outlines of his subcutaneously implanted, regulated morphine pump (it looked bizarre, so he enjoyed lifting his shirt to display it). He lived in a trailer an hour away from me and in the middle of Bumfuck, Louisiana. His trailer was at the tail end of a long and sparsely-populated gravel road.

At this point, we'd maintained a fairly stable dealer/client relationship (Jeebus, my habit alone paid his rent), so it was not abnormal for me to call him at late hours and ask if I could stop by his place for a little transaction.

I was beginning to feel dopesick, so I called him around midnight to let him know I planned to make a visit. After the sixty-mile drive, I pulled into his desolate driveway. Another car was there, but I thought nothing of it; Ricky was gay and probably had company.

When Ricky opened the door for me, hardcore hetero porn blasted loudly from the television, and I saw two other men assiduously finishing smoking a rock of crack. I nodded politely at them, while one of the two smokers slunk out of the back door.

Ricky and I completed our business, and I congenially declined his offer for a few hits off the pipe. I bid him goodnight and began to make the short distance to my car. As I stepped closer, the automatic floodlights flicked on, and I saw the second crack-smoker leaning against the porch railing. He held a six-inch straight-bladed knife and appeared to be scraping the residue from the bowl of his glass pipe.

As I passed him with a tiny "goodbye" wave, I heard him behind me:

"Hey girl. Hey, hey girl. You here by yourself?" He spoke in a conspiratorial whisper.

When I glanced back at him, the glass pipe was gone, but the knife was not. I could see it in his hand, the floodlights glinting off its edges. Again, he said, while stepping much closer to me:

"Hey GIRL! Are you here BY YOURSELF?!?" He was fidgeting with and brandishing the knife to ensure I knew he had it. His tone turned angry and aggressive.

I reached my car in seconds and fumbled to unlock my door, while he simultaneously ran up to me. I felt the tip of the knife in the middle of my back through my (mercifully) thick coat.

Now his tone turned dark(er), like a sinister combination of seduction and forceful coercion:

"Hey girl, I know you're here alone."

I opened my driver's side door about eight inches, twisted, and slithered miraculously inside, almost snipping off the tip of his now-exposed penis as I slammed the door.

I slapped all my locks shut. He began to pound on my driver's side window with the hand clutching the knife. I never screamed or raised my voice; in retrospect, I don't believe I addressed him or spoke at all.

With my windows up, I couldn't make out his continued stream of belligerently sexual ranting. I yanked my gearshift into reverse, peppering him with gravel bits, and hauled it back to the highway towards home.

I swallowed forty milligrams of methadone on the trek home to calm myself, and I told no one but my boyfriend (and now Reddit!) about the incident.