Street lamps And Shadows

The Walk

Tonight as I walked out of the movie theater (seeing movies alone is one of my favorite things to do), it was dark and the earlier rain had left barely perceptible halos around the parking lot lights. There was something about the smell and the damp and the broad stretches of darkness in the parking lot that took me back to a long walk I once took in Stockton, California: A long dangerous walk.

I was living at the home a friend at the time. They had taken me in after I left my sister's home. I was 16.  I had not been a kid to get in trouble. I was very happy to rehearse plays or practice for speech team after school and go to Denny's after the shows I did with my fellow theater geeks. My dad let me do pretty much what I wanted as long as he knew where I was and I had a ride home. I was honest and obedient so that worked out just fine.

After I moved in with my sister everything changed. My freedom became seriously curtailed because I was the free babysitter. I was not allowed to go out with friends and excuses were made to ground me so that I was available to sit on weekends. In addition I felt a abandoned by my dad who knew that I did not want to be left with my sister. I was not told when he called me so I felt totally forgotten and trapped. That was when I started doing "bad things" I snuck out, learned about sex from my experienced best friend, threw myself at a guy who I am sure now is totally gay, and who was mean to me, and went to drinking parties, and not even very good drinking parties at that, and I got in the car with drunk drivers more times than I care to recall.

In retrospect I was hilariously bad at being a bad girl. I was totally in love with one boy. I could not drink more than one beer without getting sick, and I mean spray-puke sick. And I never broke the law. The real bad girls hated me and oft threatened to beat me up. And I still kept it together to do theater and excel on the speech team, blah, blah, blah. But I made bad judgment calls. A lot of them, and the story of this walk was one of my worst.

At the time Stockton had the highest murder rater per capita of any city in the United States. The gangs were growing  and Stockton was fertile ground.
I wanted to go to a party. I wanted to go to that party because the boy I was utterly besotted with (who did not even feel remotely the same about me) might be there. But no one I knew with a car was going and my new guardians would not come pick me up. So I lied. I said I had a ride home. My guardian questioned me thoroughly and I lied thoroughly so I could go. I was sure that once I got there that someone would give me a lift home.

Nope.

The party was way out past Hammer lane and the house where I was staying was right up against Lincoln Park. As it turns out the boy did not show. A couple of my friends came but left with boys, and I don't remember what else, but there I was at 2AM, time to go and no ride for Corky but her own two feet. It was summer in California, so it was warm out and it wasn't going to rain. So, off I set, into the darkness. At first it wasn't very scary. This was a newer, low rent neighborhood so there weren't many trees. That meant the street lights shone brightly and I could see a long way in front of and behind me. I put my hood up and walked fast, widening my step in hopes that I didn't look too feminine. I was also out past the city curfew so, I also hoped I didn't look too young. Both hopes were obviously futile, I was a sixteen-year-old girl in tight jeans hoofing it home after a party, furtively glancing around every few seconds for would-be rapists.

About halfway home, totally sobered up and getting tired my bravado left me. I realized nobody knew where I was. I had just passed the high school and was walking along the outer edge of the golf course in the shadow of a row of massive old pines ( I was afraid of getting caught out by the police, remember) and it hit me: "Nobody knows where I am." I continued on, growing cold out of fear that I had made a mistake. "Nobody knows where I am."  It was 3:30AM and I was walking home alone through a golf course in the murder capitol of the country. "Nobody knows where I am." I shivered through the final 20 minutes of the walk, sure that at any moment a van would slide up next to me and that would be that.

But twenty minutes later I was standing on the sidewalk two houses from the place I was staying. I stopped. I looked around. Nobody: the street was clear. I started taking deep breathes to vanquish the shaking. Slowly, slowly, I got myself physically under control. Then I pulled out my comb and smoothed my hair. I used a tissue to wipe the sweat from my face and arms and I checked my make up with my compact under the street lamp. I straightened my clothes and squirted some body spray  to cover the smell of sweat and probably fear as well. I went over some lines in my head about the party and the ride in case I got questioned. Then I walked up to the door. Blithely, I turned and called out to the street. "Okay, thanks bye!" I let myself in with my key. As it turned out the fake thanks to my imaginary ride  and the streetlamp makeover were unnecessary because the house was asleep. My heart started to race again."Nobody would have known I was missing until morning."  But actually it was morning. The red numbers on my clock radio read 4:10. I crawled into bed grateful that I hadn't gotten caught and kind of sad too. Getting caught would have meant that someone who really loved me was actually taking an interest. That person was across the Atlantic in a North African Desert.

I remember that night because it was the last one. I never did that again. I pretty much stopped all the risky behavior right there. I realized that I was a good enough liar to get away with what I wanted. Nobody was gonna save me but me. It was not a great lesson to learn at 16 but it was necessary.

Now I do have people close by who really love me and they take loads of interest. If I look at it in a certain light I am not only lucky to be alive, (after doing such crazy stupid things) but I am lucky that I really understand what it means to be loved. It means no one is going to let you walk home alone at 2 in the morning...and a lot more than that.