THREE ON THE TOWN : A WILD PITCH : His Business Was Picking Up Until the Conversation Ended With a Proposition

H i!”

I’m in line at the gas station cashier’s window. I half-turn to see who spoke.

A kid, maybe 15 or 16, shorter than I. His hair is brushed back, and the brilliantine reflects daylight like patent leather. Tres Flores, maybe, or some teen gel I never heard of.

On a spring day neither warm nor cool he wears a Raiders jacket. I wonder reflexively what he might be carrying under it. For an instant I am remorseful that I could entertain such a suspicion. In the next second I am defensive; you can’t be too paranoid.

How effortlessly we adapt to the worst; it is second nature to see Raiders jacket and think gun, as a farmer scans the sky and thinks rain.

But all right. This is supposed to be the new L.A., the we-can-all-get-along L.A.

“Hi!”

My part for civic amity. Then I pay for my gas.

Keys in hand, I walk to the pump. The kid follows me.

Maybe he’s panhandling. I flap my hands through my pockets to sound out loose change. No, he would have asked me when I had my wallet out.

My God, he’s a carjacker.

I look at my car with Cal Worthington’s eyes. It is 8 years old. Mishaps have left both front doors slightly dented, like rumpled tinfoil. Dribbles of gasoline from the tank have etched their way into the paint. Stealing this car would be like rustling the sorriest nag tied up in front of the saloon.

What, then? Why is he still here?

“You look real nice.”

This isn’t a stickup, it’s a pickup.

Except for the construction-site gantlet women walk, most of my sexual harassment has been indoors, from men in ties. Before people “got it,” before harassment was acknowledged as an offense and not a pastime, you were on your own. If it came from a colleague, you tried to muster some withering remark and risked being put down as a bad sport. If it came from a boss, that was trickier. Maybe you deliberately and elaborately misunderstood his words, or made a little self-deprecatory joke and sidestepped out of hearing or groping distance. Mostly, you put up with it, like root canals or dry rot.

An L.A. city councilman, cops from San Francisco to Orange County, two teen-aged TV actors and a U.S. senator have all recently been accused of it. But this kid standing at the number six pump was not a guy in a suit.

“You look real nice.”

I say nothing.

“What’s your name?”

Eleanor Roosevelt, I want to say. It’s too subtle a brushoff. One of the best lines for a flasher--”It looks like a penis, only smaller”--got wasted on a man too drunk to appreciate it.

The kid is standing close now, running his finger along the windshield wiper, like a blind date stalling for a good-night kiss. I busy myself with the nozzle; I could spray him with unleaded if I had to.

“Do you want to make love?”

Oh sure, kid. There’s a special thrill I get, trolling for sex partners around flammable liquids.

What this kid needs is a savvy “no” and a little wise-up, scruff-of-the-neck advice about propositioning women.

But I’m too afraid to do it.

How many stories have I written about boys-- boys --who off each other over a baseball cap or a stare that lasted a second too long? I see no knife or gun; I don’t have to. His movements inhibit mine. Intimidation in an office or gas station--all of a piece. Doesn’t matter whether you’re afraid of being fired, or fired at.

My car is locked, as always. The windows are rolled up, as always. He can’t jump in. I hook the nozzle back on the pump. Now I feel safe enough to say something, but only this:

“Please leave me alone.”

When I sign the credit card receipt, I ask the attendant in the booth to watch whether he pursues me.

I unlock my door and get in. He does not block my way.

In my rear-view mirror, I see him on his bicycle, hands tucked up in the armpits of his Raiders jacket, as he watches me drive off.

DR, Caty Bartholomew