A Suspect Apprehensive Near Scene of Crime, He Walks

I’ve always liked late-night walks. Been taking them since I was a teen-ager. I learned early on there are many aspects to my life that can’t be sorted out before darkness falls. Besides, when it comes to quiet contemplation, who doesn’t prefer the cool quiet of the evening to the clatter of the day?

Confined by stone walls and iron gates inside my townhouse complex, I head for a residential neighborhood a couple blocks away whenever that old traveling bug hits. Realizing some residents may be skittish about my nocturnal habits, I usually walk out in the street under the street light. To be extra nice, I resist the temptation to look inside people’s houses, even when their curtains are wide open.

So it was last Saturday night, about 10:30: out for a stroll, basically going up one street and down another with no particular travel plan.

Here’s what happened. You tell me if I’ve got a legitimate beef.

A guy in a dark pickup truck pulled up from behind, startling me. At first, I figured I must have been really lost in thought, because I hadn’t heard him until he was alongside.

The first thing he said was, “Just out for a walk?”

I’m not the fearful type, but I’m not exactly D’Artagnan, either. So, yeah, I was a tad spooked. It’s impossible for that question to have a friendly connotation when spoken by a stranger sneaking up behind you in a truck. In 30 years of nighttime walking, no one has ever pulled up and asked if I were, indeed, walking. So, my first thought was that “just out for a walk?” sounded like the line Hugh Grant may have used on the Sunset Strip. And yet, this didn’t seem like the place for a hustle.

“Yeah,” I said.

He paused for a moment and said there had been a burglary that week and that someone had stolen something--tools, I think he said--out of his truck parked outside his house. To which he added, “I saw you out cruising around and wondered what you were doing.”

Just about that quickly, my mood began mutating quickly from trepidation to irritation.

Call me a bad sport, but when a total stranger not dressed in a police uniform asks me what I’m doing, I feel no obligation to explain a thing. If I had, though, I would have said that walking down the middle of a lighted street hardly constituted “cruising around.” I also would have suggested to him that your basic nocturnal burglar probably doesn’t wear a white shirt on the job. But because he hadn’t asked a direct question, all I said in response to the news of his burglary was, “Sorry.”

It wasn’t said sympathetically, and it obviously didn’t satisfy him. Maybe I should have said, “I’ll keep an eye peeled,” but I didn’t. He seemed to sense that only a direct question would get anything out of me. He paused another second or two, then said, “You live around here?”

Hoo-boy.

I cannot describe adequately the overpowering impulse I felt to give him a piece of my mind. Just in time, however, I remembered what a wise man once said: “Never smart off to a guy in a pickup truck.”

Again, all I answered was, “Yeah.”

At that point, he seemed to realize I was a hostile witness. He began to pull ahead, and I thought I detected a faint hint of remorse. Perhaps to justify his interrogation, he told me again that his truck had been parked in his driveway when the stuff was taken.

I shrugged again, and he drove off.

The walk was ruined, as was the rest of my evening. It was the equivalent of setting out on a peaceful walk and being hit with ripe fruit from a passing car.

I even tried giving him the benefit of the doubt later, but the logic didn’t track. What did he really think he could accomplish? Did he think I’d confess to burglarizing him? Or, did he think that if I were the burglar, I’d now be dissuaded from striking again?

What bothered me most was his implicit arrogance. He felt free to interrupt my stroll and subject me to his questioning, even though I had no more idea who he was than he did me. He acted as though I was obligated to answer his questions.

His space had been invaded, so he was entitled to invade my space. It apparently never crossed his mind that he might ruin my walk. Or, if the thought did occur, he didn’t care.

I suppose we’ve reached the point where everyone can be a suspect and everyone else can be a sheriff.

That may be fun if you’re the guy in the truck playing sheriff, but if you’re the harmless soul out for a moonlit walk and suddenly you’re the suspect, it’s one more chink out of that thing we used to call the pursuit of happiness.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.