Right Under My Nose

Tuesday, 19 December

Kings Contrivance

Howard County, Maryland

03:00-04:15

Usually up at night, having to go outside to smoke, I see, but mostly hear, some odd things. In the daytime, I’m always trying to be observant. I need to know what belongs where. To this end, I train myself during walks to the market and rides to the various doctors that I see.

The game is “Sherlock Holmes”: try to see something I’ve not noticed before. It could be small. One time, when I was doing this when I lived in Harwood Park, a peculiar thing stood out. It was a circular newspaper box. It was round but long, easily accommodating a rolled up newspaper. I had not seen one since the late 60s or early 70s. It was finally removed. I wish I’d asked for it. A true Americana collector’s piece from an age now long gone.

The point is to train yourself not to dissociate, to live in the moment. PTSD patients do, among other things, get lost in thoughts or be triggered to flash back to the time during or after their trauma. It is unavoidable, but the Sherlock game can help. You’re attempting to free your mind of a dreadful cycle to at least some degree.

But once begun, this ability, no matter how crudely honed, stays with you. Even if you see something, only to forget it. Later, you will remember.

At approximately 03:00 to 04:15 yesterday, I went out into the bitter cold, lit a Marlboro, and couldn’t avoid the glare of one headlight from a car. The car faced me, but there was another parked in front of it, obscuring the driver’s side headlight. Two, and possibly three males, were talking. The car was idling. There appeared to be no reason for them to talk quietly. Yet I couldn’t hear what was being said.

The young man standing beside the open passenger side door was thin, Caucasian, short hair, 25 years of age. I couldn’t see any detail, though, even when the driver switched the headlights off. The remaining light was like a parking light. It was wrong; I hadn’t seen one like that here before. Something in my gut told me that this whole scene was just off.

I didn’t have my flashlight, and anyway, my gut told me to stay away. I don’t have a problem confronting others, but as the saying goes, you don’t take a knife to a firefight. I can’t escape the certainty that I would have been shot.

I was exhausted so I went to bed. I woke up around 11:00. Before having coffee, I went outside to smoke and failed to notice a Howard County police SUV until a young woman walked to a red car and the officer got out to meet her.

They were looking at a faded red Sonata. I caught some of the conversation, but not much. She told him that she lived two blocks away. Opening the door, the officer smelled Marijuana. Whoever boosted the car sure as hell didn’t fear a drug charge after having just committed automobile grand theft.

That’s not the worst part. The officer said something like, “They wiped it down,” and by then, I came in for coffee. Halfway through it, I realized that Sonata was the one I’d seen earlier. It was left idling while they cleaned it. I thought about calling the police, because the officer had already left, but I had to go over what little I had seen, and knew I’d sound like a nutter and that I couldn’t help. Looking at the car, my heart sank. It wasn’t wiped down. It was fucked up. The pattern of spray bottle spatter on the inside of the windshield looked like strong cleaner or something caustic. Plates had been torn off. I felt so furious that all of it happened right under my nose. That a stolen vehicle had been dumped and damaged in my front yard.

I want to hurt the bastards, just like I would love to catch the bastard who hit a senior lady and left her to die last month.

Punishment isn’t my duty. If it were, I’d be a damn hard one about it. But my morals have some bearing on my way of life. I can’t harm another unless I’m defending someone from them. Then, I have no problem using force or to die in the attempt.

Until that day, I’m going to observe everything I can.