A scary incident that runs through my mind sometimes

Silverfox070

Jul 10

I grew up in three boroughs of New York from 1974 until 1988 and it was relatively peaceful and quiet in my youth. Off the top of my memories, the only bad time I can truly recall was the night my father was mugged returning from work when he had his cheek slashed but there was nothing else traumatizing that I recall.

When I started high school, I would take the MTA city bus line which had the B50 bus that would run throughout the neighborhood we lived in, would hop off that last stop and walk the 1/4-mile distance from the stop to my apartment building in Starrett City from the Seaview stop where the bus would make this big U-turn to go back the way it had driven in. I never thought much of it and would hastily make my way home to where Mami was sometimes looking out the window, watching for me or tending to my younger brothers.

I will never forget that one day I was about halfway through the distance of my building, there is no one else around at that time and the bus had already pulled away to begin its return, when this long car pulls alongside, and the male driver yells out to me. This unknown mid 30s to 40s-year man in a car, slows down to begin speaking to me via the lowered car window. This was in the late 1980s before automatic windows were made. For the life of me, I cannot recall what he spoke out, but I do remember seeing his leering smile and the car slowing down to my level of speed and cruising alongside which I had by then ramped up. It creeped me out and hustled in a way that probably looked like a good jog by then. With the key to the entry in my sweaty palm, ready to rush into the relative safety of our apartment building I did not look to the side but knew the car was still slowly moving next to me on the road. Making it to the rear entry area of the apartment building I did not stop to see whether the car drove past the front entry or anything, just racing up the stairs to the third floor where we lived and going into our apartment. I never mentioned it to my parents.

That was the only time I had a fright like that, and it enforced all the warnings my parents had drilled into my brain as a young girl. Was I truly in danger? I don't know but it still creeps me out considering that I was only around 15 or 16 when it happened. There was no reason for a grown man to act in that way.

Comment