Gaslight.
Years ago, I worked as a student intern at an elementary school for college credits. So, after a long day, I was exhausted. Typically, I would’ve looked forward to spending the rest of the daylighting a blunt in my car on the driveway of my parent’s house since I wasn’t allowed to smoke inside. That particular day, I was shit out of luck because I was out of weed, and my plug was on the other side of town. I neither wanted to make that drive nor put up with the awkward small talk if he had any more in stock.
On my way home, I decided to stop at the Publix up the road from my house. Because of its convenient location near the gym I attended, I often frequented it as the go-to spot for groceries. Despite the sketchiness of that side of town, I grew up near that area and felt comfortable enough with the surroundings to tell who were good or bad people to talk to, or so I thought.
As I was making my way to the front of the store, a man waved me down from the parking lot behind me. At first, I didn’t know if he was talking to me until he pointed at me and smiled. He had this friendly raspy tone when he asked if I was looking for some gas. He wasn’t talking about gasoline, mind you, but the kind I needed after a stressful day at work. I thought this was a chance encounter. Not only would this solve my current problem, but he could possibly be the solution to a long drive across town and awkward small talk for days to come. He looked in his late 40s to early 50s, wore baggy clothes, and had short hair. I lived in Florida, so it wasn’t cold enough to wear a jacket. I had assumed that he chose to wear one to hide his stash.
I told him I was interested but that first, I needed to get cash back from a store purchase. I thought he would take the hint and wait outside until I returned, but he volunteered to keep me company in the store. I didn’t know this was a big deal and chalked it up to him, showing customer service in his own way. I was only getting one item anyway and knew where to find it.
Immediately upon entering the store, he acted strange around clerks and the security guard. He didn’t like how they looked at him, scoffed at one of the employees, and said that he was in there to buy something. The drink I was there for was a weight supplement I used in the diet I had difficulty maintaining. As soon as I grabbed it off the shelf, I went for the nearest checkout, not wanting to spend another minute longer than I had to. In the checkout line, the man asked if I was trying to gain weight and explained how he knew a specific regimen for building muscle. I told him it was okay and that I hadn’t been in the gym for a while. It had been a few months since I used that gym. At that time, I hadn’t been as motivated and active as I had been.
As soon as I got the cashback, we left the store. I wanted to make the exchange as quickly as possible, so I turned to the man with the twenty in hand, forgetting where I was. The man’s eyes nearly popped out of his head before he shook it and said in a hushed tone that he was on probation, and that’s when I remembered we were still standing at the entrance, next to the carts. He looked at one of the security cameras and asked if I had a car. I told him I did. He said that he would give me the gas once we got there.
As we approached my silver Sable, he took it upon himself to walk over to the passenger’s side and wait for me to unlock the door, despite me expecting to make the exchange outside. I felt uneasy about having this stranger in my car, but I blew off that gut feeling and unlocked the door. This wasn’t my first rodeo, but it was a new experience with someone I didn’t even know. The man seemed too comfortable with the interaction as if this was another day in the office. He told me to relax and not be so paranoid. So I unlocked the door, and his friendly demeanor started changing when we got inside.
I was ready to hand him the bill and asked him how much I could get for the twenty. He looked at me, sort of sideways, and said he needed me to take him to his house right up the road so he could get the gas from his girlfriend. I told him I thought he had it on him, and that’s when he repeated his statement louder. This took me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting that tone or the logic behind his response. I can remember how stuffy the air felt in that car. It wasn’t a hot afternoon, but I could feel my skin itching and burning. I told him I was unsure of his whole plan, and that’s when he tried to reason with me that his house was just up the street and that I was just wasting his time by acting sketchy, even though he was the sketchy one.
Despite my better judgment blaring from the back of my mind, I keyed the ignition and started slowly driving out of the parking lot. The entire time, the man complained about how I was acting and said I was acting white because I didn’t trust him. There was a Walgreens across the street in the plaza that I started to turn towards. I knew that once I passed the traffic light up the road, there would be no turning back as I exited the plaza into a neighborhood. As the man continued cursing me in my passenger seat, I decided to pull over into that Walgreens and parked.
The man asked what I was doing, and I told him that was as far as I was going. I held out the bill and said that if he had the gas, I would be willing to buy it off him there, but I wasn’t ready to go to his house, despite his protest. The man told me to give it to him, but I told him I needed to see the green first. He showed me a plastic bag with some pills and said that what I wanted was at his place. I shook my head and told him I was good and no longer interested. The man looked at me with a twinkle of hate and disgust and said that if he was like he used to be, I would be in trouble. I told him to get out of my car, and that’s when he refused. He reached into his pocket, and that’s when I got out of the car and told him that if he wasn’t going to leave, I would call the cops. There was a police station in that plaza, so if they were notified, we knew they would be there in minutes. He didn’t move until I started dialing. He then got out of the car and slammed the door. A lady leaving Walgreens walked by as he walked away, cursing me out. She asked me what happened, sympathy in her tone. I told her that the man was crazy. As he stood cursing me out a good amount of yards away, I got back in my car and drove off.
I haven’t missed a workout since that day and haven’t had a taste for the green, either. So what is the moral of the story? Don’t talk to strangers, kids. If you do, they may try to take you someplace where you may never return. I don’t know. Maybe it was all just in my head. Perhaps he did have the gas for my light at his happy home.