We are on our way back from the jumps at the end of a Saturday afternoon. Mission Gorge Road is jammed with cars. Once we get past this bottleneck of shoppers going on the freeway, we'll be in our neighborhood where people only go on purpose. I stop at a red light. A blue and gray Camaro emerges from a sports bar parking lot. When the light turns to green, the Camaro is behind us. I expect to lose him at the junction of Mission Gorge Road and I-8, but don’t. Strange. This is not the kind of car for the "hood".
We go up the Fairmount hill to 42nd Street and El Cajon Blvd., where any normal person with a fancy new Camaro would turn west and go away, but he continues following closely. I look into the back of the truck. The four boys back there hunch forward, watching the Camaro through the back window.
This can't be good.
I turn onto Thorn, the closest cross street to my house, then onto my street. The Camaro is still behind me. I am frightened. I wonder if I should even GO home, reveal that sacred locality to the idiot driving that car, but finally I pull up in front of the house.
“Fuck, Jimmy,” I say, “I can’t believe that guy followed us here.”
“Don’t worry, Martha,” he says, “we won’t let him hurt you.”
We jump out of the truck. The boys in back lift the rear window and drop the tailgate, but stay put. The man in the Camaro gets out. He is a heavy-set, muscular Black guy, about 45 years old and more than six feet tall. By then I'm at the back of the truck. I look in to see three of the boys leaning forward, watching, holding big wrenches, cranks, and bicycle forks. “Shit,” I think. Ryan’s hands are empty. He just looks scared.
The driver of the Camaro stands too close to me, and says, "Lady, you better learn how to control your kids. This little punk flipped me off." He pulls Ryan out of the back of the truck, digs his fingers into Ryan's upper arm.
All this drama and angst because a little boy extends the middle finger of his right hand, showing off to the big boys in the back of the truck. Stupid and juvenile, but no threat. Ryan is 85 pounds and thirteen years old. Unfuckingreal.
"Let go of him," I say through clenched teeth, as menacingly as possible. He drops Ryan’s arm, shoving him toward me. I catch Ryan and put my arm around him.
"And I don't know if you know your other little punks back there are brandishing weapons."
“Brandishing?” I think. Sure they are. These boys are all about ‘brandishing’. This man is so inside his own head that he has no idea that when these kids look through his windshield they see their enemy, the big Black guy who will hurt them and their friend. We live in a world of gang wars. How would the boys know that this man is not part of that?
He flashes a badge between my face and the chest of his Hawaiian shirt. "I’m a police officer. I don't like being disrespected."
"He didn't know you were a policeman. From where he sat, you’re just a big guy tailgating his," I pause, "mom."
"That little punk is like he is because you defend him. Women like you shouldn't have children," he says.
At that, the boys jump out of the back of the truck, looking innocent but holding their tools. I shake my head, and motion them to lay the bike forks, cranks and wrenches in the back of the truck. They haven’t seen the badge; I’m not sure they heard the conversation.
"Thanks," I say to him in a voice that slams doors. To the boys I say, "Come on, let's go inside." My arm is still around Ryan.
"Way to go, mom," says Jason, wrapping his arm around my shoulder as we walk into the house. "If he touched you, we woulda’ killed him."
And that was that. Later, I think I should have gotten the man’s badge number, but I guess it is enough that I had sufficient control over "my" kids that he got away alive.
