My title is clearly an ode to Dexter fans. Yesterday I was driving home from Frank’s
house around 8:30pm. Flying down Forest
Hill Road in my grey Hyundai Sonata I had just pasted the intersection at
Rockland Avenue. For anyone who frequently
uses this route on Staten Island you all know how there are no street lights
around that bend right by the Verrazano Little League Baseball field. Occasionally you can spot a dead deer in the
vicinity, since it’s highly wooded and usually desolate area come
nightfall. All of a sudden, I spot what
appears to be the soles of shoes walking in the middle of the street. I SLAMMED on my breaks before narrowly
hitting a young woman dressed in dark colors walking erratically in the middle
of my lane. Thank God I saw her
shoes! I pulled up slowly beside her;
she appeared to not take any notice of how close she came to death. This girl
is going to get hit by a car if she continues walking in the middle of the
street like this.
“Are you ok?” Usually I am terrified of the thought of
picking up hitch hikers because let’s face it there’s so many things that could
go wrong but this poor girl seemed so out of it. As I am asking this I am surveying the area
to see if there’s an ambush of guys about to drag me out of my car or rob me or
whatever but there was none. My mind
wanders to all of the “Ladies Beware!” chain emails you get at work about
thieves and rapists taking advantage of good Samaritans in similar ways such as
this.
She looked as if she could be walking onto the College of
Staten Island campus just a few blocks down.
Dressed in a long black jacket, sparkly Victoria Secret grey sweatpants,
with her long, dark brown hair collected into a ponytail and clutching a black
coach bag, she seemed like a girl who just went through a bad breakup with a
boyfriend. The petite, white, 20-something
girl looked my way and said she needed to get to Forest Ave and that she lost her
phone connection with her friend.
Of all times my cell phone was dead. Of course.
In a split second I had to make a decision about picking up a stranger,
by myself, at night, with no phone.
“Get in the car I will drive you”. At this point I am praying to God I do not
end up a lampshade. I just didn’t want
her to get hit by a car and I wanted her off that dark road.
She gets in the car and she starts telling me she is looking
for Keith.
“You know Keith,” she says to me. “He sells crack on the corner”.
Fuck.
This young girl was so smashed out on drugs. I felt so bad. She wasn’t a homeless, degenerate, toothless
old druggie but a young, seemingly healthy woman. My heart broke for her.
“What did you take?”
I asked nonchalantly.
“I took a Xantax you know,” and she continues rambling on in
incoherent sentences as she riffles through her pocket book. She had taken way more than a Xantax that
much was clear. She didn’t seem to be
aware of my presence and did not make eye contact.
Internally, I start panicking, “what the hell is she searching for in her bag?” ”Is she looking for a
gun?” “I am going to die, she’s going to
attack me, I am such an idiot”.
As my dark passenger continues searching and talking about
drug dealer Keith I turned on my interior car lights to illuminate what the
heck she was searching for in that bag.
She didn’t even notice I had turned the lights on or the fact that I was
clutching the steering with death grip, searing white knuckle pressure.
“So, whatcha looking for in your bag?” I ask ever so innocently.
The girl turns to me and stops rummaging. Thank
God.
“He was supposed to meet me but I don’t know what
happened”. “Tell Keith I was looking for
him,” she says this so certainly as if I know him. “I lost him on the phone.”
I nod and say, “yes, I will tell Keith if I see him”. Holy
fuck.
I am speeding down Forest Hill Road which eventually turns
into Woolley Ave. I wanted her out of my
car as quickly as possible because I was just so afraid and freaked out.
When we hit the intersection at Victory Blvd, I had to stop
at the red light. Drats.
She asked, “can I have your number and you can call me if
you see Keith?”
“Umm, let me have your phone number instead my phone is
dead,” I reply.
“347-938….” She stops. She is so drugged out she can’t
remember her own cell phone number.
“Ok, so what’s your name?”
I ask.
“Jessica M.” (I am omitting her last name for privacy).
“You tell Keith when you see him that Jessica M. was looking
for him,” she continues, “he owes me money.”
“I will tell him” I assure her.
With that, Jessica kicks open my door and gets out of my car
on Victory.
“Wait, Forest Ave isn’t too far away!” I exclaimed.
“Here is good….do you have any money?”
I told her I was sorry but I didn’t have any money. I just didn’t want her buying more
drugs. She said OK, and closed the
door. I look up to speed away, I wanted
to get home as quickly as possible to call 911 but the damn light had turned
back to red. “Fuckkkkk!”
Jessica walks back over to my window. “Do you have any money?” Totally unaware that
she had already asked me this.
I scrounge around for some spare change and placed the coins
in her fingerless gloved hands.
“Thank you,” she said, and continued to walk down
Victory.
I drove home as fast as I could and called 911. A very disinterested 911 dispatcher answered
my call and listened to my story. The
dispatcher told me there was really nothing they could do. I finished with, “can you at least send a
patrol car down Victory I am afraid she is going to overdose or walk into
oncoming traffic and kill herself”.
The dispatcher said she would ask…and that was it. I have no idea if they did.
I am praying I do not see this girl’s face splattered on the
Staten Island Advance today or tomorrow.
This was someone’s daughter that was totally smashed out on drugs. I still feel awful about the whole
scenario. I wish my phone wasn’t dead,
or that I was with Frank to ease my “I am
about to be the victim of a serial killer” mindset. I wanted to drive her to the hospital, but I
was also afraid of this infamous Keith finding me there with her. I did feel good about getting her onto a main
road, where at least there were pedestrians and occasional police cars driving
past and street lights instead of where she was previously walking.
This experience scared the heck out of me. She acted and spoke like a
schizophrenic. Jessica was so young, and
looked so innocent, and was babbling like a crazy person, strung out on mind
bending drugs.
Not to get all preachy on the obvious, but this whole pill
epidemic is getting way too out of control in Staten Island. It was Thursday at 8:30pm for God’s
sake. It’s not attractive and it’s not
having a good time. Who knows how all
these pills are going to mess up your brains chemistry later on in life. How can you raise children in a world so
utterly out of control?
So, wherever she is, I hope she’s OK and that she finds the
help she needs. Life is hard enough
without having to suffer from personal addictions like drugs and alcohol. You only have one life, spend your time here
wisely. And DON’T pick up hitch hikers
because that’s just way too damn risky.
