Run

I decide I will walk a little farther, though something in me shouts that I will regret this. Eh, who listens to intuition these days? What possible danger could be awaiting me when I cross between three churches on the same block?

I wander down a side road for a moment, checking something on my phone. I would prefer to be running to keep my heart rate up, but the day is in the nineties and humid. Walking would have to suffice for my cardiovascular health.

A man in a motorized chair pulls up next to me. (The internet informs me that this is a "Jazzy Scooter," which is unfortunately adorable.) I take out my earbud, which is talking to me about some unsolved murder or other.

The man in the chair does not wait for me to be done with this before asking me if I am someone.

"No, sorry. I don't know who that is."

He shows me a magnet business card this politician gave him at a lawn party. I look at the picture. Aside from being Caucasian and having glasses, we look nothing alike. That information does not sway this guy. I fit a few of the right demographics and am daring to be out in the broad daylight in Red Hook. I must be mistaken for this politician all the time, so he can't be to blame for stopping me. It's my fault for resembling this man so much. Otherwise the old man wouldn't have gone out his way to cross the street to speak with me.

Is this what it is to be profiled by the police?

I'm in workout pants and an oversized shirt stating that Bigfoot saw me, but no one believed him. I do not look like a politician out to meet his constituents. I do not, in fact, look like someone who intends to be outside any longer than it would take to achieve his step goal.

He said he had given the politician his "first publication" at a fundraiser in a backyard recently. The politician, in return, gave him this magnet business card. He is unclear what this publication might have been, but these seems like a fair trade to me.

I ask aloud if he tried calling the number or emailing him. He ignores my evident nonsense. Why would he bother with such modern hooey?

He starts into a long story I do not want, except that I feel bad that he is in the position of having to harass mistaken identities. If I was eighty-six, as he claims to be, I would want some dang whippersnapper to listen to me talk about how two of the Rockefeller brothers had asked me to live in their houses for... some reason. In his circular stories, that is never adequately explained, and I don't want to encourage him. He says the Rockefellers did it to keep their enemies closer. It is nebulous exactly what threat this man would ever pose to anyone, even in his prime. Don't we all wish for rich enemies who would spite us with a rent-free stay in their mansions? How dastardly.

He claims he left one of their employ on Christmas Day in some distant year because he did not agree with them politically. If the beginning of his story had any weight, this was the reason they cloistered him in the first place. The brother confessed to him, a "lowly doorknob polisher," that he sold an entire country into debt slavery, but no one would ever believe my Jazzy Scootering interrogator. Because his status was so ignoble, the Rockefellers knew he had no credibility.

I cannot discount that he contrived this twist in the story because I mentioned the words "debt slavery." We were into the eighth minute of what turned out to be twenty at this point. I would have thrown him life rafts made of aliens if I thought it would derail him enough to let me escape.

I could outrun him, no question. His scooters wheels could not deal with the soft loam around us, still wet from a recent rain. Of course, that is savagery. Who runs from a lonely old man on a Jazzy Scooter? A monster, that's who. Is it as rude as delaying someone on a sweltering day when I have nothing to say to them? That is for the courts to decide.

My phone is in my hand because, if I put it away, I will have given him permission to go on. I cannot cede my only lifeline. I consider faking a call, but that is a poor excuse. I don't think he would stop. I half expect he would demand to speak to the caller.

Some weeks ago, trying to shut down my intransigent phone, I discovered that pressing the power button three times in quick succession broadcasts my coordinates, along with pictures from my front and back camera and an audio recording, to my mother, father, and Amber with a notice that I am in danger.

Click.

Isn't that much worse than faking a call? It must be.

He keeps speaking about how he would change the country if he could, if the bigwigs would listen to him.

Click click.

I am uncomfortable, but I could leave. It is a breach of social etiquette, sure. It renders my good deed into something that would count against my karma.

He had been driving around looking for Fourth of July festivities in Red Hook and getting the two gallons of milk in his front basket, which are sweating on the point of curdling in this heat. I say he should get them home before they sour. This is not a concern he seems to have. A little spoiled milk never hurt anyone, and he didn't care to hear the contradiction that it very much has.

There are no festivities in Red Hook. If had even a passing acquaintance with the internet, he would know this. If he had a blog, he could ramble there. He had been in the library. Don't they realize it is a public good to introduce dotty old men to blogging platforms?

He ignores this, telling me that, if there were a parade or some such, surely it would draw the politician out. Then he could give him a piece of his mind and become his political advisor. He once ran for governor, you see, but the Elites put a stop to that! He still has a lot of innovative ideas for this country, but no one listens to an old man. Even telemarketers hang up on him, he assures me. I cannot imagine why.

His plan to find the politician was ironclad, except of course that there is no parade and a parade would not guarantee the politician.

His right eye squints closed. I am not sure if this is because of any permanent condition and do not want to bring attention to it. I could be the sunlight filtering through the trees and a hole in his straw hat, though he would be as easy as shifting forward or reverse a few itches to remove it from his face. He doesn't. As he continues to talk, I try to deduce from facial twitches why he is squinting. It gives my brain something to do other than curse his loquaciousness.

He begins what promises to be a lengthy polemic about what legislation I ought to put through on his behalf, having forgotten I have nothing to do with local politics. How could I? I'm in the Green Party.

He then called me by the politician's name. Perhaps he suspects I initial lied and he has seen through it. Maybe, though, he is demented.

I told him I had to get home for lunch. He said he understood, I was a busy man, but then kept speaking.

I hold my phone perpendicular from the road, half facing the library and half the man's scooter. Amber will recognize the library. She is not even a mile away. She can drive and come get me.

Click click click.

I say I few things subtly suggesting my location -- "My, that library in Red Hook sure is octagonal, isn't it?" -- and hope for the best.

This will worry my parents. This is, by some technical definitions, not an emergency. When I first discovered my phone could do this, I had a series of panicked phone calls and texts, asking if I was safe, if Amber had kidnapped me. I assured them then that it was a glitch, and everything was fine. They will understand that I could not think of another way out of an interminable conversation other than abusing the emergency alert button on my phone.

He insisted I wouldn't remember anything he said, though it was like "throwing mud at the wall." This may have been why he kept repeating himself, but he did not know that I am a writer and would remember enough to make him sound deranged.

I finally convince him that we both have to part ways. He keeps talking, but I have enough space that I can act as though this decision we arrived at mutually.

I look down at my phone, wondering why no one has called to respond to my emergency alert. I could be dead for all they know.

My phone had tried to connect to the library's Wi-Fi, even though I never turn my Wi-Fi on. For this reason, it had not sent any distress messages. This is a useless feature that forced me to spend almost half of an hour listening to a lonely old man.

I should take this issue up with a local politician.

When I get home, I message the politician, warning him that he has a constituent stopping strangers. Like any politician who doesn't need my vote, I do not expect a reply. Maybe he could use an advisor who gets out on the street with the common folk.

Soon in Xenology: Writing. Summer. The Sheet.

last watched: American Vandal
reading: The Trickster and the Paranormal