Scary Story

Improbable events

I’m going to be offering a series of posts about my military service. This introduction is out of order time-wise but I thought I’d get your attention.

In the late 1990s, I was driving home from March AFB - location of my reserve unit - late on a Sunday afternoon. The seventy-mile trip was normally uneventful outside of the usual crazy California drivers. But this one was different.

One of my close friends/co-workers lived in LA as did I and, on this day, we left about the same time. This was unusual in itself, given both of our unpredictable workloads: one or both of us often stayed late.

So we drove close to each other, with me in front. At the time, I had a huge, old cell phone, so we yakked on the phone a bit, then we hung up and drove.

About ten minutes after that, a van cuts me off. I swore a bit, then slowed down to get off of its rear. The van slows down too. So I change lanes and slow down to avoid what I think is just another of the myriad California idiots. The van, light blue with no side or back windows, changes lanes to get in front of me again. It slows down.

My friend calls me back: “What is this motherfucker’s problem?”

Me: (shaken): “I don’t know. Did I cut him off?”

Friend: “No!” [pauses] “Pull over. And whatever you do, stay in the car!”

I pull over to the shoulder and, sure enough, the van pulls over some 100 feet in front of me. My friend pulls over behind me. I’m nervous as a cat as I watch the scenario unfold.

I see the driver’s side door of the van open. A man with dark hair - maybe Latino, maybe not - starts to get out. Then his eyes widen. He jumps back in and speeds off. The van goes over on two wheels, nearly turning over getting out of there. Dust is flying up all over the place. I look in my left mirror and see my friend approaching my window.

I guess a tall, imposing black man wearing BDUs was a bit more than the van-driver bargained for. And I’m 99% certain that my friend was armed.

I still wonder to this day what that guy was going to do and who else was in the van. I was obviously military - wearing USAF blues; blouse and skirt. Was it an attempted pervert hit or an attempted military hit? Or was it racial? Or some combination thereof? I don’t know and I’m very happy not to have found out.