i don’t frigging care…

*I edited the title because it was too aggressive*

You know today was the first time I felt actual fear from another human being. Fearful for my safety. I don’t fear the dark or dark pathways at night. I don’t fear walking home alone. I can take a lot of verbal abuse and will sooner become frustrated and irritated long before I become upset. For the most part I just don’t care. This is second to the fact that there haven’t been many times in my life where I’ve actually been subjected to the darkest place of anger coming from another person. Maybe I’ve been lucky.

But today I was actually scared.

It went down like this:

There is an industrial alleyway, if you will, that I take during the first leg of my trip home from work every day. It bypasses much of the traffic on East Hastings as it’s not really a road, but not really an alley either. It’s just the stretch where the delivery trucks would enter the rear of the businesses. Myself and a few other people know of this route so it’s often well travelled.

As I emerge from every block I meet a one-way stop sign that requires me to check for oncoming traffic. I do the same thing every time I head home. Drive. Stop. Go again. On this particular day I approached one of the stop signs and looked left, then right, then left again and proceeded. I don’t need to tell you I’m a good driver. I’m an alert and incredibly perceptive driver. I am an eyes-in-the-back-of-my-head driver so I know… I know that when that old, CR-V came up fast on my left, the driver must have accelerated quickly around the corner. 

I carried on into the next industrial alley.

And so did he…

He was about one foot from my rear bumper, swerving to the left then to the right. He would drive up right onto my bumper, back off, then ride up again; swerving side-to-side. At this point I didn’t know if I should call 9-1-1. I was watching him in my rearview mirror. He swerved quickly to the left and drove up along side me. He must have been within inches from my side mirror on his right and the same on his left where a brick wall ran. He did it anyway. He didn’t seem to care if he scraped my car or the wall. I slowed down and he passed me, quickly jerking his car in front of mine and slamming on his brakes. I did the same to avoid hitting him and my purse went lunging forward. 

I saw his reverse lights flicker as he put his car in park and his driver’s side door opened then was slammed shut. He marched over to my car and screamed the following expletives that floored and petrified me. And, believe me when I say it takes a lot:

“You f!cking cow c^nt, are you f!cking crazy? What the f!ck is wrong with you, c^nt? Eh? Do you realise I nearly tee-boned you back there? You crazy c^nt, you crazy bitch cow driver.”

To which I responded, while trying to swallow my rapidly beating heart back down into my chest:

“Don’t you think what you did back there was a little more crazy?”

He screamed again:

“You’re the crazy driver bitch, you bitch! I obviously can’t talk to you because you’re such a crazy driver bitch.”

I was scared. It wasn’t only how enraged he was it was the evil in his eyes. Let’s just say I had carelessly driven from the stop sign, no one was hurt, he didn’t need to slam on his breaks, mistakes happen. But to follow me down that alleyway and to tailgate me in that way… Terrorizing me like that – that takes a certain level of rage. There I was, completely trapped and the only way I could get out was to reverse. I remember a DHL delivery car with two men inside on my right up ahead a bit watching this all go down. They sat, mouths hanging open, I kept looking over at them… they seemed ready to jump out of their car if needed but never did. He took another step closer to my window and I put my trusty Fo’ in reverse and inched back just enough to be able to quickly maneuver around his vehicle. At that point I didn’t think I had enough clearance but I was so scared I just wanted to get out of there as fast as I could even if I lost a mirror in the process. 

The DHL delivery guys came right behind me and the crazy man followed behind them. He turned down one of the side streets and was gone. 

It was at that point that my adrenaline slowed down a bit and I started thinking: What if those delivery guys hadn’t been there? 

I alternated between my own fury and the urge to cry in the aftermath. I let myself feel both. Driving for a bit my eyes started to well and it was hard to see, so I pulled down a side street and sat at the side of the road and sobbed. That situation was something I have never experienced in my life. I wasn’t used to that measure of distress and my body had literally been in a state of panic. 

I began to think how fucking dare he? How dare that man follow me into an alley. We’re all equal in this world but damn him I’m a woman. Damn him for instilling such a fear in me like that. What a coward.

I don’t fucking care how mad you are… it is not your right to subject me to that kind of fear.

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