I just had a very weird and surreal experience.
About twenty minutes ago now, my doorbell rang, and I thought to myself, who would show up at my door at this hour? I opened the door, and this girl/woman is standing there. Very calmly she asks if she can borrow a flashlight. She says she dropped something in the alley behind my house, and that it’s dark back there.
Keep in mind here that it’s a little after midnight. A number of things run through my head. Is this some kind of setup? What did she drop? Is she alone? Should I invite her in while I look for a flashlight?
I did not invite her in, but I left my door open (the glass outer door was closed) while I went and looked for a flashlight. After not immediately finding a good one, I returned to the door with a laser pointer that also had one of those semi-bright LEDs on the end. “It’s not much…” I said, but she insisted it was better than using the light of her cellphone, and said she would return it right away.
I went back inside, and sat down next to the door for a couple of minutes. I’ll admit, I didn’t follow her because I was still wondering whether this was some elaborate ruse to get me into the alley. Yes, I can be a bit paranoid sometimes.
So anyway, this girl was quite attractive. She was probably somewhere between twenty and twenty-five, with dark black skin. She was wearing high heels and a jean mini-skirt with some kind of white skin-tight low cut tank top. She was carrying a purse and jacket.
Of course I wondered what she was doing walking in the alley, but at that point, I still assumed she was just on her way home or something.
Curiosity finally got the best of me, and I followed her outside into the alley. I didn’t see anyone at first, and where she was looking was actually not even behind my house, but a couple of houses back, and not right next to the alley even, but a good ten or fifteen feet into this area that is a sort of driveway, but that doesn’t lead to any garage or anything.
I did have a good vantage from the direction I was walking, and the girl was, indeed, alone. As I got closer, I heard her sniffling, and I’m fairly certain she’d been crying. So I made some scuffing noises as I approached, and asked what it was she was looking for.
She said she’d dropped some money.
Huh?
How do you drop money in the alley?
I have this other LED flashlight thing on my keychain, and I used it to help her look. She was at this point poking around with a stick and turning over rocks and stuff. She was pretty desperate to find her money.
Some guy had tried to mug her, she said. I asked if she’d called the cops, and she said no, she just wanted to find her money and get home.
I kept looking with her, but at this point I was desperate for more of the story. I said, I take it this wasn’t just a couple of bucks.
No, she admitted. Finally she volunteered some information, the guy had taken the money out of her bra, she said. But there’d been some kind of struggle. She said he had tried to choke her but she twisted away and he ran off. She didn’t think he’d gotten the money.
But we couldn’t find it.
She was really starting to cry again as she thanked me for letting her use my flashlight and gave it back to me. I felt weird and awkward as I walked the same direction she was walking, back down the alley toward my house. I was only a few steps behind her, and I could really hear her crying now.
I’m sorry you didn’t find it, I said weakly, as I closed the front gate to my yard. She was already farther away, but she said something without turning back toward me that sounded like another thank you.
I came back inside and started writing this.
I can only think of two scenarios. Either she knew him, or she was a prostitute. She seemed too attractive to be a prostitute, but then again how would I know? And she certainly wasn’t coming on to me at all, so I think he was probably a boyfriend or something. (There are, apparently, prostitutes in our neighborhood, although I can only think of once or twice that I might have possibly seen one.)
The whole incident really rattled me. I wish I could have helped her more in some way. Even more, I really wish I could have gotten the whole story. And now I’ll probably never know it.