"Safe Alone"

For most of my life I have lived in a locked house, driven a locked car, and worried endlessly about the safety of my family. It's the way I am. I'm a worrier. When I worry, I worry most about random crime. I never worry I will be caught in a bad drug deal, or in the wrong part of town, or anything that takes an intentional act to be in harm's way. I worry about the random acts of violence that are not targeted at you but occur with you involved unintentionally.

Still I have to say I had a scare the other night. I had been in Atlanta for a book signing and was driving home. It wasn't late when I reached Macon, maybe ten or ten fifteen at night. I looked down at my gas gauge and decided I needed to fill up. Also I saw a station that was advertising gas for $1.93 a gallon. That got my attention.

When I pulled up at the pump there was no one around. I hopped out, put my credit card in the slot and started pumping the gas. I was turned away from the road and didn't see anyone walk up behind me. But I did hear someone say, "Hey, I got a question."

I turned around and there was a young man standing a few feet away from me. He was fairly nicely dressed but he did look a little wild in the eyes. He then said, "I need a two dollar favor."

I don't know why that made me so mad but it did. And I gruffly said, "No way is that going to happen." I must have said it more forcibly than I thought because he backed up and said, "Stay cool, man."

He wandered off, or I thought he did. I finished pumping my gas and as I was getting in my car, another car drove up and stopped on the other side of the pump. Almost immediately this guy was back, and as soon as a young man (maybe twenty-one) stepped out of his car he asked for a two dollar favor. The young man gave him some money, which was his business; but I did stay around long enough to make sure he didn't get accosted in any way.

It wasn't just the bumming money that bothered me, it was the fear this act caused. And I couldn't help but think this could have been my wife at this station and she could have been scared to death by this idiot asking for a handout. Maybe that's not charitable but that is the way I feel. I don't want my wife to have to fear for her safety anytime she is out alone.

If you don't think bad things can happen, believe me they can. I have a friend who lives in Macon and her name is Paige. This past summer her sister was murdered in Atlanta. She went bike riding on supposedly a very safe bike trail in Atlanta. While on the trail she was approached by someone who assaulted her and then kicked her to death. She was fifty-four, married and the mother of three children. This shouldn't have happened. She should have been safe.

Paige and her family have established a website www.safealone.org. You might want to visit it and read the story of Jenny Ewing. Her family wants to make the world safer for people who find themselves in alone situations. 

We should all be protected, we should all be safe, we should all be free from fear - but we aren't. Still things will never get better if we don't work to make them so. I know all panhandlers aren't murderers, and all people who ask directions on a bike trail aren't rapists, but some are. We have to learn to protect ourselves from the exceptions.

 

 

 

 

 

©2006 Jackie K. Cooper

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