Intermediate to Advanced Level
Driving in southern California is a test of your stamina, reflexes, and intuitive understanding of the concept of flow. You are locked into several lanes of bumper to bumper traffic, all roaring along at speeds (if we’re honest) much faster than the 70 mile an hour speed limit. We’re all just trying to keep up.
And for some reason, everyone is in the wrong lane. The freeway designers cleverly* created tangles every few car lengths, labyrinths where two lines of bumper-to-bumper cars have to shift left while three more lanes are trying to shift right. There’s a daredevil art to weaving in and out of impenetrable lines of cars at high speed, reading subtle cues that another driver is going to let you in (or is going to make darn sure you can’t move).
But that’s not what makes this a scary story.
Because of the chaos of lane changing at high speeds, it’s unusual to be traveling next to the same cars for long. But one day, I kept seeing the same car. It followed me, move by move.
I was being tailed.**
At first, I thought I was imagining things. I concentrated on not running into the cars next to me while keeping an eye on my rear view mirror. But that same car continued to be right behind me. I changed lanes. She changed lanes. I changed lanes again. So did she. This was crazy. One car changing lanes in that mess was a risk; two cars changing at the same time was suicidal. But it kept happening. She was on my tail.
I grew more and more concerned. It felt silly, but my brain was shouting, “This isn’t normal!” For some reason, this woman wanted to stay right behind me. They say to trust your instincts: One time is an accident. Two times is a coincidence. Three times is intentional. She had matched every move I made for miles, at high speed.
Think, woman. Think. I knew that, if I exited the freeway at my usual place, she would be able to follow me all the way home. So I thought, “I’ll exit early and see if she follows me. She won’t. Of course! I’ll laugh at myself and take the back way home.”
At the exit ramp, I looked again in my rear view mirror. She was right behind me! Panicked now, I pulled into a gas station. She pulled into the gas station, parked, and took out her cell phone, throwing me an exasperated look.
I ran into the cashier’s box and tried to get the attendant to call the police. He said he couldn’t. (Some kind of weird rule against helping customers, I guess.) Meanwhile, the woman sat in her car, right outside, watching us, talking. About me? Waiting to follow me again.
Miraculously, a police car pulled into the gas station just then. I ran to the car and began spilling out the story of my stalker. When the woman saw me talking to a policeman and pointing at her, she took off.***
The policeman calmly called it in on his radio and told me they’d “Have a little talk with her.” But no worries. Just go on home. OK, then.
I never heard from her —or the policeman—again.
I’ve often thought about what my stalker could’ve been doing that day. The thing that makes the most sense to me is that she mistook my car for someone else’s—her daughter’s, or a friend’s. And she was probably just as mystified as I was at the dangerous twists and turns we took on our journey together.
I imagine that cell phone conversation in the gas station parking lot going something like this:
Stalker: “What the heck are you doing?”
Friend: “What do you mean?”
Stalker: “I’ve been trying to keep up with you for miles. You drive like a maniac! And we’re not anywhere near where we were supposed to go!”
Friend: “I’ve been wondering why you didn’t show up. Where are you?”
Stalker: “I’m sitting in a gas station on M Street, watching you yell at the cashier.”
Friend: “Um, that’s not me. I’m at home. Waiting for you.”
Stalker: “Wait—if you’re there, then the other driver is——yikes! —–talking to the police! And pointing at me!
[Sound of an engine revving.]
All told, I think this was a scary story for my clueless stalker, too.
Notes
*I’m joking, of course. Nothing clever about the design of California freeways.
**Being tailed means being followed closely, usually with bad intentions.
***To take off is to leave quickly. Think of a rocket launch.