Close calls can happen anywhere, near or far

A cigarette burning red as the man slouched against his appliance repair truck glowed bright in the late December night, amplifying with each inhale, his predatory, fixated stare burning through me in the darkness. I glared back, not turning away. It was yet another close call.

He was ready to pounce! I leaned over and locked the driver's side of the low-slung Toyota. I know he heard the lock click. Why had he parked his van and moved over to the passenger side to glare at me in this cold, dark night right after Christmas? Could he be a serial killer or just a robber? Well, he wasn't going to get his kicks on me if I could help it.

Jeff had gone into the Redner's in Georgetown to procure pancake mix. Just that very afternoon he had parked me in front of the Food Lion to go get a gallon of milk and had been in the store more than 25 minutes. Then, the winter sun had been glaring in my eyes as I raised my wrist to shield them. He had met someone, as usual, and was talking. He paid me back for my patience by taking me to the China Wok nearby for hot and sour soup.

The reward I wanted this time in front of Redner's was for him to return before this guy pounced on me. I planned to lay on the horn if he approached. Fortunately, Jeff returned in time with two bottles of pancake mix to use as barbells to pummel him with if need be, and we drove off to dine at Pizza King.

I've had a few close calls in my life, and so far (knock on wood), have managed to survive them. Back in 1972, I accompanied my mother and stepfather on a Tauck bus tour to Canada. Our first night of the journey was a stay at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in NYC. Still naive to potential danger, I ventured out into the street, innocently smiling at strangers. The typical flasher approached me wearing a raincoat, probably with nothing under it, and grabbed my arm with an unshakeable grip. We walked along the city street interlocked past cold New Yorkers not responding to my pleas for help.

We even passed by the famous drugstore where Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza planted their schemes, but I had hatched a scheme of my own. A rescue plan formed in my mind. "Let's go back to the hotel where I'm staying,” I said with a come-hither wink. "Good idea," he said. When we entered the lobby, I saw my mother and stepfather sitting in chairs, and I screamed, "Help! Help!" as loudly as I could. A tall, handsome man in a gray suit approached me. He touched a gun holster under his arm and unlocked me from this lecher!

My rescuer turned out to be the house detective. The creep was hauled away to Bellevue by a big New York City cop! The house detective’s name was Vic, and he gave me a private tour of the Waldorf including Conrad Hilton's room. We stood on the top floor of this grand hotel and viewed the city in the late summer night together. My hero! He invited me to return for New Year's Eve, and I did, and he saved me yet again.

The hotel's maitre d' invited me to go out to dinner. He was in a tuxedo and looked very refined. He picked me up in a small white car and drove me to his apartment instead. It was one of those tenements like you may have seen in the movie "Fatal Attraction," with graffiti and burning fires outside. We rode up a ramshackle elevator that clanked all the way to the top. It was too late to turn back! After we passed through graffiti-sprayed corridors, he unlocked the heavily barricaded door into a room full of immigrant workers from foreign lands, all seeking jobs in this city.

"Vic knows I'm with you," I said, "and he's waiting for me back at the Waldorf!" Fortunately for me, this scared him enough to take me back, and I sighed with relief as the New Year's Ball came down in New York City that year. "Another year to live!" I thought with thanks once again to Vic.

I've had many more close calls throughout the 50-some years that have followed, but I’ll save them for another story.