The Road To Jericho

I was resigned one night a couple of weeks ago to an evening at home alone watching my backlog of DVDs, and had just settled in for the long hall when I got word of a developing pub crawl being perpetrated by friends. I always figure that going out is better than staying in. Naturally, you can't go out every night, but I try to do so at every opportunity, resting and recharging on the nights when nothing is offered. I wanted to do this bar thing very much, but the call had come just too late for me to have any hope of catching a bus. Naturally no ride was possible, and the bar was some three miles away. A lesser social drinker would slump his shoulders and admit defeat. I have more fortitude than that.

My means of transportation was, of course, my feet. One drives if he can. If he can't drive, he bicycles. If he can't bicycle, he walks. It's really very reasonable, and anyway I've walked a lot further for less. I got my things, stepped out the door, and sallied forth. I advised my friends that I expected I could be there in an hour. I kind of figured I could do a bit better than that, but thought it would be best to build in a little grace period. This would leave a solid hour plus of drinking before closing time, which is the only end to an evening of drinking that my friends recognize.

My neighborhood is not the safest around. Virtually everyone on the street at the hour this takes place can be presumed to be up to no good. Knowing that, when I tell you what happened this time you will probably not be all too surprised. As I said, I was walking to the bar a good distance south of my home, and had built up quite a head of steam by the time I had gotten within a few blocks of the place. I had my head down, and was walking as fast as it is possible to walk without it being said that I was actually jogging. A police cruiser was alongside me, and I noticed that it seemed to be slowing down. I hoped they were making a turn, but they weren't.

They stopped me. The reason, evidently, was that I was walking suspiciously fast. I can't honestly fault them for acting on that suspicion. That I would be on foot in that neighborhood in itself probably was enough. I myself am suspicious of anyone moving quickly on foot who isn't dressed for exercise. The apparent lead officer asked me if he had talked to me a couple weeks ago. I replied that I didn't think so, but really, I was very sure that he hadn't. While I tried to conceal my nervousness about a police encounter and anxiety about being late to meet my friends, I did my best to make small talk while the second officer ran my ID. I found that commiserating over the insensibility of the high local DUI rate did nicely.

They let me go, and I tried to relax after that experience. I passed by a bar where I knew my friends had just been. Out front, there was an attractive woman talking and smoking with some people. I think that since they had just seen me be accosted by cops, I must have accrued some street cred, because she tried to lure me inside. It was either that, or she was some kind of rep or employee of the bar. It sounded as though she initiated conversation with me in Spanish, and so I responded in kind. I guess I was mistaken. In English, I explained that I was going on to meet friends.

I then linked up with said friends, and there was time enough for one beer. After not all that long, the thing broke up, and we headed out. I walked with a couple of them as far as their street. During that time, we encountered the same girl I just had. Moments before, I had retrieved a DVD of "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" from my bag for the purpose of returning it to the person who had loaned it to me by way of his roommate, one of the guys I was walking with. This caught the eye of the girl, who, along with her friends, seemed all the more interested in the bunch of us. Eventually we moved on, encouraged that something could happen there.

We then parted ways, and I walked on home without further incident. When I got there, I settled in to watch one of the DVDs I had lined up while rubbing my desperately sore feet. After that, it was finally bedtime. It was a full and pleasant evening.