Fear and Loathing in Gilroy
I first have to explain why I was in Gilroy that day, what I was doing and what caused me to stop there.
My job comes with many hats. Some of them are more traditional manager type tasks, like reading reports and deciding on the next course of action. But I also have this cool-geek alter-ego that builds complex scientific test fixtures and takes them out in the field, and gathers meaningful samples of data to prove the effectiveness of the piece of tech that I personally develop. That guy is a lot of fun.
His name is Jack, duh, and he drives a little fast. He usually drives a small unmarked white utility van, Dodge CargoMaster or equivalent, white, with an extra antenna for Ham Radio to achieve the user-geek effect I am cultivating. He is super-respectful and kind when he meets people, for one reason because you never know when you are going to needs someone’s help later, And then, it just feels good to make people feel better. Jack likes to take these trips to get his head clear, which helps his whole family.
This trip was a milk run by the numbers, go to Fresno, sample various gas streams at some sites, come home after a couple of days and return the van. I would stay with my niece and her wife, eat home food while living in the field (cheating) and play with my great-nephews. I picked up my utility van in San Jose, over by the Matrix Casino sort of, on Kerley St., on Wednesday just before noon. I wanted to be in the Sanger/Parlier/Reedley greater metropolitan area before dark. I had already had a long day, because my colleague Suthi and I had started monitoring an east coast system event test at 3:30 AM that day, so it made sense to leave a lot of extra time before bed-time to allow for rest stops as needed. The van was perfect, better than the one I used on the East Coast in November before Thanksgiving. This one had cruise control, nice cush seats, and modern Bluetooth technology.
I took the van to Moffett Field and collected my gear, then went home to get my personal gear. It was raining at Moffett, lightly, and I worked quickly to keep my gear dry. I brought way too much stuff on these trips in general, mainly extra tools and build materials for the systems I was taking, just in case of malfunctions. This time I had:
My gas chromatography cart
Big materials crate with build stuff
All my toolbags except for a drill
Sample lines and instruments box, regularly used
Instruments box, rarely used
A cooler with ice, some drinks
A pound of beef jerky, and a box of Builder Bars (miss a lot of lunches on these trips, out away from towns)
Big aluminum ramps for loading and unloading the cart (it weighs 150-200 lbs.)
A small roller-bag with my personal kit, clothes, toiletries, etc.
My backpack with laptop and other personal office supplies
At home, before I could leave, I had to complete and test some upgrades to the cart (moving some controls to the panel from hanging tubes, and installing a sample flowmeter) and test them, with Kai’s help. By the time all that was done, I was leaving town at 4:30 PM, and not well-fed. Usually a bad sign for anyone who is going to be around me when I am not well-fed. I planned to eat a decent meal somewhere along the way.
I started down San Tomas Expressway, hopped on CA-17S, to CA-85S immediately, heavy traffic and podcasts as I escaped the gravity well of Silicon Valley.
After a few podcasts and very slow traffic all the way to US-101S, I was ready to talk to someone, so I turned on the Ham Radio and hit the Bay-Net repeater with my call, AI6BZ. I talked with a new guy for about ten minutes before I started to lose him to poor line-of-sight to the repeater. Before I lost him he recommended Harris Ranch for a great steak. I don’t remember how steak came up, but by then it was 5:45 PM and I had only had two eggs and toast for breakfast at about 8AM, so it was probably my stomach talking. I thought this was great place to stop and asked Google for Harris Ranch.
I had never been there before - had no preconception or knowledge of where it was except somewhere “down there”. The guy on the radio had not been overly specific in the time we had to talk before I was losing his signal. So, when Google directed my to the Harris Ranch Meat Company in Gilroy, I thought this was probably the place. Really had no doubt.
It was full dark by the time I got there.
It was clearly a wrong decision. This was a butcher shop. And it was closed for the day, not that that would have mattered. I made a right turn off the main street it was on, and pulled unintentionally into a cup-de-sac. I was in a neighborhood, hungry, and 20% lost. I turned on the dome-light, left the van running, headlights on, no effort at stealth as I looked for the real Harris Ranch.
I quickly found with Yelp that I was about fifty miles from the real Harris Ranch Restaurant and Hotel. It was somewhere south of CA-152 on I-5. I was not eating there tonight. I quickly got over that fact and looked for a restaurant in downtown Gilroy. Located Scotty’s on the main drag, and started working my way out of the neighborhood. About 3-5 minutes had elapsed while I sat there getting my bearings in the van. I shut off the dome light and pulled away from the curb.
I turned down one more cup-de-sac on my way to the Monterey Street restaurant, but quickly turned around and got things right.
A word about the parking space - the parking in the downtown of Gilroy, at least on Monterey St., is of the two space slip variety, so if you pull into the rear space and there is a car in front of you, there is no way to back straight up without hitting a tree or a newspaper box or a bike rack. You are waiting for room to pull out normally.
I had just parked in the rear spot of just such a partly occupied deuce, and that was the situation I was in when a somewhat dinged white American sedan stopped directly parallel to me, angled in slightly and really close to my car, so that I could not have opened my car door if I had wanted.
The street was fairly well lit, and I could easily make out the face of a driver, alone in his car leaning toward the passenger window which was open, obviously the dude was bent out of shape, he was talking very loud if not hollering, but I could not understand him until I rolled down my window. All I was thinking at that moment was that I had taken his favorite parking spot or something.
He had brown or reddish hair, dingy white t-shirt, seemed in his late twenties or early thirties, but pretty hard miles. Not a small guy, but kind of wiry and very wound up. He had a scruffy few days of beard, a crewish cut, somewhat grown out, and he was radiating an aura of anger and craziness that immediately scared the hell out of me. If I had to guess, he was either currently high on meth or recently high on meth.
When I rolled down the window he was in the middle of a sentence, but I tried to diffuse the situation right away by calmly asking -
“ I am sorry, did I take your parking space or something?”
“ DO YOU KNOW, I JUST FOLLOWED YOU TWO MILES. YOU WERE ON MY STREET! <slap> YOU WERE IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD! YOU HAVE AN EXTREMELY SUSPICIOUS VEHICLE <slap> AND I FELT THREATENED…YOU THREATENED MY FAMILY! I HAVE KIDS <slap> AND THAT SUSPICIOUS VEHICLE WAS NEAR MY HOUSE <slap>, AND I FOLLOWED YOU HERE TO TELL YOU TO STAY AWAY <slap> FROM MY STREET, MY NEIGHBORHOOD!”
Woah. I was scared beyond reason at this point. Each slap was a soft raising and lowering of a blocky, black object in his right hand and bringing it down audibly on his right thigh. I could not be 100% positive, but I was pretty sure it was some kind of Glock. The slaps were like soft bangs of a gavel as he judged my case.
He kept going as I tried to explain myself -
“I was just looking for a restaurant to have dinner at, I got a little off track, and -“
“YOUR VEHICLE IS EXTREMELY SUSPICIOUS AND WHEN I SEE A CAR LIKE THAT IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD <slap>, I TAKE RESPONSIBILITY, IT MAKES ME SCARED <slap> AND I DO SOMETHING, I FOLLOWED YOU TWO MILES <slap> AND …”
He continued and I could barely hear his words even though he was shouting. I think I was getting a little shock. He only seemed to be getting angrier, his aura had gone from orange to white hot. I was thinking this was about the last minute of my life. No more reasons, no more explanations or logic. Just one last plea, and eye contact, and then wait for what happens next…
“I hear what you are saying. I get what you are saying. I am sorry I scared you… I respect what you are saying…I respect you”.
I had made eye contact. I had spoken slowly, clearly and and calmly. I don’t know how. When I was done, it was like a switch was thrown. The dark light went out. He seemed to shrink 10% in front of me. Without another word, and with a slight screech of his tires, he pulled away North on Monterey St.
I sat there for a full minute before getting out, and looking all over the street for that dinged white sedan, but I didn’t see it again.
I went in to Scotty’s for a tasteless meal (not their fault, I was operating on some weird basic circuits at this point). I was trying to make sense of what I had done, what had happened, what the relationship was. I could make no sense of it, and got stuck in a loop that I am still stuck in as I write this. I am only alive to write this, because I was smart enough to turn off smart and turn on basic charm or ass-kissing, call it what you have to.
I continued on my trip, it was largely uneventful but not very successful - my GC broke down on the second day, some kind of electronic problem. But I am happy to be home and just breathing.
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