"And then the law came"

I just had one of the more bizarre experiences of my life. I was walking home from my friends place at about 10:30 PM, a short walk through the student neighborhood by campus. Eugene is as safe as anywhere in the country, I pretty much feel comfortable walking anywhere at anytime of night. Sometimes you will get hassled by drunk people but I had never experienced anything threatening until tonight. When I was about 3 blocks from my house, some guy started yelling at a girl walking about 20 feet behind me. I just ignored (as always) but he kept yelling and then ran across the street so he was next to her. He was asking her directions to the bus station downtown. He looked pretty sketchy, looked and acted like he was on some sort of drug or just really drunk. Either way he was harassing her to a point where she was obviously uncomfortable. She did her best to ignore him and then said she didn't know where the station was, so he jogged ahead and started asking me where the station was. I told him that it was downtown and that he needed to go about 5 blocks straight and 5 blocks right. Moments later, at the next intersection, the girl turned left (away from the station) and he turned left right behind her, saying he wanted her to show him where the station was. At this point I felt like I couldn't leave her alone with him, since she was obviously pretty sketched out at this point, so I explained to him that "hey man, the bus station's that way" and after a couple of repeats of that he left her alone. Problem was he was now following me and I was still two long blocks away from my house. I kept walking and trying to ignore him; he kept talking constantly like sketchy people always do, talking about how he was coming from Seattle and Portland and how he was a city kid and asking me for beer money and that kind of thing. Then he started harassing a guy and a girl walking the other way, asking for "beer money for me and my buddy" I told them to ignore him and kept walking. Now I was one block from my house and he was a little ways behind me. He was still following me and still yelling about whatever. By now my heart was beating pretty good and I was walking about as fast as I could without breaking into a run. I got my keys out of my pocket and got the one for my door ready. Sometimes our door doesn't unlock on the first try and I was pretty nervous that I would be struggling with the lock while he caught up with me. Fortunately I was able to open the door quickly and locked it right behind me. He was still yelling outside and about 5 or 10 seconds after I was inside he got to the door and started pounding on the glass and yelling. I yelled that I would call the police if he didn't leave right then. He called me a "fag" and "dickface" but after I repeated this he left the door. I could now hear him yelling (aggressively) at other pedestrians passing by so I went upstairs to my room, where I fortunately have a BB gun, looked up the non emergency police number online, and called. By the time I was on the phone I couldn't hear him any more, so I assumed that he had moved on. My heart was still pounding and I was still completely on edge. Talking to the woman on the phone calmed me, she asked me all these questions about his appearance and I felt like I was on CSI or something. Moments like this give me faith in our law enforcement system; its amazingly comforting to know that at any point throughout this whole incident I can call the cops and they are there in 2 minutes to throw this dude in jail and make me feel like some sort of hero. The threat of cops is what made him leave in the first place, being able to say "I'm going to call the cops" is a lot more effective than anything else I could say to this guy. After he left, my heart was still pounding and I called my friend Eric because I wanted to tell somebody what had happened. Abnout 15 or 20 minutes later I heard the doorknob shaking; I said hello and got no response, then I heard the door open and said hello again and it was my roommate Beard. I was so relieved to have the whole incident over with, my heart finally slowed down.

This was the first time I have ever called the cops on someone. There have been times when I thought I should but didn't, probably because I didn't have the number. This makes me realize that its a good idea to have the non emergency line in your phone because situations like this aren't that out of the ordinary, even in Eugene. This is the second time in the past couple weeks where I have been really happy with the police, as long as you are on the right side of the law then they seem like a pretty good idea.

Sketchy people suck, that whole situation was so unnecessary and stressful for all involved. I'm sure there are good reasons why this guy was sketchy, but I don't want to hear them. I don't want to have to think about you in any way at all. You made my night that much more heinous and stressful than it needed to be and I hope you get arrested.