Parking Pursuit

There is a large parking lot for California DMV workers between my back yard and St. Joseph's Catholic cemetery. Late at night the parking lot sees a few visitors, generally residents of a nearby apartment complex passing through the parking lot towards any number of personal destinations. Between 4 and 5 a.m., a taxi driver will often park there and catch a few ZZZZ's between the last of the late-night nightclub fares and the first of the early-morning airport fares. Sometimes people park in the lot in order to to leap the cemetery's chain-link fence and visit the cemetery in the middle of the night. I remember once watching a neighbor, an overweight beer fan, awkwardly and apologetically climbing back over the chain-link fence in the presence of the cops. No doubt that was an uncomfortable explanation!

But sometimes people will park in the parking lot for obscure reasons, and I wonder what they are doing - drugs, drink, sex, sleep, conversation, what? So, late on Saturday night, returning from DMTC's "The Secret Garden", I noticed a car pulling out of a parking spot next to the cemetery fence and cruising very slowly past my house. Suspicions aroused, I decided to follow them.

First they went to the AM/PM convenience store at 21st Street and Broadway. I parked in the adjacent Catholic center's parking lot and watched. A young male left the car from the passenger side and purchased *something* at the store. He then got back in the car and the car proceeded east down Broadway. I pursued and got close enough to read the license plate: "6DTW153". They circled back to the parking lot and parked in the same spot I had seen them pull away from. I parked my car a short distance away, near "Skunk Corner" (where I've seen a skunk twice in the last three months), at 22nd & Sloat Way, and waited.

After just a few seconds, though, they pulled out of the parking slot and started driving away. "Aha - they know I'm following them!" I thought. They headed south on Freeport, and I followed. I got left behind at a traffic light and they disappeared into the night. So, satisfied they were finally gone, I circled back to my house.

Pulling up towards my driveway, I saw the car again in the same parking space! The pests: they had given me the slip! As soon as I saw them, though, they saw me too, and they pulled away again, and disappeared once again down Freeport into the night.

Reassured, I went to get Sparky for the nightly walk. As is normal, once released from the back yard, leashless Sparky took off running into the night, running heedlessly down 22nd Street - and right past "6DTW153", this time cleverly parked on 22nd Street rather than in the parking lot. I heard a woman laugh as I turned down the street to chase Sparky past the car, and I thought "who is this woman and why is she laughing?"

Rather than walking Sparky southwards, past the 24th Street Theatre as is my custom, I circled north and east and approached "Skunk Corner" from the east, so I could observe the car from behind. But as I approached the corner, I saw a young man standing at the corner, and as I approached, he vanished around the corner back towards the car. If I saw him he must have seen me. Who was that guy?

I gazed at the idling parked car while passing "Skunk Corner" as I took Sparky back home, but could ferret out no details. But once at home, I headed out the front door, this time without Sparky, to see if I could approach the car from the southwest, on the 2nd Avenue sidewalk, without being observed. Finding the light too bright to remain covert, I reversed course and walked south down to Castro, and tried unsuccessfully to approach the car from the south on 22nd Street, and from the southeast on 2nd Avenue, before finally settling on an eastward approach towards "Skunk Corner", as I had already done. This time, though, no one stood at the corner. With growing confidence I carefully peered around the fence to finally spy on the car....

Oddly enough, the car was gone. It had vanished into the night, this time for good. I wonder what spooked them?