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| Brushes
with Evil PAGE
TWO: "Was that a cop car?" I asked. "An old black and white," he answered. Two days later my mother rushed into the room. "It's all over the news. A woman got away from them and says the Hillside Strangler is two people. One is dark-haired and short. The taller one hides on the passenger side of the car, while the short one calls to the victim. Women think it's the police and they've done something wrong, because these guys drive an old black and white cop car, exactly like the one that followed you." 1984 brought my third brush with evil. I was living in the bottom of a two-story house on Adams Hill and had landed a media-buying job with an agency on Western Avenue. No longer drinking or hanging out in bars, I'd become lonely and depressed. The women I worked for were treacherous. Arriving at the office was like walking onto a minefield. Unable to rescue myself, I began rescuing dogs off the bump list at Los Angeles Rabies Animal Control. My front door opened to a balcony and a deep row of steps led to the street where I parked my beat-up Toyota purchased from a junkyard. On the east was a home sitting farther back, and on the west, a vacant house under construction. On my way to work, I passed areas encircled with yellow tape and police scouring on-ramps looking for clues left by a serial killer called the Glendale Night Stalker. His victims included older women who lived alone. On hot nights he would break in through open windows or screen doors. After raping and stabbing the victim, he would mutilate the dead body, and then hide their belongings along the freeway. Twice my Toyota was ransacked. Certain I'd locked the car, I was surprised to find the passenger side hanging open and everything in the glove compartment dumped onto the floor. It was hot on the Sunday night I sat dozing in front of a box fan. My ninety-pound, red, hairless xoloitzcuintli lay at my feet. In Mexico this breed is used as a guard dog and owning Rhoda was like owning a gun. Twelve other rescues curled on the bed. At midnight Rhoda started barking. I turned on a light and followed the dogs to the living room where I'd left the front door standing open. Rhoda let out a blood-curdling howl and lunged forward. I switched on the porch light, unlocked the screen and holding Rhoda's collar, stepped onto the balcony. We inched forward and I peered below. Under the streetlight a tall skinny man wearing a twisted bandana over dark shoulder length hair stared up at me. Rhoda's high-pitched bark cut the silence. The man spun and I could hear his feet hitting pavement as he disappeared into the dark. Rhoda and I hurried inside. I secured the door and checked windows. As hot as it was, I'd become cold. Months later, after Richard Ramirez was caught, his photo appeared on the front page of the morning paper. I felt lightheaded when I recognized the tall skinny man wearing a bandana over dark shoulder length hair. The article said he lived in houses under construction located next to his victims. He would break into the car of the person he was stalking and rifle through their glove compartment. His favorite to open and easiest to steal was a Toyota. I wonder if during those years I'd brushed with evil because my life was in turmoil. Was I a toxic person drawing negative vibrations like self-help books suggested? Was it bad timing or bad luck? Or perhaps the opposite had occurred. Maybe instead of having bad luck, mine had been incredibly good.
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I
got that familiar hair thing on my neck and my heart raced. It looked like a police
car, but there were no lights on top. I scooted across the seat and got out on
the passenger side. I heard the driver calling at the same time the manager crossed
the lawn from our apartment building. The driver took off. 
