LUCERNE VALLEY, Calif. --When I got this job, everyone warned me about “the crazies,” and told me to be careful, especially because out where I live is considered the wild, wild west. Ninety-nine percent of the people I’ve encountered had been reasonably sane up to this point. The house next on my list has a minor warning in the notes that the guy doesn’t want to speak to any enumerators. I’m confident in my ability to close uncloseable cases though.
I pull up and the guy pops out the door. He’s a bit older than me, but he’s shirtless, and I notice he has long hair and a flying V (guitar) tattoo on his chest.
I’m like, dope. I figure I can talk to this dude about metal, and tell him about how I grew up playing on my dad’s flying V, thereby using that connection to get his census done. I open my door, head above car. He shouts at me, “You’re not one of those census people, are you?”
I’m closing the door of my car, I’m like “Yeah, I am. Sorry. But listen, we can-“. He disappears into his house for two seconds, comes back out, and now he has a gun in his hand. Long barrel. I don’t know about guns.
“I’m going to need you to get back in your car and leave.”
“Oh. ..... Ok.”
“I already told them! One man lives here! That’s all!”
He didn’t lift the gun, point it at me, or directly threaten me. His whole demeanor was exasperated. So I got into my car and called my supervisor right away as I was driving away. She told me to drive to a public area and make sure he wasn’t following me. Of course, when she said this, I looked behind me, and he was in his vehicle following me down his long, dirt driveway. I’m like, "Yep, he’s following me. He’s coming to finish me off."
Turns out he stopped at the end of his driveway, he was just coming to lock his gate so no one else entered his property. I was able to close his case with the basic information that he had shouted at me, so he was never marked as a dangerous address. I just continued working after that. I decided not to tell my parents about the census guy, since they were some of the ones telling me to be careful.
I told my boyfriend, who I live with. He told his dad, and they "jokingly" wanted to know where he lives. They made a good point, that you can’t just go around threatening people with a gun and suffer no repercussions.
But I didn’t really feel scared during the encounter because, like I said, he didn’t directly threaten me with the gun.
-AC from Lucerne Valley
Comments