There will be more of the Canterbury Tales in due course, but for now it's back to reality, and a slightly unpleasant experience I had last night.
I live in Thamesmead, and when I tell people that, they generally have one of two reactions. Sometimes I get a blank look, which tells me the person I am talking to has never heard of Thamesmead. Otherwise, they raise their eyebrows and say "Oh...." followed by and awkward pause, followed by ".....so, er, what's that like, then" which tells me the person has definitely heard of Thamesmead.
It has a reputation for being a pretty dodgy area, but I've lived here for three years and have never had any problems. The part I live in is quite suburban with little windy streets and lots of cul-de-sacs and a canal running through it. Sure, it's a bit shabby and run down, and it's definitely an area of deprivation (but cheap real estate, which is how I ended up living here) and there are some strange looking people about, but it feels perfectly safe. At least it did until last night.
When I got home last night there was a police van parked at my bus stop. This struck me as slightly unusual but I didn't think much of it at the time, except to notice with some amusement that there was a little pig mascot on the dashboard. Clearly the officers inside had a sense of humour.
As I walked towards my road, I noticed a dull thudding noise. Turning the corner into my street, I discovered the source: a man with a hammer, who seemed intent on destroying a car parked just over the road from my flat. It took me a while to work out what he was doing; even though one of the wing mirrors was on the ground, along with a pile of broken glass from where the front window had been completely smashed in, and now he was bashing away at the bodywork which was looking more and more like Swiss cheese with every blow, I seriously thought for a minute or two that maybe he'd just locked his keys inside.
I stood rooted to the spot for what must have been a good couple of minutes while I took all this in, until my brain finally processed what was going on and realised that perhaps standing in the street watching wasn't the brightest thing to do, given the guy had a hammer and looked pretty angry. My first instinct was to hot-foot it back to the police van and tell them what was happening, and so without really thinking about it, that's what I did. They asked a few questions, said thank you, and drove off round the corner to confront him.
As I followed them back to my flat it struck me: I had been watching this guy for several minutes, then I left the scene and two minutes later the police arrived. If he had seen me, and there was every chance he had, it wasn't going to take a rocket scientist to work out who had gone to get them. And now, given I was about to walk past again to get into my building, he would know where I lived. I had no other choice, though; I was almost at my front door already and could see the police were talking to him so took a deep breath, kept my head down and went inside, hoping he hadn't noticed me.
It was scary. To be honest, I'm still a little freaked out by the thought of going outside later on today. I know there are plenty of worse crimes I could have witnessed, and the chances of him or one of his dodgy mates coming to track me down are infinitesimally small. The fact that it even occurred to me that they might is probably a sign that I've been watching too many episodes of The Sopranos, more than anything else. *
Still, I can't help feeling a little bit unsettled about the whole affair. A smashed up car is one of those things which, had I read about it in the news, I probably wouldn't have thought twice about. Seeing it happen right on my doorstep was something completely different. I'm certainly glad I went and told the police, and I'm really glad that they happened to be there for me to go and tell, but I still feel slightly ill. Crime fighting isn't nearly as fun or rewarding as you might think.
* Not helped, incidentally, by a conversation I had with the crazy cat owning man who lives downstairs, who reckons the guy who lives over the road owes some money to the bloke who was destroying his car. I'm not sure if he was proposing this as a theory or as a statement of fact, but very much hope it was the former.
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