L’esprit d’escalier is a French expression that refers to the common problem of thinking of the perfect comeback ten minutes or ten days too late. In my imagination, I am much bolder and more direct than I often end up being in real life. Today on my run though, the boldness erupted in an exchange that I found interesting enough to share with you now.
As I headed west down Riverside, a car slowed next to me. A young man extended his entire torso out of the back passenger window and yelled, “Hey girl! Lookin’ GOOD!”.
I raised the middle finger of my left hand and kept running.
“HEY!”, he followed up eloquently, “I’m tryna TALK to you!”. He raised both of his arms and leaned further out of the car as it started to pass me, traveling slowly to prolong our little encounter.
I’ve heard that if you encounter a bear in the wilderness, the best course of action is to make yourself as large and loud as possible. With that factoid in mind, I raised both of my arms too, and both of my middle fingers while running.
“FUCK OFF!”, I bellowed out with as much air as I could spare while still keeping my pace.
His face crumpled into faux concern and he said, “Hey, I like to jog too, no need to get mad!”
“This is not an appropriate way to approach people, ok?!”, I responded as they curved away down the road.
I realized at this point that I was quickly approaching a young dad on a cell phone next to a stroller containing a small bundle of blue blankets and a pink face. He was staring at me with some concern, but mostly with surprise. I shrugged at him indicating “What can you do?” and kept running.
Two doors down, I realized that a second family had witnessed what happened and the parents were looking at me, too. Just in front of their house, the car of young men had reached their destination. The timing was such that as they exited the car, I was just about to pass them.
The backseat Romeo put on the same pouty face as before and extended his arms as if for a hug. “What, baby? No love?”, he asked from about six feet away from me.
I spit on the ground in between his feet and mine. I made eye contact with him and hissed out, “I. don’t. owe. you. SHIT.”
I watched as the amusement drained out of his face and continued on my way.
For the next five miles, I forgot about the half-pizza rumbling in my stomach and the ache in my shoulder. I felt like I could run a marathon. One time, the circumstances had worked in my favor and I hadn’t wilted like a flower in the face of harassment by a man.
I wondered for the rest of the run about what happened after I left the strip of condos where this all went down. I didn’t think much about what the offender’s friends had said to him or if he had thought long and hard about what he’d done. I was thinking instead about the parents of the two girls next door, about 10 and 7, and what they would say to them if they asked what had just happened. I was thinking about that dad with the newborn boy; would he remember the rage that he saw in me as he learned how to raise a boy in the world?
I hope he does.
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