The Cadillac.

It was dark and I was sitting in the passenger seat. Darker than normal, it seemed. Dark, as in you can't see twenty feet ahead of you and every sparkle in the night conjures up horrible, frightening thoughts in your racing mind.

We were in the city, but never have I been so close to downtown, yet so far away. We u-turned the large ambulance in the residential street and pulled up next to the curb. Out my passenger window was an illuminated portrait of downtown. The lights of the large towering buildings beaconed through the cold darkness surrounding me. And like a lighthouse on a rocky cliff, they warned me of imminent danger.

We sat there, my partner and I, watching movies off my portable DVD player. Our faces glowing with the images capturing our attention on the little screen. I tried to enjoy the movie, but the darkness suffocated me. My eyes twitched from the screen out the windows. My pupils dilated hoping to catch the evil lurking up on us in the camouflaged distance.

I don't normally get uneasy. I feel safe in my ambulance and I am confident if something goes horribly awry, that one of our radios will be able to beacon a distress signal that will send aide.

But this place, dark and chained, scared the cr*p out of me. It felt like another world. Trash littered the pot-holed street. Chain link fences rested on the ground where people had obviously climbed over them. The houses were small and surrounded by black, iron fences. The yards were small squares of dirt with patches of weeds misplaced throughout. A field on one side of the street was sprinkled with beer bottles, cigarette wrappers, fast food boxes, shoes, and drug paraphernalia. Cars were locked behind fences and dogs were on the prowl, looking for anyone attempting to invade their personal property.

The movie played and lights swept the intersection as cars turned down our block. They drove slow and menacingly. And this one Cadillac continually circled like a shark, prowling around us in the distance, always returning to where we sat. The horn barked at us as they drove past, telling us they didn't want us there.

It's red taillights, in the distance, stared at us like beady little devil eyes.

The Cadillac with no plates, the one with felonious occupants with nothing to loose in this world and a chip on their shoulder. The Cadillac that had someone that needed to prove something to somebody.

I looked to memorize the numbers on the plate, but it was absent. I thought, in case they decided to begin shooting at us with their new toys they probably traded for with stolen DVD players and drugs, that it would be nice to have when we had to call for police cover. It circled the block multiple times, leering at us because we were obviously somewhere we shouldn't be. And inside I pictured the teens trying to talk themselves into using those toys. The toys that penetrate metal, shatter glass, and kill paramedics.

The Cadillac drove past, went to the end of the block, and slowly and deliberately made another u-turn. It stopped in front of us and it's headlights shot into the ambulance cab. It lurched forward and crept slowly towards the ambulance. They turned the lights off and I got ready to call for help. Where the hell were we? It approached, my stomach sank and my spine shrank, and it passed.

Inside, I imagined the words, "DO IT, DO IT. "F*CKING SHOOT THEM" being shouted to the newly inducted gang member.

They passed, my partner and I looked at one another, and knew what one another was thinking. We started the engine, dropped the gears into D, and sped out of that black hole like children running from the boogieman.

Who knows who was inside that Cadillac, for all I know it could have been an elderly lady looking for her bridge club. But, at that moment in time, with all the nothingness surrounding me and darkness chilling me to the bone on that comfortable March evening I was scared to death.

And there's nothing wrong with that.