Right Under My Nose

Last night, my wife and I walked over to Greenwood Optical to pick up our new glasses. We get about 2 doors down, and there's this woman in front of us, standing just outside the doorway of the the Tobacco shop and some place called Kumon. When we first notice her, there's this guy in light blue either standing next to her or stepping towards her. Not sure exactly what the relationship is, if any. If there'd been a bus stop there, they could have just been both waiting for a bus, but since there's no stop there, it feels more like they're hanging out together. Between them is a large canvas or leather bag, a light tan in color, and I don't know which of them it belongs to.

He says something to her, I wasn't paying too much attention at that point, and didn't yet have context to worry. Her response is a pretty loud "no", and he stomps off. She keeps loudly talking, and whatever it was she was saying, I note a male pronoun ("he" or "him", I don't recall which) that sounds like it's said with contempt. The guy stomps off, as I said, and he dips in from the street as though he's going to go in to the same optical shop we're about to enter.

The guy is trouble, I could tell that. He was stomping around all pissed and determined, clearly knew where he was going. He seemed to be up to no good. The woman seemed upset by him, and was now talking about him on her cell phone - or maybe had been talking on her cell phone in the first place? - and I was starting to worry that he was going to do something violent to her. This concern is magnified when he suddenly turns around from the recessed doorway of the optical shop, still moving quickly. He's got his bicycle, which was parked out of the rain right there in the recessed stoop of the business, and he's heading back towards (us and) the woman.

He seems to still be very angry, but also absorbed in his own little world. As though he was completely unaware of my wife and I coming up behind him, and his anger turns to surprise when he swings around the bike and suddenly we're right there in front of him. This mix of surprise, panic, guilt and anger on his face, and I start seriously worrying that he's about to attack the woman. Maybe it's his "van dyke" hipster goatee and short black ponytail, they along with his head-to-toe light blue clothing makes him look a little like a comic book super-villain.

So as my wife heads into the store, I linger an extra couple seconds at the doorway looking intently at the guy. Still in a huff, he heads towards the woman, then hops on his bike. He speeds past the woman, riding perilously close between her and her bag - but doesn't hit her. I wait till he's a good 20 feet past her, and then breathe a sigh of relief that he decided to leave instead of start something. She seems safe now, so I head inside with a sense of pride that our arrival at that moment, and my staring daggers at the guy, may have just prevented violence.

We try on our new glasses to make sure they fit. We're not the only ones in the store, there's several employees and another customer. The other customer is wearing those obnoxious spandex biking clothes, but I think nothing of it because this is Seattle, and every 8th person is wearing body-hugging bicycle clothing. Yep, I think nothing about it until the guy goes to pay for his glasses, and says "I left my wallet on my bike".

Oh, shit! I just saw guilty-looking supervillain ride a bike off the stoop of the shop we're in!

We all rush out the front door (well, except my wife, because one of the employees is at that moment holding both of her sets of glasses). The thief is long gone, but I know which way he went so the bike's actual owner and one of the employees head off down the block looking for him.

The woman is still standing around, having a very animated somewhat emotional conversation on her cellphone. I step over and ask her about the guy she was talking to.
"What?" she says, probably not having heard me well over her cellphone.
"Did a guy just ride by on a bike?"
"What?" again. Hmm.
"When my wife and I walked past you just a couple minutes ago, there was guy with a ponytail talking to you."
"I think he just wanted a cigarette or something, I wasn't really paying attention to him."
"Crap. He just stole somebody's bike."
She reflexively picks up her big tan bag, clearly identifying her as just an unrelated innocent and clueless person, who is suddenly concerned that a thief was closer to her over-sized gym-bag of a purse than she was.

I walk back to the stoop of the optical shop and talk with one of the employees. The woman finishes up her phone call and comes over to ask what happened, and what I was talking about. A couple minutes of fruitless conversation - she seems genuinely clueless about what just happened right in front of her, and not evasive or guilty at all.

My wife and I get our glasses, and wait around for a while, but the police are in no hurry as it's not an emergency. One of the employees and the customer whose bike was stolen drive around the neighborhood for a while trying to spot his bike. The store was closing soon, so we had one of the employees write down our descriptions of what happened and include our phone numbers for the police. Maybe I'll get a call today - but since there's not much chance of catching the guy the cops might not follow up at all.

It's so frustrating to me. I picked up on there being a problem. I was aware, positioned and willing to intervene. I was totally going to be the good Samaritan who actually makes a difference, and not just the asshole self-absorbed bystander who does nothing. It's the same instincts that helped me catch cheaters back when I was a Magic: The Gathering judge - I feel I've got a good nose for when people are up to something. Except I misread the situation, and was watching out for the wrong crime. I thought I'd successfully prevented an assault when I was actually standing there like an idiot glaring at the criminal as he stole a bike from right under my nose.

Guess I really do need new glasses.