The photo below shows the location, although it was taken a month or two earlier. I was down near that stop sign you can see in the photo, just past the parked car. The flower was in the landscaping of the house on the corner, to my right.
Anyway, while the neighborhood we live in is on the northern edge of what could be described as "Midtown Indianapolis", the side streets are quiet enough that you hear cars rolling up. Even Teslas and Leafs.
While I don't know the folks that live in the corner house, we've nodded at each other plenty over the years, I know they have a son about high school age, and they've patronized Indy Arms Company while I was working there.
So when I heard the car rolling up behind me, I turned in that direction not only out of simple curiosity, but also to see if it was my neighbor pulling into their normal on-street parking spot.
It wasn't.
The car that was slowing and swerving toward the curb wasn't the older 3-series coupe or the new Honda compact SUV driven by the residents of the house, but a white Dodge Cirrus or Plymouth Breeze hoopty that had been hit everyplace but the ashtray. Driver and passenger were neck-tattooed dudes dressed like extras from the "Worst Part of Indianapolis" video and both were looking right at me. Meanwhile, I'd unconsciously (and not necessarily smartly) exhibited a classic "picking" motion, with my camera now cradled in my left hand and my right thumb coming to rest on the OC canister in my front right jeans pocket, elbow pushing back my gun burkha just a little bit.
The car stopped its arc toward the curb and returned to the center of the lane, made a rolling stop at the sign, and turned right.
Were they slowing down so dude in the passenger seat could bail and snatch a camera quickly?
Were they the guys from the previous day's robbery?
I'll never know.
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