Taken

The man was looking at me rather creepily. (Is "creepily" a word?).

His eyes pierced mine, the rest of his face otherwise hidden as he looked at me through his rear-view mirror.  

We were at a stop light- and he missed seeing it turn green ahead of me because his smoldering "I'll murder you" eyes couldn't tear away from staring at me.

I contemplated honking so we could get this short procession going, but I didn't want to poke the bear.  

He finally noticed everyone around him was moving and he carried on. 

And as I eased at a careful distance behind him, I studied his license plates.

And then I smiled in a memory. 

When I was young, like... mid-late 1980's young, my sisters and brother Chris were in high school and at the age of being picked up in friends' cars for random things. 

And over the next decade, as I myself transitioned into a teenager I started getting picked up in unfamiliar vehicles, as well. 

And my dad's habit of staring out the window as he watched us all leave didn't change over that decade. 

But daddy took it just a step further. 

Quietly, and somewhat conspicuously, he'd hold a pencil or pen and write down the license plate number of all who passed by our house, and all whose cars we'd settle into. 

Sometimes there would be a note of te make and model, as well. Or, maybe just a color- like "grn"

I laugh now... wondering what my dad's plan was should something terrible befall one of us.  In the 80's and 90's serial killers were a "thing" and I think my parents were always suspicious one of my sisters or brothers or I were getting into a car with the next Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy. 

The evidence was everywhere, really.  I'd find license plate numbers etched into the side of the phonebook... scribbled on the corner of the daily newspaper, haphazardly traced on the envelopes of utility bills....

There was no singular "place" for my dad to keep the plate numbers of the many passerbys to our home.

In a house overfilling with 6 kids, cars were constantly coming and going, new friends and acquaintances, coworkers and neighbors, parents of friends, cousins of friends... it was a revolving door, and my dad was always writing down plates. 

If my dad were here now I'd laugh with him. 

Because one thing my dad had, that was honestly the best of any man I've ever known, was an incredible sense of humor. 

I'd ask him what his plans were if one of us went missing? "What were you going to do, dad?... get all Liam Neeson in 'Taken'"?

We'd laugh, and he'd get my joke without pause. He was quick like that. 

Maybe it's because he was a father. Maybe it's a Latino thing, or a "grew-up-in-East-LA" thing. 

I don't know what thing it was, but it would be really nice to see his handwriting on some newspaper corner today.

Maybe it would have your license plate number on it.