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Coney Island Adventure
About a week ago, Katrina and I decided to go to Coney Island at five in the morning to take pictures. My father was visiting me for the weekend, so we decided to enlist him as our official driver on the excursion. My father wisely decided to go to bed at ten the previous night, but I decided that I'd rather stay up until two in the morning having a room-painting party in my living room. I woke up at four in the morning to take a shower and by 5am on the dot, we were off.
If there's one thing that I've learned from the whole experience, it is that trying to remember anything on two hours of sleep is probably not a good idea. As soon as we arrived at Coney Island, I realized that I had forgotten the white canvas that I wanted to photograph on the beach. This wasn't much of a big deal, though, and after a moment spent mourning the thought of what could have been, I shrugged it off and went forth to photograph the early morning theme park. I reached into my bag to retrieve my camera and found, much to my horror, that the slot for the SD card was wide open and without the card.
My father suggested that we try to find a 24-hour drug store to buy an emergency SD card. Katrina frantically tried to locate a Walgreens on her iPhone, but each one we called was closed. I decided, much to my disappointment, that Katrina and I could share her camera. That is, until my father realized that he, too, had forgotten something in his half-awake stupor: his wallet.
Thanking God for an excuse to have my father go back to get my things, I sent him back to my apartment while Katrina and I ventured into the deserted theme park. Katrina used me as her model as we walked through the closed hot dog stands and freakshow shacks. As we walked along the completely dead street, I saw a figure walking drunkenly in our direction. As we came to a corner, the figure stopped. I heard him just audibly say the word "camera" and start walking slowly towards us. Katrina, deeply immersed in her photo-taking did not notice.
"Katrina," I whispered urgently, "THAT GUY IS FOLLOWING US."
Finally catching on, Katrina and I tried to walk towards the board walk, hoping that the man would not follow us. He did. We quickly turned around and started power-walking back in the direction that we had come from. I kept looking back and saw that the man had stopped. Standing on the street corner, he pulled something from his pocket and pointed it towards his head. "LOOK," he shouted at us. "LOOOOOOK!"
"OhmyGOD, Katrina," I screamed, scared totally shitless at this point. "He has a gun! He has a gun! He has a guuuuunnnn!"
Katrina instructed me to call 911 immediately, but afraid that we might be making it a bigger deal than it was, I suggested that we flag down the police car that was conveniently coming in our direction. Katrina had me hold her camera as she walked over to the curb and frantically tried to wave the police car down.
The car pulled over and Katrina, bent towards the window, told the police officers our story. "We were out here taking pictures and this guy started following us," she said as she pointed in the direction of the hysterical man.
Looking at Katrina's revealing black dress, one of the officers asked, "You takin' pictures of Coney Island or you takin' pictures of you?"
Katrina, extremely irritated at getting such remarks so early in the morning snapped back, "He's pointing a GUN at his head."
"That's a cell phone," the officer said, looking back. "But whatever, we'll go talk to him." The car drove away and Katrina and I ventured towards the board walk, hoping not to run into any more Coney Island freaks.
As we walked along the beach, I get a call from my father. "I don't know how this happened," he said, "but I don't have your apartment keys." I told him that I would get one of my roommates to open the door for him and, praying that one of them would answer the phone at six in the morning, I called a few of them. Amy picked up.
"I'm realllllly sorry," I whispered to the groggy Amy. "But my father's outside and he's locked out. Could you go let him in?"
My father finally came back Coney Island about half an hour later with his wallet, my canvas, and my SD card. Feeling that we deserved a reward after such a nutso morning, we drove back at eight in the morning, after a few hours of taking pictures, and went out for breakfast.
May 27, 2008 at 05:27 PM