F—k Your Mother.

I live in the (mostly) peaceful St. Paul suburb of Mendota Heights, MN. A habitual walker, I have multiple routes I follow depending on how much time and energy I have. Plus, I like to change it up to avoid “scenery fatigue.” Fellow walkers will relate. Sometimes you get sick of seeing the same streets, the same houses, giving the same nod to the same guy at the same time every…single…day.

One area that’s always a part of my walk is a small wooded area called Copperfield Ponds Park. It’s 25 acres comprising a pond bisected by a walking trail. It offers a welcome oasis from dodging cars on Mendota Heights’s increasingly-busy streets. Wildlife aplenty lives there and it’s a rare day I don’t see herons, loons, ducks, geese, and when the season is right: Turtles laying eggs beside the walking path.

On a recent walk a man approached from the opposite direction. He carried two large logs on his shoulders. “Hi!” he said from several yards away.

We got nearer and stopped. “I’m taking these to a homeless encampment!” he said. I could tell from his speech and mannerisms that something was off. Not being a psychologist, I surmised that he’s on the autism spectrum. I returned his hello and asked, “Are you taking them so they can burn them?” He replied, “Yes!”

(Note that writing workshops warn against overusing exclamation points, but this fella only spoke in exclamation points. The extent of this will soon become evident.)

He then asked, “What’s that ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ logo on your shirt?” He referred to a small, yellow, coiled snake on the front of my shirt which would be vaguely familiar to anyone who took sixth-grade history before the consensus became that America is the root of all evil. I explained it as best I could, given the many decades between me and a history class. He then asked, “What’s the ‘Sons of Liberty?’” referring to a logo silkscreened near the snake. I explained that I got the shirt from an estate sale, so I’m not exactly sure what the group is, but I gave it my best shot. The American Revolution, small government…that sorta thing.

Then, out of nowhere, he asked, “Do you think Trump won the election?”

Okay, that was an abrupt turn. But being a good sport, I answered, “No.” He said, “Good. You’re not one of those.”

I should have sensed from his tone that at that point, simply saying “Talk to you later” and walking away was the prudent choice. But I’m naive enough to think that politics can still be discussed without someone losing their minds. So, I clarified, “Well, I supported him, but I do think he lost the election.”

The change in the young man’s expression was striking, as if I’d said “Oh, and hey: While we’ve been talking, some friends of mine emptied your house of valuables and burned it to the ground.” He got visibly furious and said, “Well, if you supported him, FUCK YOU.”

I was stunned and stood motionless and silent for several seconds. Finally, I said as calmly as possible, “I hope you’ll take note of which one of us took the conversation down this road.” I doubt that he heard me, however, since while walking away he continued yelling, “FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!” My wife would testify that when I got home I was visibly shaken. “What in God’s name has happened to the world?” I asked more than once. For days afterward I winced on my walk, fearing that every person seen in the distance was this guy, wondering what he might have in store for me. I’ve never altered my walking path as much as I did in the weeks following that encounter.

Two weeks to the day later I was walking in the same area. I rounded a blind corner, and there he was. I walked by him, giving a wide berth and avoiding eye contact. He said “Hi!” as friendly as could be. I pondered how best to handle the situation, so I said as flatly as I could, “I’ve spoken to you before and you were terribly rude. So I’m going to keep walking.” He replied by yelling, “FUCK YOUR MOTHER. FUCK YOUR MOTHER.”

Now, “Fuck you” I can handle. But “Fuck your mother”? That’s over the line. Mom’s been gone for over a decade and there’s no reason to bring her into this. I called 911 and requested an officer. I soon received a call back from a patrolman. 

I should preface the following by mentioning that few people support the police more than me and my wife. We thank officers anytime we see them. We’ve bought lunch for uniformed cops (veterans too) when seeing them in restaurants.

But…they don’t always make it easy.

To my amazement, the police officer basically put me on the witness stand on the phone. “Did you confront him about gathering firewood?” he asked. “No,” I replied. “In fact, I commended him for it, since he was giving it to the homeless.” “Because,” the cop continued, “it’s not against the law.”

Did you even listen to me? I thought.

He proceeded to grill and lecture me. “I can’t bar him from a public park.” And so on. Finally, the policeman agreed to come talk to the man and told me to make myself scarce. “And you might want to avoid that area on your walks,” he added. “Great.” I thought. “Your reward for trying to be cordial is apparently a lifelong ban on the most enjoyable part of your daily walk.”

The word “mainstreaming” came to mind when pondering this situation afterward. Most people have heard this term in relation to education. Schools “mainstream” special needs kids, placing them in (for lack of a better term) “normal” classrooms which oftentimes necessitates slowing down the pace for the rest of the class in order to accommodate the higher-need child(ren). What’s more, I’ve often heard it said that the per-pupil cost of education is misleading. When you hear that schools spend $12,000 per pupil, that doesn’t mean every child gets that much money directed toward their education. It could mean 24 out of the 25 kids in that class get $2K worth of resources, while $10K is funneled toward the “mainstreamed” kid.

Bringing it back to my “F—k your mother” friend, here we have a clearly-unstable person who was turned loose on an unsuspecting public. My hunch is that he has caregivers—parental and/or professional—who are trained to deal with his quirks, his moods, his volatility. I have no such training, nor does most of the public. There’s no way of knowing if this guy’s anger might have turned violent. Probably not, and his caregivers probably know this, hence they’re comfortable letting him roam the streets of Mendota Heights unattended. It’s up to the public to determine on a moment’s notice how to properly deal with it.

As I told the police officer, I’m a patient and peaceful person. But not everyone is. This guy is one “F—k your mother” away from landing in the hospital, or worse. Then, you can only imagine the headlines. “Autistic man attacked on walking path.” Nothing about the history. No probing questions directed toward his caregivers. “Why did you let someone you know is prone to violent outbursts out unattended?” And just like that, some unsuspecting citizen’s life is ruined forever because they’re “that guy,” the asshole who punched an autistic person in the face. Never mind that the autistic guy was yelling “FUCK YOU” at the top of his lungs while coming at you with a 20-pound log.

The attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband comes to mind. How many of us, when initially hearing about this, suspected not a MAGA Republican, but instead one of the thousands of mentally-unstable people walking San Francisco’s streets in the name of a bastardized version of compassion? We help no one looking the other way on this stuff. And we can’t forever put the onus on average citizens to be armchair psychologists, prepared to with the myriad mental health issues on proud display wherever we turn. We’re all one random encounter away from having our lives ruined. Not to mention further-handicapping the psyche of an already-vulnerable person.