INCIDENT
REPORT:
The
Burgling Bicyclist Bum
After
meeting at Perkins, we made our approach at about 10 PM. There
were initially 9 of us. A large crowd for this kind of thing,
but hey, it was Mouser Week (an annual gathering of local
explorers). The entrance was opened up without difficulty,
and Alex and I of us went in (we were entering in pairs).
We
waited in the lighted vault room just beneath the surface
for the next group (which should have come down in about a
minute or so). Waited, waited.
Finally,
I heard something, and went to warn whoever it was not to
step backward to the initial ladder (into a 25 foot drop).
It was a wild looking, heavily muscled, filthy, and tattooed
man, looking like a movie ex-con, hunkered down over the manhole
cover and peering intently in at us.
"What
the fuck is this?" He was twisting his head and bobbing
up and down in some central-nervous-system-damage-looking
dance as he tried to see what was past the open manhole.
"We
don't know. It was open so we went in."
"What
are you stealing?"
I
was nervous. Was this guy going to call the cops? Was he a
cop? I had not had time to really process the way he looked
yet, so this did not seem implausible at that point.
"Umm.
Well, there's really nothing down here but power lines."
"What
the fuck." Pause, as he noticed the shaft behind me.
"Whoa! How fucking far does that go down?"
He
was referring to the ladder into a deep part of the system,
but I wanted to minimize his interest if possible. Now I was
mostly worried that he would try to come with us.
"Looks
like about 30 feet, then it dead ends."
He
gyrated some more, considering.
"Well,
fuck this city shit, man. I'm gonna go rob some houses."
He
wasn't kidding. After a final twisting ogle into the manhole,
he straightened up and vanished from view. After a minute
or so, I went up the ladder to ensure that he was gone and
to fill the others in, who had seen him standing there but
not heard any of it from their distant waiting point. We last
saw our frightening friend on a ten speed bike, wobbling his
way toward the upper financial stratum of Saint Paul's residential
areas.
We
decided that the likelihood of him alerting authorities was
very low, so we got in, got going, and got down to several
hours of serious exploration.
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