The story features Leonard Mead, a citizen of a television-centered world in 2053. In the city, sidewalks have fallen into decay. Mead enjoys walking through the city at night, something which no one else does. "In ten years of walking by night or day, for thousands of miles, he had never met another person walking, not one in all that time." On one of his usual walks, he encounters a police car, which is possibly robotic. It is the only police unit in a city of three million, since the purpose of law enforcement has disappeared with everyone watching television at night. When asked about his profession, Mead tells the car that he is a writer, but the car does not understand, since no one buys books or magazines in the television-dominated society. The police car and its occupants can neither of them understand why Mead would be out walking for no reason, and so they decide to take him to the Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies and force him into the car. As the car passes through his neighborhood, Leonard Mead in the locked confines of the back seat says, "That's my house," as he points to a house warm and bright with all its lights on, unlike all other houses. There is no reply, and the story concludes.
Background
The address of the main character, Leonard Mead, happens to be the address of the house in which Bradbury grew up. This has caused speculation that this short story is actually referring to himself, or is in some related way a message to his home town of Waukegan, Illinois. The 60th anniversary edition of Fahrenheit 451 contains the short piece "The Story of Fahrenheit 451" by Jonathan R. Eller. In it, Eller writes that Bradbury's inspiration for the story came when he was walking down Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles with a friend some time in late 1949. On their walk, a police cruiser pulled up and asked what they were doing. Bradbury answered, "Well, we're putting one foot in front of the other." The policemen did not appreciate Ray's joke and became suspicious of Bradbury and his friend for walking in an area where there were no pedestrians. Using this experience as inspiration he wrote "The Pedestrian", which he sent to his New York agent Don Congdon in March 1950. According to Eller, " composition in the early months of 1950 predates Bradbury's conception of 'The Fireman,'" the short novella that would later evolve into Fahrenheit 451.
