stalker talk

i know two people who have or have had a stalker. and last night i met a gent who has a bodyguard because of the "s" word. i saw also the "s" word approach the gent. unlike my old workmate brett, who has a small meandering obsession with ashleywhatsherface...you know...the twin...full house... the dude from last night has pinwheel eyes and a squirrely tight pencil thin permasmile. weird.

the stalkee's usual casual stance stiffened, drained of its ease and replaced by tension, like concrete setting in the joints.

stalkers are scary scary people.

i am happy to say i'm a regular gal who's had infrequent brushes with fans, years between at best. recently i heard, however, there's a local(?) guy who saw me at my favorite local restaurant and has come back numerous times since...

the waiter with the apply cheeks and hyptonizing tiger eye eyes told me so.

"is he something i should worry about?" i asked thinking stalkerstalkerstalkerstalkerstalkerstalkerstalker...

"nah," he said.

i haven't been back since.

did i mention it's my favorite place?

and late last night, when i left the stalker/stalkee sitch, clop-clopping, keys in hand, less than two blocks away from my car, i watched a dude running across my path.

leather jacket to run in...? where's he going...? nice gait...where's he going...? when's the last time i laced up my running shoes...? how many hours of sleep will i get in before the hoopla begins tomorrow...?

somewhere in all the thought, i lost the dude. less than a block-and-a-half to my car.

"scuze me..." the dude.

raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawaar. i jolted alert. where the fuck did he come from?

"i ain' no bum."

coincidence. i ain't in no mood.

"not tonight, sir," i said. walkin walkin.

"i got my boy..." he reaches into his coat, walkin faster than i can, to pull out a medallion or a locket of his boy on a chain like a picket fence...

"no, sir. not tonight."

"i ain't gonna do nothin' with a cop car right there."

"no, sir." firm, no snear. but no smile either.

less than a block way. car car car car. keys.

"hey! HEY!" keep walkin. two goups of guys coming from the other direction. two by two. tall. big coats. less than half a block to my car. keys. phone. my heel stomps echoing on sidewalk versus their heavy silent sneaks. gap closing, i see the whites of their eyes as they spread out to cover the entire width of the sidewalk in front of me. "bay-bee" i hear something. "coo-coo-cootch" something else. boymen. i walk, close close close close car.

"hey."

it rumbles up my esophogus and turns white in the night air.

i look them square in the face. one...by...one...by...one...brown eyes...red hood...high cheeks...goutee, all tall tall. i'm in the street now. "hooooooooo" i hear it, the fourth one, chicken shit style, after they pass. one fluid motion door open. i swing into the seat camera stuff still slung across my chest. audible exhale. freedom.

it's another reason i don't lock the driver side door between getting out and getting back in.

the runner dude had fled. the boymen were bigger and more than he. they boymen were for me, again, this time.

you don't have to be extraordinary to know the tiniest of something about the stalk.