Stalkers ‘R Us.

I really need to get my name taken off their list.

No. I don’t mean that I stalk people for pleasure. I would never do such a thing to another human being . . . say, is that Denzel Washington ordering a latte at 9:30 a.m.? It can’t be. See in my dayplanner. I have him penned in to appear at the Starbucks around 11:00 a.m.. He is way off his usual schedule. 8:30 a.m. - wakes up. 8:45 a.m. - takes a shower. 9:00 a.m. - gets dressed. 9:25 a.m. - eats a bagel while reading the newspaper.

Um, what was I talking about? Oh, right. Stalkers. No, it’s not called stalking when I watch Denzel play the saxophone in his pajamas. It is called "musical appreciation while hiding in bushes outside celebrity’s window."

Okay. I am waaayyyy joking. I’ve never met any celebrity in my entire life. I’m just trying to bring some of my funny self into the post before the somber stuff gets written. Let’s see. The subject today is going to be about stalkers . . . a story about stalkers. Hmm? Which person should I start with . . . the puncher, the follower, the phoner, or the ringer? I guess I’ll begin at the beginning.

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Stalker number 1: The scary, punch-happy, guy who wanted to date the college student.

Ah, college - an educational institute teaching teenagers how to make beer-chuggers out of plastic water jugs. I didn’t live on campus. I stayed in a 12-story apartment building nearby. The owner of the place was in the construction business, so the first five levels were offices for the company. The sixth floor had small dorm-like rooms and separate shower areas with a tv den and kitchen in one big space. The rest of the floors going up were individual suites with the average bedroom/livingroom or livingroom/kitchen, and a bathroom.

My living quarters were on the sixth floor. It was a 9ft by 9ft pad only large enough for a bed, standing closet, sink, and a mirror dresser. I added a small refrigerator and phone because I didn’t want to use the same appliances in the shared kitchen area despite that few other people lived on this floor. The level mainly housed the construction workers whom the company would move from State to State and project to project. The few renters not part of the company were two young guys (one was a cute guitarist I had a good friendship with), a traveling comedian (a very sweet fellow who met a nice woman on one of his gigs - I hope things worked out for them), a doper (his father was the mayor of the town - a whole other story), and me (the college student.)

Of those people living there from the company, two young women managed the tenants and ran errands for the personnel in the offices. Then there were the trucked-in construction workers needed to work on a new commercial high-rise. That was when all the bad stuff happened.
Five big guys. Five arrogant guys. Five guys who believed they were God’s gifts to women and that every person of the female species should feel grateful these men existed.

Well, the two other girls immediately moved to other apartments on the eighth floor. But this struggling college student didn’t have the funds to move on to better shindigs. So I had to stay behind and deal with these gents. One guy was sort of okay, and ended up dating an office worker, which meant living with her on the upper level. The second guy was horrible. The police agreed and gave him a personal room in the county lock-up for a few months . . . I never figured out what the initial charges were on him. The third guy was so-so. He kept mostly to himself, which was fine with me. Then there were the two brothers.

The young brother (around his late 30's) was, ahem, let’s just say he was quite known among the nightwalkers. (If you’re wondering what a nightwalker is, this is a woman who has a night job standing on street corners soliciting intimate business from horny drivers. I’ll leave the rest up to your own imagination.) The older brother (around his early forties) had a crush on me. Ew! Ew!

I was NOT interested. He couldn’t understand this concept. He kept knocking on my door and asking me to become his girlfriend. He constantly handed me his money, which I refused to take because I didn’t want to have him as my sugar daddy or allow this man to make a poor college student indebted to him. He got infuriated over the brush-off. That was when the threats started.

"I could do anything to you and no one would know. I could follow you around wherever and you can’t stop me. Go ahead and call the police. It will be my word against yours. Besides, you won’t talk much when I cut your tongue out and throw you through the window. See if you live from the six-story fall."

But, strangest of all, there always came a plea for some ‘womanly love’ after every threat.

"Why won’t you have sex with me? I’m a nice guy. All I want is one little kiss. One kiss. Then I won’t bother you anymore. Come on. You know you want me. Why do you have to be so cold?"

Um, maybe it’s because you’re a 42-year-old man trying to proposition a 19-year-old girl?

Thoroughly disgruntled by my stoic attitude, the construction worker believed I needed to be punished. So he got a real girlfriend and flaunted her about, perhaps an attempt to stir some jealous feelings inside me. I easily ignored his shenanigans. Then the day came when the girlfriend asked if I knew the local bus schedule. She was leaving the freaky boyfriend who tried to strangle her in the bedroom last night. Yikes! She left before he came home. Guess who got blamed?

While I was watching tv in the den, he rushed toward me with his buddies in tow. "Where is she? What did you say to her?" He punched the soda machine, denting in the front. Then he twirled back around, believing his enraged action had cowed me into telling the truth.

I told him the truth. "I don’t give a rat’s ::bleep:: about you! *words have been censored due to their harsh language* Go shove your ::bleep:: finger up your ::bleeping-bleep:: sideways *ow - watch it, young lady, before someone washes out your mouth with soap* and leave me the ::bleep-bleep:: alone! And if you don’t ::bleeping:: like it, you can go ::bleep-bleep-bleeping-bleep-bleep:: *whoa, not anatomically possible* and ::bleep-bleep:: until you die!"

He was stunned. I didn’t care (I remained consistent about this) and stomped forward as he nervously backed away. His buddies intervened before I did some physical damage. It was at that moment when the lightbulb flashed, the dawn shined, the sci-fi brain-eating parasite entered the man’s gray matter as he FINALLY realized I wanted nothing to do with him.

He turned and left the apartment building to never bother me again.
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Wow. I didn’t think this post would run on so long. I guess I’ll have to write about the other three guys another day . . . and get the phone number for Stalkers ‘R Us.

I have GOT to get my name off that list!