You decide to spend the night at home on Saturday night even though your roommates are not back yet. You'll be at a party at the time he was around on Wednesday. Your roommates are due back the next day. It doesn't seem scary anymore.
You go to bed at 3:30 AM that night.
At 5 AM, the cats are scratching at your door and through your sleep haze you think, That's weird, they usually don't bug me until it's light out, and immediately fall back asleep.
At 5:30 AM, you hear someone talking to you. Outside your window. It's a man. Your dreams burst like a gum bubble over your face and you pull the sticky bits from your eyes, trying to figure out what boy you know would appear outside your window at this time. You almost call out a name. But then.
Of course.
Oh no, of course.
"Honey," you hear him say. He's telling you goodbye and there is something plaintive in his voice, like somehow you have disappointed him or maybe he is just sad to go. "More more more," you hear him say and everything after that is muffled. His footsteps crunch away.
Your beating heart is actually lifting your shirt away from your chest.
You should call the police, you know. But you're paralyzed -- your limbs will not obey the will of your brain. You're afraid that he'll hear the sheets rustling, that he'll know you're there, that he'll come in, he'll rape you, he'll slit your throat.
He was talking to you like you are his fucking girlfriend.
So you don't call the police, not until that afternoon after your trip to the farmers' market and Trader Joe's (during which you try to pretend that everything is normal, but you will look at the faces of the TJ's employees and have the urge to tell them what is going on and ask, Can't you do something?? because Trader Joe's employees look somehow safe and comforting, like they can solve most problems) and you file a trespassing report, which makes you feel a little better. He'll be arrested if they ever catch him. IF they ever catch him.
But you don't call the police in the morning. You lie in bed while your pulse pole-vaults and after awhile you call Rob, but he doesn't answer his phone, so you leave a couple voicemails that you imagine sound kind of frightening, so sad and scared. Your voice doesn't sound like yours.
Your roommates don't come home that day. You spend another night on someone else's couch. But what a lovely couch it is.
Postscript: It's been two weeks to the day since the first incident and he hasn't been back (to my knowledge). My housemate is supposed to be getting motion-sensor lights and fixing the front gate. And I've been peering at the face of every guy I pass on the street....
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Comments (1)
"you will look at the faces of the TJ's employees and have the urge to tell them what is going on and ask, Can't you do something?? because Trader Joe's employees look somehow safe and comforting, like they can solve most problems"
What is about Trader Joe's employees that make people feel so comfortable? People talk to them more than any grocery employees ever. Is it the T-shirts?! I don't know, but I know they're not all great people.
Once in my home town of Stockton (norcal) there was this stalker. I lived with my girlfriend in high school and she loved Trader Joe's and I liked to eat, so we went almost everyday--seriously, she spent so much money there. We never went alone, but for some reason this guy started talking to her. I was standing right next to her (obviously). The first time it was fine, she started the conversation and that's fine. But then we went in there like a week later and I was carrying the basket to the counter when she stopped me and said "wait, I don't want that guy to ring us up," I asked why and she said he seemed real weird and too friendly. Later on in that month (two weeks later or so) I come home and we're making dinner and talking when she says "I say that Trader Joe's guy."
"What trader Joe's Guy?"
"The one I don't like." I asked where and she said in the parking lot of TJ's. Then when she was shopping he was restocking--he just stopped and came over to talk. She's a real staunch feminist who doesn't like to be looked at by guys, let alone be hit on. She made it real obvious that she thought he was a dick head. She even complained to the manager.
So we stop shopping at TJ's which sucks, because we're both vegan, and stockton doesn't have many places for vegan options--TJ's is definately #1.
A few weeks pass, we go to Sacramento to shop for food during this time. One night we're at the cinema. When we get in I tell her to wait in the lobby so I can go to the bathroom. When I come out he's there talking to her, I can tell by her face that she's real annoyed, if not disgusted. So I say "what the fucks up buddy?" he doesn't say anything to me and just keeps talking to Cady saying "don't you know who I am? from --" and she turns to me, her arms are crossed and she starts crying, not balling just tearsrolling down her face. so I say "Fuck you mother fucker" (hey, we're in Stockton) She starts embracing me, but I swing at his face with my fist. I think she's going to be really mad at me, because she hates violence--a sworn pacifist. I turn to her and she's just looking at him on the ground and she starts to laugh "That's right you fucking creep" she says. His friends don't even look at us, everyone else is. I look around to see if I know anyone in the lobby. I do, but it's one of my brother's friends who comes over to me and says I should leave.
We didn't go to TJ's for a year and a half. My brother's friend said that nothing happened after I left, no one called the cops, no manager came out. His friends just carried him out of the cinema. I was scared that he was going to press charges or something, I had just gotten into NYU and was waiting on USC--I thought that was all going down the tubes. It was the only time I didn't regret hitting someone...
Posted by derick | April 12, 2004 9:44 PM