This Blessed Mess: July 2009

He wasn’t really a stalker.

That’s what pops into my head when I say it. Almost simultaneously, my mouth says “the stalker” while my head says “he wasn’t really a stalker” in a snotty, bitchy, almost condescending voice. As if the look on the voice’s face would be snarled and ugly and judging. As if it would have one of those faces that I would never make eye contact with.

I don’t know why I used that label – it just stuck. I don’t know what he was. Even now, years later, I sit here and type, delete, type, delete, type, delete. I try to find another title that encompasses the bottled rage, hatred, ugly, angry mean that he was; there isn’t one.

I hate talking about it. HATE it. It never makes sense – people never understand. I don’t even understand. My memory of it is skewed anyway and the whole thing was so surreal that I usually have to call my best friend and fact-check. I still make phone calls consisting of “did that really happen?” even though I know it all happened but she was there and she was not the one cracking open and having a nervous breakdown.

Every single time me and myself have this conversation about how much I hate talking about this, I say to myself “this is bullshit. Don’t you give him all that power. YOU are in control – if you still can’t talk about it, he is still winning. BUCK UP BABY. THIS IS YOUR SHOW. RAWR!” and then my stomach caves in and my throat closes up and 2,125 miles from where I lived back then, I check the lock on the front door. Stupid (says the bitchvoice).

I’ve told most of it to my husband. All out of order and shaky and disconnected. I waited till none of my stories made sense without the mysterious part I kept leaving out. I think I blurted it all out after a bottle of wine. Then my best friend came and put it all in order and cleaned up the ragged edges and I guess he got all the major events down. He didn’t ask me to elaborate unless something just wouldn’t add up without more details and I left some out that I knew would make him cringe too painfully. I know it is hard for him to hear about me hurting and being afraid – he wants to jump in and rescue me. I know what that feels like, because the whole ordeal sounds like it happened to someone else and when I hear it, I want to jump in and rescue me too.

Recently, Janet showed up. Her nearness and my fear of it conjuring up old ghosts has made me realize that it’s time to get it out.

STALKER – PART 1

Once upon a time there was a girl.

She lived in an apartment with her youngest, who at the time was called her ‘only’ because this was a long, long time ago. She lived in the city and had a cool job. She ate cool food, drank cool liquor and smoked cool cigarettes. She was cool. If you asked her, she would tell you just how cool, too. She and her son went to parks, malls and museums. They went for walks and carousel rides and grocery stores and weren’t afraid of anything. They were both cool.

One day, She got a babysitter and went to a bar. She wanted to take a break from being a mommy and being responsible, so she drank and drank and drank until she began feeling very brave. Soon, she saw a boy. The boy wasn’t just any ordinary boy, either – he was the kind of boy she would never ordinarily talk to. Not because she was scared or shy or afraid – but because he was not her kind of boy. He was a way-too-cool-for-you boy. He wasn’t dressed like any of the other boys here – he was different. His eyes were brooding and he was dark. He had tattoos and spiky hot pink in his hair. He was whiskey while these other boys were wine coolers. He was The Cure while all these other boys were The Beach Boys. He looked like he thought he was dangerous and that pissed the girl off. She wasn’t afraid of any boy – certainly not one with stupid hair. She was way cooler than him; and she planned on making sure he knew that.

The stupid-haired boy would never make eye contact with the girl. Even when he rode his bike by her apartment while she sat on the step with her friends in the summer. Sometimes he would ride right up into the yard and talk with her and her friends without ever looking at her or at any of them. His eyes would always dart – over heads and around corners – he was never really there when he was there and that pissed the girl off. She was way cooler than whatever he was on the lookout for, and she planned on making sure he knew that.

The girl was used to getting what she wanted and when she didn’t, she was used to just wanting something better, and getting that. She didn’t really want the stupid-haired boy to love her – just to want her – so she could tell him no. She was big-headed like that. She wanted to knock that too-cool off his face because back then, it was all just a game, and she wanted to win.

The girl and the stupid-haired boy started hanging out sometimes. Only sometimes, though, because the stupid-haired boy didn’t really like any of the girls’ friends and the girl didn’t really want her son getting all chummy with the stupid-haired boy. Eventually, avoiding the chumminess between her son and the stupid-haired boy took up half of the girls’ time and the stupid-haired boy took up the other half, so she stopped hanging out with her friends. They were getting to be a real pain anyway – they all thought the stupid-haired boy was creepy and weird and had too many secrets.

The girl thought so too, but it wasn’t like it mattered. It wasn’t like he was her boyfriend. He was just a stupid guy and she was bored so it’s not like ‘weird and creepy’ even mattered. She wasn’t planning on keeping him – just keeping him around for a little while. The girl didn’t see any harm in that – and besides – he wasn’t really around all that much anyway. He would disappear sometimes for days at a time and then show up demanding attention from the girl. The girl thought this was part of the silly game and laughed at him and all his needy ways.

The stupid-haired boy had lots and lots of excuses for why he would disappear and they were never normal reasons. His biological mother just showed up in town and he went to spend some time with her because they had never met before. She told him all about how his biological father raped her and he needed some time to deal with that. The woman who owns the building he lives in? Her husband just up and died right out of nowhere, leaving her and her kids all alone – he had to go help her with her kids and fix her car and her pipes and her roof – she’s just like an aunt to him. That young girl that always hangs out at his restaurant? She was homeless but she didn’t want anyone to know. Her parents kicked her out because she’s gay and when she tried to tell them her dad beat up really really bad, and her mom just couldn’t take it, so they kicked her out on the streets. He was off helping her get settled in with a good friend that would take good care of her. She really had no one else in the whole world who cared about her but him and his really good friend. The excuses went on and on and the girl believed all of them, because why would he lie? It’s not like they were serious – its not like it mattered.

Eventually, the girl’s lease was up. Luckily, the stupid-haired boy had began managing the building that he lived in because the poor woman who owns it just couldn’t function anymore since her husband just up and died. The stupid-haired boy would give the girl a good deal; no damage deposit and low rent – available after just a few repairs (that the girl would happily take care of). The apartment was small – tiny really – but her son could have the bedroom and the living room would double as her bedroom. It was perfect – the girl jumped on it. She loaded all her belongings into the basement (she still had to paint the unfinished wood floors) and shrugged off her old apartment and the big shiny locks on its doors. Her new apartment didn’t have locks yet but as soon as the stupid-haired boy installed them, she was sure it would start feeling safe and secure and just like a home.

STALKER – PART 2

The girl starting seeing more and more of the stupid-haired boy; he lived next door to her now and his restaurant was just across the street from her office. Conveniently, her son was in a daycare in the very same building as the stupid-haired boys’ restaurant, so seeing him ‘on accident’ easy.

The girl and the stupid-haired boy started to act like a boyfriend and girlfriend – but only in private – because the stupid-haired boy needed to be seen as professional in the community whereas the girl had no self-respect. At least, that’s what the stupid-haired boy told her. It was embarrassing the way she wanted to visit his restaurant on her lunch hour and drop by his apartment unannounced. She was starting to get needy.

The stupid-haired boy couldn’t handle needy women. He told the girl all about how he was raised with no touching, no holding, no loving, and how that’s how he needed it to be still. He told her about how he was abandoned by his biological mother and given up for adoption, only to be taken in by a cold, abusive and evil woman whom he ran far, far away from, as soon as he was old enough to run. He said the girl should stop acting so needy, because she might scare him off, like the cold, abusive and evil woman did.

Eventually, the stupid-haired boy told the girl that he should probably just bring her lunch in her office from now on. He knew how embarrassed she must have been to have appeared so needy in front of his friends in his restaurant and he wanted to spare her that shame. The girl thought this was silly, because she had never met any of the stupid-haired boys’ friends and didn’t feel embarrassed at all. She would play along, though, because asking for clarification from him had become exhausting and it always made his eyes dart faster and that had become unnerving to the girl.

The stupid-haired boys’ eyes had started to dart faster and faster every day.

He never showed up when he said he would and when he finally did, he was just off. Just, wrong. Sometimes he would show up and the girl would feel like he was someone else, just wearing the stupid-haired boys’ skin. He would move and talk and even fight different. He would start talking about things that the girl didn’t know about – as if he had forgotten that some subjects were still secret or like he had mistaken her for someone else. He would say “and about him, that man? He said no.” and if the girl appeared puzzled, the stupid-haired boy got angry, and angry on the stupid-haired boy looked like no other angry the girl had ever met.

He didn’t yell and he didn’t hit. He didn’t stomp or ball his fists or grunt under his breath. When the stupid-haired boy got angry he imploded. He folded in on himself and collapsed. He absorbed all the air in the room and turned the girls lungs inside out. He melted. And then he disappeared.
He would show back up two, sometimes three or four days later as if nothing happened, and as if he had never been gone. He would show back up as the original stupid-haired boy, in his own skin and the girl learned very quickly that his disappearances should simply be accepted and not questioned, so as not to cause another of these episodes. The girl got very very good at avoiding the stupid-haired boys’ anger because she thought that his particular kind of anger was much scarier and more dangerous than the boys in her past who actually threw fists.

Sometimes, the girl thought the stupid-haired boy had learned how to read her mind. The girl knew this was silly, but she couldn’t think of any other way he could know so much. One day, she was on the phone in her tiny apartment discussing the stupid-haired boy and her frustration with his disappearing ways. She told her friend “I deserve better than that. I deserve to be treated like a fucking princess, not a fucking afterthought!” and suddenly, the stupid-haired boy called to say he needed to talk, now.

He came over to tell her that he was so sorry. He had been thinking about her and how he had been treating her, and he saw, now, that she deserved better. “you should be treated like a princess” he said, “not an afterthought”. The girl was astonished. He was like magic.

Once he even burst through her lockless door with a hot cup of coffee and a fresh bagel, just ten minutes after she’d ended an email to her friend with a note about how nice a hot cup of coffee and a fresh bagel would be. It was like he could hear and see everything she was saying and doing in her tiny apartment.

But that was silly.

STALKER – PART 3

The girl started to pay more attention to the stupid-haired boys’ stories.

She had noticed that things weren’t adding up and some of his stories ran right into others. The cold, abusive and evil woman who once needed running away from would show up in other stories with apple pie and needlepoint, nurturing and loving; someone he needed to spend time with in what could prove to be her last days. The poor building owner whose husband had up and died showed up in other stories needing respite from an abusive husband; someone in need of the stupid-haired boy and his expertise in hiding away for days at a time. The homeless girl who’d been rejected by her family and strewn out onto the streets for their intolerance of her homosexuality showed up pregnant in another story; her boyfriend of years simply deserted her when she refused to have an abortion.

The girl started to suspect that the stupid-haired boy was simply a liar and that she should just be finished with him. She would tell him that his stories didn’t make sense and he was exhausting her. She would tell him that she needed more than he was giving her. She would say all the words she needed to say and he would listen, too, because she deserved that. But the stupid-haired boy didn’t hear her because he wouldn’t hear her so the girl called her friend and told her instead.

The girl told her friend all the stories and all the reasons that they didn’t make sense. She told her friend all about how the stupid-haired boy wouldn’t go places with her but would show up at those places and watch her from far away, because sometimes men will victimize women when they see them out alone and he needed to protect her from those men. She told her friend about how he would confuse her when she would confront him about things and how he would disappear when she upset him and how she couldn’t even pin him down long enough to tell him that these things didn’t sound so logical when she retold them. She did not tell her friend that she thought that he was listening to her conversations from somewhere because that made her feel like a crazy person.

He was listening. She was sure. And she knew that if he was listening to this conversation, he would show up any minute, and he did. The stupid-haired boy roared into her tiny apartment with that anger that took up the air in the room and turned it into fire. This anger terrified the girl and made her whole body go numb and then burn. She apologized and cried and pleaded with him to forgive her but he would not speak. The stupid-haired boy tore through the plastic on the box he carried in and with hands shaking, installed a lock on her previously lockless door.The girl pleaded for him to sit down and talk with her about this – she was sure there was an explanation for everything – she promised to believe him. He wouldn’t, and this pissed the girl off. “You didn’t even give me the fucking key!!” was all she could think of to scream at the back of his head when he walked out.

The girl was beside herself. She was elated with the proof that she was right, he was listening. She was enraged at the nerve of his dramatic entrance and exit, embarrassed at her reaction to his anger. The girl locked her new lock to keep him out, smirking at herself for pretending that he would even come back, and went to bed – she would fix this in the morning.

But sleeping didn’t bring peace and morning certainly didn’t bring fixing. Exhausted from tossing and turning all night but finally dressed and make-up’ed and presentable, she heaved her sleeping son on her shoulder and turned to walk out her front door. ‘Asshole’ she thought when she looked at the new lock. She turned it and pulled the knob, turned and pulled again when it wouldn’t open. Turned and pulled and turned and pulled and got more and more upset that the stupid-haired boy obviously installed the lock wrong. Clearly. On accident, certainly. She put down her son and pulled and pushed the door and turned and turned the lock but nothing moved and she began to realize that this was not a locked door – it had no give, no rattle. This was a rock hard, solid as concrete blocked door. This was a you locked me out so I locked you in door.

The girl, fingers bleeding and with sheer irrational panic threatening to swallow her, went to the only window in her tiny apartment, the only logical way to out because out was all she could think about, because out had to happen first before run and she really wanted to run, and there was the stupid-haired boy. And he was laughing. And in that slow-motion second, she thought “why have I never seen him laugh before?” and then “what is so fucking funny?” and then “I don’t know how to get out of this”.

And that was when the girl first started to unravel.

STALKER – PART 4

One day, the girl was walking on the street, slipping through the city being invisible, as she had become accustom to, when the first other one erupted from the crowd and announced herself.

‘J’ said she was happy to meet the girl and curious about her and wanted to know just who she was.

The girl was just a girl and she told J that, but J knew the girl was more than just a girl; she knew that the girl was of some interest to the stupid-haired boy, and she wanted to know why.

The girl was intrigued. She had not met anyone from the stupid-haired boys’ world, and J was nothing that she would have expected. She looked like sunshine – there was no way she would even visit the stupid-haired boys’ darkness.

Eventually, the girl learned that the stupid-haired boy had many, many different worlds, and many many different visitors. She learned that there were lots and lots of other ones, and that they all met the stupid-haired boy in their other worlds. He was different ages, went by different names, took different drugs. He was from different states, different families, different addresses. He smoked different cigarettes. Drank different alcohol. In every one of the stupid-haired boys’ worlds, he was someone else completely.

And the world that the girl was caught in had taken a turn for the very bad. She had gotten a call from another one. This other one was hateful and mean and wanted to believe that the girl made this all up. She demanded answers from the girl and the girl just answered her. Told this other one that she wasn’t the only other one and that she hoped this hateful other one stayed safe, and out of the stupid-haired boys’ way. She begged the hateful other one to stay safe and away. The hateful other one hung up.

The girl thought that part was over but the hateful other one called back, afraid and crying. The stupid-haired boy had shown up with bloody hands and shaky. Eyes darting and jumping with a story of having been mugged in the city, behind his restaurant, on his way to her. The hateful other one would have believed him except, she said, that he seemed so excited. He wasn’t a boy fresh from a mugging – he was a boy fresh from the carnival. He was giddy, and the hateful other one told him to leave, and he left. The hateful other one wanted to hear everything, again, and she would listen this time, and so the girl told her.

The girl didn’t sleep.

Before the sun came up, the girls mother called. The girls’ brother was in the hospital, broken.

Broken jaw, broken hands. Someone broke him in the city the night before right by your office her mother said. Behind that restaurant she said. Someone broke him into pieces and took all the money he was carrying and left him there bleeding. Her brother couldn’t remember the attack, couldn’t speak, but the girl knew who broke him, and she shattered into a million shards of dirty, guilty glass.

She called the hateful other one, but she was already gone, lost in his world where she could no longer hear the girl.

The stupid-haired boy had come back with a ring that he saved and saved and saved for. She was going to have picket fence and stupid-haired babies and the girl should shut up and let her. The girl made sure that the hateful other one knew that she was wearing her broken brothers’ blood on her finger.

The girl stayed in a heightened state of speeding awareness; she felt responsible for everything, everywhere.

There was a new other one that worked at the daycare. The stupid-haired boy tried one day to take the girls’ son and‘go for a walk’. This new other one had stopped him because he wasn’t on a list and she wasn’t convinced he was someone that should take a child. The girl thanked God Himself that this other one was there, then, but this new other one was now caught up in one of the stupid-haired boys’ worlds. Now she was enamored with him and his elusive ways and the girl wasn’t convinced that she would save her son again. She was convinced, though, that this new other one was going to get hurt, and that no one but the girl would be to blame.

Every event seemed to be happening as a direct result of the girls’ actions and she stopped being able to differentiate between the things she was worried might happen and the things that had happened.

Everything that hadn’t happened just hadn’t happened yet. She thought if she could keep watching him, watching her, he couldn’t hurt anyone else. She had decided that it would be better if he just hurt her, if he must hurt someone, so she just kept waiting for it to happen.

The stupid-haired boy was everywhere, all the time. The girl had started to simply live as if she were on display, because whenever she couldn’t lay her eyes on him, it was because he was just watching from up or behind or under. Sometimes it felt like he watched her with other peoples eyes in other peoples’ heads. He still simply seemed to know too much for someone that hadn’t spoken directly to her since he unblocked her door and uncaged her, since he made it unmistakably clear that he was the keeper and she was the kept. It was hard to believe that all this crazy had happened in just under a month.

And when it had been a month, the girl started sinking.

“I don’t know how to get out of this” stamped itself on the girl like a badge. It labeled her and attached itself to who she was. It was her silent and private cry for help.

Please help me get out of this reverberated in her head and threatened to seep out of her mouth when she had conversations – so she stopped having them. It screamed at her when the phone rang – maybe that’s how to get out of this – but it never was, so she stopped answering the phone. She stopped going to work and to the store. She didn’t dare dream of museums or riding carousels in the park with her son. She couldn’t leave her tiny apartment because out there caused time to move forward too fast and days to add up.

She waited and waited and waited to buy a test. Maybe it was stress. Maybe she’d lost count. Maybe it was because she wasn’t eating. Maybe she was drinking too much. Maybe she was dying. Maybe a hundred things. Anything but this thing.

STALKER – PART 5

There was no other thing.

The ‘this thing’ that the girl has most afraid of was true: she was pregnant. Not sick or dying: pregnant. Not going to be okay and not getting out of this. She simply couldn’t figure out how this would end or why she wasn’t dying or what was supposed to come of this and she simply came apart.
The Best Friend tried so hard to hold her together, but there was no glue left in the girl, so The Best Friend just started picking up her pieces, saving them in case someday the girl might ask for them back.

The girl took herself to a doctor and tried to pretend it was a quick fix. She tried to never think about it again. She tried to never remember the day that she’d told The Best Friend she felt pregnant with evil and feared that she always, always would be. The girl swallowed the awful, dirty secret and chased it with whiskey and wine and booze of all colors until the taste of it seemed more like an illusion then a real-life memory. It took years for the girl to realized that the aftertaste would never fade, and she would have to spit it back out.

The girl decided to go from being in danger to being dangerous. She stopped hiding behind shadows and started jumping into them, daring the stupid-haired boy to just end this. She walked all over the city and all over the stupid-haired boys’ worlds. She walked all around the other ones’ homes and offices and cars. She wanted them to see how many pieces she had torn into. She thought eventually, they would tell the stupid-haired boy and he would finally entomb her in that furious anger that she had been so frightened of. She couldn’t hide from his anger anymore; she craved it and couldn’t think of any better reprieve from the chaos her life had burst into. She thought “you started this” over and over and “the least you could do is finish it with the evil and hate you started it with” and “you win. I give up. you win.” but he didn’t come and he never claimed any victory.

The girl started seeing the looks on the other ones’ faces, one by one, as they started to worry about her. She thought, “they see this, what he’s done, and they will save themselves from him, surely” but she eventually learned that they wouldn’t. The stupid-haired boy had simply woven the girl into his stories, killing her off over and over, whenever he needed her to suffer.

He’d painted himself as a hero willing to rescue her, told them that he’d tried and tried to help her, but she was a junky and loved her fix more than her child. Told them that she eventually lost her son and overdosed alone.

He’d told them that she’d lost her house trying to pay off medical bills after being diagnosed with cancer. That without a home, she lost her job, and then her insurance. Told them that she’d finally given up the fight out on the street with her son – who knew where that kid ended up.

And then he told them that she was his stalker – that he was afraid of what she would do and say to ruin him. Told them that he’d rejected her, like a gentleman, but she couldn’t accept it. Told them that if they heard stories that she’d been threatened or hurt or had even been pregnant, it was simply a ploy to ruin him.

The looks on the other ones faces was of worry, and they were afraid. They did want to save themselves, but not from the stupid-haired boy; he’d made them afraid of the girl.

The girl had answered her door to see thugs that he’d sent to hurt her, awoke to him hovering over and staring at her, entered her tiny apartment to find things dead and rotting, feared for the lives of her son, her family, herself – and they were afraid of her.

The girl had walked through a line of raging protesters, pictures in hands of babies in pieces, spitting “sinner” at her, pushing and pulling and begging her not to ‘take the easy way out of this’ to get to a room where ‘easy’ has never been uttered and ‘out of this’ has never been achieved, because she didn’t know how else to save herself while the other ones acted as if they needed to save themselves from her.

And then when they would get scared and suspicious, they would find the girl and demand that she retell them, again, what she’d begged them to hear all along. If she did, they didn’t believe her. If she shared her pain, they still looked sideways at her. In the end, the ugly other ones always put themselves back in his danger. In a pinch, they could always draw on being better than the girl and look down their noses; after all, they would have never ‘taken the easy way out’. Sharing her pain with them was not helpful, it was horrible. They rubbed salt in her wounds and smirked at her agony, every chance they could.

The girl was sickened and sad and flattened. She ran in the middle of the night with her son and as much as she could take, and left everything else behind. She found a house where the stupid-haired boy and his other ones wouldn’t find her and tried to start being normal.

She brought herself to another doctor when she feared that her mind was irreparably broken and wouldn’t fit back together. He called it a nervous breakdown and PTSD and patched her up with pills and told her to mourn her loss and be finished, because what was done was done. He was wrong.
The girl mourned and mourned and then eventually started to heal. The Best Friend did save all of her pieces and still gives them back, one by one, when the girl asks for them, but she still can only ask for one at a time.

The girl wishes she could end this story with lightning and fire crackers. She wishes she could say that the stupid-haired boy learned his lesson, got his payback, payed his dues – but she can’t, because as far as she knows, he didn’t.

There have been times over the years that she thought she might just find him and pay him back, teach him the lesson, charge him the dues. In the end, though, she won’t. She knows that nothing the stupid-haired boy ever did to her was as painful as what she did to herself for years and years after.

Pretty soon, the stupid-haired boy was no longer even part of the girls’ story. He doesn’t even get a real name in her story.

In the end, the girl was ok. She is ok. And she learned that telling her story, her way, would be her way of getting out of it. Her way of winning. Her way of healing.

The End.

This Blessed Mess

Monday, July 27, 2009

Being Better

Monday, July 20, 2009

THE GODDESS IS COMING

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Incredible Exploding Family

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

The Stalker Story