I MOVE INTO MY NEW APARTMENT TWO WEEKS LATER. I don’t know what Doyle/Brian told his father, and I don’t care. I saw the fear in his eyes when I smashed the gun into his nose and heard the crack, and that was good enough for me. He’d do what I said … for a little while at least. And then he’ll start thinking about how he can fuck me over. But that won’t be for a while. It will take months for his little pinprick brain to work out a plan.
In the meantime, I’ll enjoy my new apartment. Take life one day at a time. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. I take long walks. Always in a new place. Sometimes I drive thirty minutes … forty … just to go to a new park, a new pathway. A new walk. I don’t know what I’m scared of. People recognizing me? There was an old lady at the park near my apartment. I walked there every day until she started saying hello. So I chose a different park, a new park, until someone there started waving at me. When people look at me, I’m convinced they can see the blood. The blood of all the humans whose lives I’ve taken. Dripping down my face and running off the tips of my fingers like Carrie when Chris and Billy dump the pig’s blood over her head. I am so afraid that someone will see me for who I am.
I think of Judah. Always. Of his hands, and eyes, and voice. If I keep him with me, I don’t feel so afraid. I think I’ve convinced myself that Judah can save me, but wasn’t Judah the one who sent me running in the first place? Do we create our own heroes and then kill them with the truth? Judah is just a man, not the god I made him. If I can tell him this, then maybe…
A strange thing happens. There is a man—a not-so-small man, in fact, he’s rather large in the shoulders. I see him in the most recent park I’m frequenting. The park with a playground: a giant pirate ship rising from the dirt, a colorful shipwreck where children can flip alphabet blocks and gaze through a looking glass toward Rainier. Their colorfully clad legs scamper over and under, screaming and laughing and darting around each other.
He’s standing against a tree, smoking. There is something about his body language that tells me he doesn’t belong. He’s merely observing. I follow the train of his eyes. He’s not watching the children, thank God. I feel the tension leave my shoulders when I realize this. He’s watching the group of mothers. Intently. This, too, could be harmless—a husband trying to get his wife’s attention, a man who thinks he recognizes someone from his past. I go through each possible scenario in my mind, but nothing I tell myself can save him. He’s prickling the hairs on the back of my neck, making my stomach ache. I begin to hear that silent alarm, the same one I heard when I watched Lyndee for all those months. You’re crazy, I tell myself. You’re looking for things.
I turn away, start to leave, but I am half way to my car when I stop. The men who bought nights with my mother … they looked at her that way. The way he was looking at one of those women, with unguarded lust. Like she was an object he got to use. Use. I feel my skin crawl. My heart slows. Ohgodohgodohgod. What am I thinking? I can’t walk away. I take the long way around—through the trees—and the whole time I tell myself how crazy I am. I try to make myself want to stop, go back to the Jeep, hole up in my apartment with movies. I have so many movies I still need to see, I’m working my way through the eighties: Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Julia Roberts…
I can see his back, the littering of cigarette butts around his tennis shoes. He comes here often. He’s chain smoking. I look for the box. I want to know what he smokes, if it’s the healthy kind. I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing. I think I just want to watch him, watch her. Watch who? I study the playground, the moms. He’s staring toward a bench where three women are sitting. Two blondes, one brunette.
Which one is it, you fuck?
I stand there for another ten minutes before he moves. I duck behind a thick blackberry bramble, as he stubs out his last cigarette, casts one more glance over his shoulder, and walks back down the path. He’s noisy, cracking branches and stomping around. But he has no reason to be quiet, because he’s done nothing wrong. When he’s gone, I look toward the bench. The brunette. She’s leaving with her kids, grabbing them by the hands as they try to escape and run back toward the playground. I smile because it’s funny to watch. Then I glance back the way he went.
“When you don’t have anything, you don’t have anything to lose, right?” I whisper to myself. Good ol’ Samantha Baker and her sage wisdom.
I follow him.
His car—a dark blue Nissan. Nondescript. Then I follow him to the corner store where he buys new cigarettes. He doesn’t smoke the healthy ones. Just crappy, old Camels. I’m disappointed. He drives to 405, lazy, like he has all the time in the world. A couple of cars honk at him and speed by. He gives one the finger, the other he waves at. He heads south. What’s south? Burien … Federal Way … Tacoma … I’m still here—three cars behind, two cars over. I’m ready to cross three lanes of traffic if he decides to exit. He exits in Lacey; he even puts on his blinker to make it easy for me.
“Why thank you,” I say. I make sure to keep a couple cars between us. Three rights and a left. I follow him for a few more miles until he turns down a private driveway, overgrown with weeds and sprinkled with trash. I keep driving. It’s almost dark. I pull into a gas station a mile down the road. I go in, buy a pack of Camels. I ask the guy working the register if I can leave my car there for a few minutes. I saw a house for sale and wanted to walk back up the street and take a look. He’s so stoned he doesn’t care. I light the smoke with my pink Zippo as I walk. It tastes wheaty.
I focus on the gravel beneath my boots—my favorite sound. I am calm, because I don’t know what I’m doing yet. No raging heart, no erratic breathing. Just me and this awesome gravel. I am stalking this dude for no good reason. That makes me crazy, right? Maybe not. Maybe I’m just curious.
He lives in a house. Number 999. Two stories. His blue Nissan is the only one in the drive. There is a light on upstairs. The bedroom? I watch it for a few minutes before I get bored. His mailbox is on the street. I walk back down the dirt drive and look around before I open the latch. He obviously doesn’t care to get his mail, the box is stuffed with mailers, catalogs … I search for a bill.
“Mr. Leroy Ashley,” I say softly.
I take his bank statement … and a catalog … and his Netflix movie, tucking them into the back of my jeans.
I crunch gravel back to my car, humming softly to myself. “Now I know where you live, and I have a new movie to watch.”
As it turns out, Leroy Ashley has terrible taste in movies. I watch the whole thing anyway—a sci-fi flick about aliens impregnating humans. Ugh. Gross, Leroy. I turn away when one of the characters performs an abortion on herself. When the movie is over, I eat the rest of my popcorn while reading through Leroy’s credit card statement.
Arby’s, Arby’s, Arby’s. There are a couple large purchases from a chain sporting goods store. One of those large places that sell guns, and tents, and clothes. There are a couple charges from a company called Companionship. The varying increments tell me he’s probably calling 900-numbers for a little spicy phone sex.
“Do you ask for a brunette, Leroy?” I say out loud. I put the first page aside and begin scrolling down the second. There is a charge from Mercedes Hospital for four hundred and twenty dollars. Directly below that, a charge from a pharmacy.
“Hmmm,” I say. “What’s in your medicine cabinet, fool?”
The catalog is Victoria’s Secret. Unless Leroy has a wife, or wears D-cups in his spare time, I take it he uses these when he’s not utilizing the 900-number.
“I’m not judging you yet,” I tell him. “Juuuust checking.”
This is how it happens though, isn’t it? I become fascinated with someone, and then I stalk them. Stalk is a harsh word. Follow? Yes, I follow them for a while. Just to make sure … I am super precautious like that.
I rub my eyes. I’m in a weird mood. I think of Judah to bring myself back down.