I've got something like fifty or sixty kids in my 16-credit program. I've got twenty in my evening class, the four-credit class. I've got about twenty kids I tutor in the Writing Center, and about twenty-five or thirty colleagues there as well. Plus, add in a newspaper staff, former dorm-mates, and classmates from two previous quarters. I feel like I'm supposed to know damn near everybody on this campus.
I'm not good with names.
So yesterday when a kid walked up to me and said, "hey," and I didn't know his name, it wasn't all that unusual.
I said, "hey, how's it going," and set about the task of trying to figure out who the hell he was and where I knew him from.
Hell, just knowing where I KNEW the kid from was a step in the right direction; not knowing his NAME wasn't the biggest deal in the world; putting him into SOME sort of context was the important thing. Alas, I couldn't even do that.
He said: "You write, don't you? You have a journal?"
The Writing class... He's from there... We're supposed to be keeping these journals, five minutes a day of writing whatever comes to mind... That's where he's from...
But that wasn't it either.
But then again, it isn't polite to say to somebody "who ARE you?"
I said: "Yeah, I've got my journal..."
He said: "The online thing..."
I said: "Uh... yeah."
"Wet Cleanup in the Produce Section or something like that."
"Yeah, that's the one."
By this point I was a little freaked. Just a little.
He said: "I saw you one day, walking into the Bayview Thriftway downtown... and I'd never seen a picture of you, I don't think you have any on your website... But I knew it was you when I saw you there at Thriftway."
I said: "Uh-huh...?"
He seemed super proud of himself. I felt creepy. I was suddenly sure that this kid was not one of the kids from my Writing class. I gave up all pretension of politeness. Kid was creepin' me the hell out. I stopped smiling. I asked, point blank: "Who ARE you?"
He didn't answer, just skipped right over the question like he hadn't even heard me.
He said: "I've read the last three years of your life."
I said: "Uh-huh..."
Then he said, "Well, take care." And he walked away.
Who WAS he?
The only person I can IMAGINE that kid being was the "stalker" from last winter and spring. Remember? Dude found a personal ad I stupidly put online because I was feeling lonely and friendless? Read my entire journal, cover to cover, and then started following me around town trying to "find" me. Dude went down to my favorite coffeehouse once to "scope out," my friend who worked there. He couldn't ask me if I wanted to go GET coffee with him, he had to try to "find" me. Really fucked up individual. I told you guys about this freak in April. He had me so freaked out that I wouldn't walk across campus alone at night anymore; I was calling the cops to escort me places, because I was afraid this stupid piece of shit was going to be right around the next corner.
If you're obsessed with somebody to the point of following them around, trying to "find" them, and "scoping out" their friends, but you're weird enough not to be able to invite them out to a bar or a coffeehouse to meet, you are, in my book, a STALKER. And you know, I don't LIKE stalkers.
Because what ELSE might they do? THAT was why I had the campus cops escort me places.
I hate that kid. I really hate him. He's fucked up in the head.
I cannot imagine that this person who confronted me yesterday was anybody BUT the stalker. Who else in Olympia would have read three years' worth of my journal entries? Who else would be weird enough to just walk up to me, mention that he'd "known" it was me he'd seen at the Bayview Thriftway...
Thing is, there are pictures of me on the internet, and even a few connected to this website. You kind of have to dig around for them. None of them are really very clear. If you saw me walking down the street (or into Bayview Thriftway), you'd never know it was me. How could you? The clues I give in this journal are pretty vague about my appearance. Come up here to Evergreen; there are about a bazillion other 22-year-old chicks wearing bandannas and crappy jeans. You'd NEVER pinpoint me -- unless, that is, you figured out which classes I'm taking (I think I mentioned them in here), figured out where I live (have I mentioned my view?), figured out what businesses I frequent (the Spar, Saturday nights), and then followed me, watching, from there... There's not a chance in the world that somebody from the INTERNET would know me by sight -- unless they got me cornered in a place they figured I'd be, and sat there watching my actions very deliberately. THAT is stalking, and THAT is fucked up.
Why can't this piece of shit leave me the fuck alone already?
I'm a little frightened now -- I admit it.
I remember what Norman told me about "the evil in these woods." He said somebody could drag me off into the trees and they'd never, ever find me. He's right; I know he's right.
And I know Washington's weird like that.
Ted Bundy used to live at Evergreen. (Near Courtney Love's place of residence; too damned bad they never met...) The Green River Killer picked off a couple of chicks 'round these parts.
They'd never, ever find me.
I will not cross campus without some measure of security. Not now that I know there's somebody who's gone WAY out of their way to identify ME, and who has succeeded at "finding" me -- which has been his intention all along. Now I have to think about being safe. Other people around. Weapons. (It's amazing what you can use as a weapon...) Police escorts. And no more walking home from campus at night. Fucking HELL. You stupid fucking bastard; why would you do this to me? Couldn't you at least just say your name? Couldn't you just be fucking SANE? A little bit?
The really frightening part? I was trying so hard to figure out who that guy was, I didn't even get a very good look at his face...
Watch my back...
~Helena*