What happens to a pacifist when reality intrudes.
Stalked
Seraphic Secret blog
"He's going to kill me."
"Have you gone to the police?"
Scowling like a child who's just tasted nasty medicine, she says:
"Yes, of course I have."
"And what happened?"
She shakes her head from side to side, wraps her arms protectively around her chest.
"I have a restraining order against Ned, that's my ex-boyfriend. But you know what good that is."
"Tell me."
She inscribes a big zero in the air.
Five Minutes Earlier
It's crowded in the gun shop. There's the usual cross-section of customers: two elderly black women who have been robbed countless times by drug-addicts. Ignored by the LAPD, they have no choice but to buy a gun for self-defense. The black women are sisters and wear colorful bonnets. Yup, they dressed up to come to the gun shop.
There are a couple of hunters buying high-powered, high-tech ammunition; they sound like Los Alamos scientists as they discuss the exquisite physics of various exotic slugs. It's way beyond my comprehension.
Two Marines on leave are supplementing their regulation M16's with a couple of high-capacity Glocks. Semper Fi.
There's also a young Hispanic apartment manager who lives in a high-crime area, his wife just had a baby and he wants to protect his family from the local "desperados."
I'm waiting my turn and so is a young, nervous girl. She's wearing a cream colored linen baby doll with blue grosgrain trim; on her feet, pink flip-flops that just pop off her white skin; her hair is the color of Kansas corn. Mid-twenties, she's the iconic all-American girl.
Looking as if she's on the edge of a meltdown, she paces, glances at the display cases lined with gleaming rows of pistols and revolvers. She makes a move as if to leave the gun shop, then returns, as if yanked by a fishing reel.
"Excuse me, do you, do you know about guns?"
She's talking to me.
"A bit."
"I'm terrified of guns."
I hold out my hands as if checking for rain.
"Sounds crazy, I know, thing is—do you think the salesman is going to be much longer?"
"There's tons of paperwork if you buy a gun. Tons."
Her eyes dart about, then she just looks at me straight-on:
"Thing is, he's going to kill me."
That's when she tells me about Ned; Ned the inevitable, the bad, the obsessive ex-boyfriend.
Ned has turned into a stalker, a human virus who has infected every aspect of her life.
She speaks of restraining orders: "The thing about them is that people like Ned always find a way around them. He's there on my computer. He's a computer guy, for Chrissakes. He knows when I start going out with a new man and he makes sure to tell the new guy all sorts of lies about me, and you think the guy sticks around? No man wants that level of drama. I've moved twice already and he always finds me. He's always there. Sometimes I wake up at night, go to my window and I'm telling you he's watching me. Hey, I'm sorry for unloading on you. You must think I'm such a loser chick."
"It's fine. I feel awful for you. And it's good you're taking steps to protect yourself. It's admirable. Men like Ned count on women being defenseless."
She pauses. Looks down at the display of guns.
"I can't believe I'm here. I've been against guns and violence my whole life."
"Did Ned threaten you, physically, I mean?"
"Said I belong to him and no one else. That's about it. But I know what he means."
"What did the police say?"
"The last cop, as he was leaving, whispered for me to get a gun."
I tell her that owning a gun isn't sufficient. She has to take safety classes, self-defense classes. She has to know what she's doing. I grab NRA brochures from the counter, make her promise that she'll sign up as soon as she gets her gun in ten days.
"Ten days?" she cries.
"First you have to take a test, here in the store, a written test. They'll give you a booklet to study from. Then you get a certificate making you eligible to buy a weapon in California. After you purchase the gun there's a ten-day waiting period until you take possession."
"But why?"
"Background check. To make sure you're not a felon, a psychopath, an illegal immigrant, a terrorist, a drug addict; it's the law."
Once again, she wraps her arms around her chest, as if she's trying to keep her heart rooted inside her body.
"Ned's really clever — and creep like you wouldn't believe."
I do not ask her why she went out with Ned in the first place. The answer is obvious: psychopaths are clever at disguising their pathologies. Evil is seductive.
"You're going to be okay. I know you are."
Bird-like, she shrugs, scans a row of guns:
"Are those good?"
"Those are .45 automatics. Probably too much gun for you. I'd recommend a simple revolver. Probably a Smith & Wesson J frame, a .38. But we'll see what the salesman have to say, they are really experts here, okay?"
She smiles, her first since I've met her.
"Cool."
"One piece of advice, even before you buy a gun, and this is important."
"Yeah?"
"Lose the flip-flops."
She looks down at her feet. Curls her toes, laquered a hot psychedelic pink.
"Huh?"
"You can't run or manuever in those things. Get in the habit of wearing a good solid pair of running shoes."
"Oh, right. What was I thinking?"
I lead her to the case that holds the wheel guns, guns that are easy to load, easy to handle, never jam, fool-proof. She scans the display.
Finally she looks up at me and says: "What's to stop Ned from killing me in the next ten days?"
Hours later, I tell Karen about the conversation. In the background FOX Cable News is reporting the brutal murder of a pregnant woman. The chief suspect is her ex-boyfriend, a man with a history of stalking women.
"I'm terrified I'm going to wake up one day and see that she's been murdered. Maybe I should have done more."
"What more could you have done?"
Shrugging, I admit I have no idea.
But Ned is out there, obsessively dreaming, watching, waiting for the right moment — to make her his own.
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