A Quiet Place Away From The Noise

The Dead Girl In The Front Yard

2004-05-07T18:46:00.000-07:00

OK, here it is. The story I've been hinting at over the past few days. I realize it's long, but I don't really care. Event for event, I'm not sure I'd say this chronicle is tasteless, but taken as a whole, I think it's a rather chilling tale. I suspect most of you will get some entertainment out of what has been the most miserable episode I've been through in years. So, sit back, put your feet up and dig in.

A couple of months back (December, if my memory hasn't failed me), I mentioned that one of my regular stable of lovers had left the fold. I mentioned at the time that I thought it was a shame because we'd been seeing each other for three years, and we'd gotten along well. But, she was determined that she wanted to make a go of it full-time with another man. Well, she came back, and came back with a vengeance.

Now, some of you may think me a bounder and a cad for dating several women at a time, and indeed, a bounder and a cad I may be. But, if I am such, I'm a painfully honest bounder and cad. I'm very up front with all women that I date about my outlook on relationships and dating. I make it clear that I will be seeing other people and I make it equally clear that it's OK with me if they do the same. If they can't handle that, if it runs counter to their views and values, then things don't go any farther. I make sure they know what they're getting into ahead of time, to avoid the anger and venom that comes with finding such things out later.

I'm also well practiced at expressing my desire to remain free from committed relationships with just one person. I did the same with the woman in question hereafter known as The Screamer, when I first started seeing her. I also make it abundantly clear during the course of the relationship that there is no need for histrionics when it's time to quit. If it's time for either of us to move, so be it, we can do so without any friction.

Over the years that I've practiced this approach, I've had zero problems. Well, every streak was meant to be broken, I guess.

Well, a month ago I got a nice pleasant phone call from The Screamer. She inquired how I was doing and shared with me the latest details of her life. She'd broken it off with the guy she'd left me for after he hadn't come across with a marriage proposal, as she had expected he would. She'd asked about us hooking up again, and I told her that I was already seeing other people and wasn't interested in getting back together because I was already too busy. My change of heart had to do with my already having four women in the stable. The times I've had more than four women going at once, I've found it's too hard to keep all the details straight. My saying no to her caused a sudden shift in her attitude and the rest of the conversation was mercifully brief. I hung up the phone and figured that was that.

Wrong!

Three days later, she called me again, but this time it was an angry, hostile call. She reminded me that I'd said I would take her back, when she left in December. She stated this as though it was a contractual right she had negotiated. Then she demanded that I take her back, and, further that I see no one else. In spite of her generous offer, I declined, telling her that things had changed since December, that my feelings had changed, and that I wasn't interested. She started yelling at me over the phone, and at that point, I told her to hang up before I did. I didn't like where this was heading.

Sure enough, a week after that second phone call, I came home to 28 messages on my voice mail. Serial messages; you know, 7:04 to 7:06; 7:07 to 7:09, 7:10 TO 7:11. The content covered the gamut from sad through angry to irrational rambling. Most of the messages started with "Oh, and something else..." then devolved into some truly insane rant. I saved the messages just on the grim chance that I would need them later, if this pattern worsened.

I responded to her calls by calling her and telling her emphatically not to call me again. I let her know that further calls would earn her some negative attention from whatever authorities I could interest I assisting me. She yelled and cursed at me for about five minutes and then broke down in tears and pleaded that I take her back. Yikes! She's gone completely off the trolley. I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach telling me that this was not good.

I woke up the next morning to find a letter from her jammed in my front screen door. Six legal pad pages covered on both sides with her messy scrawl. To call the letter rambling is to judge it kindly. Hidden in amongst the angry screed, one point leapt off the page at me - the sentence where she said if she couldn't have me, she was going to kill me so that no one else could have me. Oh, and she was going to kill Kitty, too. This was about three weeks ago.

Then I didn't hear from her again. No phone calls, no letters, no problems. I let the issue drop from my consciousness and went on with my life. Another week went by and I didn't have any contact with her. I believed that she'd gotten it all out of her system by yelling at me and writing that letter. Grateful that the crisis had passed, I quickly returned to my regular ways and my regular habits. Until the weekend before last (Palm Sunday weekend). She came howling back into my life with a vengeance and fury I could not have anticipated.

I had The Artist staying with me that Friday night. At about 4 AM, we were jolted into consciousness by the sound of breaking glass. I ran downstairs to find a large rock in my living room and the picture window at the front of the house smashed. Sliding on some shoes, I went outside to look around and discovered that The Screamer had been by, and she'd not only broken my window, but she'd spray painted some rather unflattering obscenities on my house. I found out in the light of day that the spray paint was hunter orange, that bright neon red/orange so popular with construction trades. The Artist was freaked out and wanted me to take her home, something about being scared. Pfft, young people. Me? I was too mad to feel scared. I called the police and they sent a car over to check the situation out.

The officer surveyed the damage and wrote out a report. While he was there, I showed him the letter, and played some of the messages I'd recorded earlier. He was sympathetic, but told me there was no way to prove that the vandalism was caused by The Screamer. Further, suggested that I would probably need more evidence before I could get a personal protection order to keep her away.

Saturday and Sunday were spent cleaning up as best I could, and catching up with my insurance agent. By Monday, my anger had subsided enough that I could feel the fear a little more. I called the local police to ask about getting a PPO. The detective I spoke with invited me down to his office. While he was sympathetic, he explained that I probably didn't have enough to get an order with the meager evidence I had (letter, and tape of phone calls). But he brightly assured me that if she did anything else that I could prove was done by her, that I had a strong case. I told him that I hoped the next thing she did wasn't something that resulted in severe injury to me, and he shrugged his shoulders with that "my hands are tied" look.

Fuck! I really wasn't looking forward to finding out what The Screamer's next move was going to be. And, as it turned out, I didn't have long to wait before I found out.

While I was at the cop shop, The Screamer visited my house, and tore up my front yard with her car. She also ran her car into most of my trees and plantings, ruining all of the plantings and several trees, breaking them and/or uprooting them. When I saw this, I just about popped my cork. I entered the house to call the polizei and found 30 some serial messages on my voice mail. Guess who?

Another officer came over and filled out another report. He suggested that the second batch of calls was probably enough evidence to get a PPO, along with the two incidences of vandalism, although I couldn't prove conclusively that she did the vandalism. I taped the new messages, called my insurance agent again to report the new damage and tried to call neighbors to see if anyone had seen anything. Unfortunately, I live in one of those disgusting neighborhoods where everybody is responsible and works. Nobody was home. After that, I set off to the gendarmerie, to see about my PPO.

As soon as I backed out of my drive, I saw The Screamer sitting in her car down the block. I pulled up next to her car and rolled down my window determined that even if she was going to shoot me, I was at least going to give myself the satisfaction of telling her off. Which I did, heart racing and palms sweating. I sped away after telling her a number of things, including that I was on my way to get a court order to keep her away, and that this foolishness was going to stop right now.

After getting to the station, I was sent to speak with the detective I'd spoken with before. When I told him about my encounter with The Screamer on the way over, he perked up and asked if I would drive over to my house with him and point her out, if she was still there. I was more than glad to help, so we hopped in an unmarked car and went over to my house. Thankfully, she was still there when we drove by, so he jotted down some notes about her appearance and the make, model and license number of her car. As we drove back to his office, he calmly assured me that things were under control in that big brother/caring uncle kind of way. It really didn't take the edge off my raw nerves.

Back at the station, I had to fill out some forms and collect all my evidence, then the detective escorted me over to the courthouse where I went before the judge to request a PPO. He was instrumental in helping me because he had witnessed her stalking me. I walked out of the courthouse with a PPO ordering her to remain at least 500 feet from me, to remain at least 500 feet from my property, not to phone me, and to avoid any contact with me.

We returned to his office and I picked up my car to head home. As I drove home, I reflected on how weird this had become. As I mulled that thought over, I looked up in my rear view and saw The Screamer two cars behind me. Yep, she'd escalated to tailing me. Happy, happy, joy, joy. I called the detective from the car and let him know, just as an FYI. I pulled in at a street up ahead, and she pulled in after me, except I'd stopped and gotten out of my car. She pulled to a halt behind my car and I walked back to her with the PPO in hand, and showed her the court order. I told her that she would be receiving a copy of this order soon, and that technically, I could call the cops just because she was following me. I told her that I expected that she'd obey the wishes of the court. Without any further discussion, I headed back to my car and left. She tailed me for a few blocks, but I lost her in traffic shortly.

That afternoon, my insurance agent came out to my house with an adjuster to get the process of repairing the damage under way. Several neighbors stopped by on their way home to ask about what happened. They all went away shaking their heads and muttering 'poor bastard" under their breath. I'm sure they're just pleased as shit about having me in the 'hood.

Tuesday, I needed to be gone most of the morning, and came home to another batch of 50+ serial VM messages, including several death threats. Later in the afternoon, out of paranoia, I crept out to the street to see if The Screamer was out there. Sure enough, she was parked down the street. I sprinted back to the house and called the fuzz. They were kind enough to send a car over post haste, and confronted The Screamer with the grim reality that she was in violation of a court order to cease and desist with the stalking. The officer must have considered that her 'formal warning' and let her go. The officer stopped by and she told me that The Screamer had said something to the effect that she was going to fix me for getting that PPO. She cautioned me to be on the lookout. Great.

So, sitting prisoner in my own home, plywood over my picture window, my yard in shambles and two-foot painted neon red/orange letters declaring me the most evil thing known to man crawling around the house, I tried to relax. I have to admit that I was quite jumpy by this time. As evening turned to night, several glasses of good scotch did little to relive my anxieties. They did however, anaesthetize me to the point that I could sleep - a commodity that had been in short supply the past weekend.

Wednesday, the window was replaced, and Thursday crews came to repair the yard, as well as to try to clean the brick. The yard crew performed miracles, and with the exception of the large patch of freshly seeded lawn, the yard was back in top form. The brick, however, didn't fare as well. The cleaning had been only partially successful and had left major discoloration on the bricks facing my home. Looked like I was possibly going to have to argue with the insurance company about replacing the brick.

Friday, Good Friday, I was beginning to feel a sense of stasis returning to my life. I was still being deluged periodically with serial voice mails from The Screamer, but that was a minor annoyance compared to having rocks thrown through windows, and other property damage. That is until Friday night.

My sister underwent a double mastectomy Friday, and I'd driven over to Lansing where the surgery was performed to lend support to her family. It had been a long day and rather stressful, what with the surgery and reconstruction lasting over nine hours. Upon returning home, I had gone out with The Indian Princess for dinner, drinks and diversion. We had dinner at an Indian place a few miles away, and when we left the restaurant, I noticed The Screamer in the corner of the parking lot. She tailed us over to a bar, but then sped away when I approached her car in that parking lot. The Indian Princess was disturbed by this tailing business, and after a couple of drinks, she asked to be taken home. She was too skittish to have me spend the night, so after a bit, I headed home.

There was no doubt about it. This stalking shit was cutting into my sex life, and that, among all my other travails, was intolerable.

When I pulled in the drive of my house, my headlamps swept across a scene of utter devastation. The Screamer had torn up my entire lawn with her car again, flattened my new plantings, smashed my front window, broken the front door and was inside, terrorizing my house. She'd driven her car up to, and in fact bumped into, my front porch, breaking several of the boards and one of the support posts. I pulled my car up against hers, to block her in. I left my front bumper flat against the rear of her car so she wouldn't be able to maneuver her way out, then I called 911 on the mobile phone. Feeling a little anxious, I made my way into the garage to get my air rifle, before entering the house.

I entered the house from the garage and was amazed by what I saw. The kitchen floor was littered with broken glass and plates; drawers had been dumped on the floor and the items in them strewn about the floor. I could see a broken chair on my dining room table, and the table itself was listing to one side.

I entered the living room and saw total chaos. But my attention was riveted to the middle of the floor. Kitty lying motionless, bleeding in the broken glass on the floor. I knelt down only to find that she was dead. One of my larger kitchen knives lay at her side. She'd been hacked at with the knife in several places, but it looked like the fatal wound was a slit throat. I was ready to kill that bitch. As I stood up, I saw the cops pull into the driveway. I put the air rifle down, lest I get shot at, and went outside to greet them. I told them I thought she was upstairs, but I wasn't sure. They entered the house guns drawn. One headed upstairs, the other to the rear of the house. Rather suddenly, I heard scuffling noises upstairs, a few shouts, then, I heard a loud thump. The other cop headed upstairs in a flash. It turned out that the loud thump had been the cop taking The Screamer down. Together, the two cops dragged her out to their car.

The rest of the evening was a blur for me. Dealing with the cops took occupied my attention until they left; then, I was left to survey the damage.

My first order of business was to bury Kitty in the dark of my back yard, tears running down my cheeks all the while. She'd been with me for ten years, and had been a faithful companion through thick and thin. She had been the cuddliest cat I'd ever owned. Over the years, she'd taken to following me around the house and yard like a dog. Damn that woman.

The damage?

Broken - The glass in my front door; my new picture window; all three master bedroom double hung windows; two 4'x7' mirrored closet doors; the upstairs TV; one of my dining room chairs and the dining room table; my plates and glasses; several lamps; several picture frames and miscellaneous little shit.

Damaged - Six walls suffering holes and painting with spray paint; sofa with three slit cushions; carpeting stained with blood, paint and dirt; roughly half my clothes ruined with spray paint; mattress slashed, painted and peed on; antique silver chest (family heirloom ~300 years old) cracked and painted; clock radio smashed.

Dead - Kitty

The aftermath of this experience has included several trips to the local cop farm, testifying against her at a commitment hearing, and dealing with the insurance people. She was sent to the State mental hospital for evaluation. She'll be there for 60 days. At the end of that period, the hospital will either A) petition to keep her for as long as needed, done in 90 day increments, B) release her back to the community to face punishment for her misdeeds. If the latter happens, the court could find her guilty, guilty but mentally ill, not guilty because of mental illness, or not guilty. If I'm lucky, she'll be confined for long enough to give up this delusional belief she has about me. Let's not discuss what'll happen if I'm not as fortunate.

I don't care about the stuff. I've been through two divorces and lost most of my belongings and money each time. I learned a long time ago that it's just stuff and it doesn't matter. I know it'll be a pain in the ass to have to go shopping to get new things, but there's a certain undeniable pleasure in getting new things. I'm not looking forward to have workmen around the house fixing things, and as of this morning, it looks as though that is going to last for a while. I'll be getting a new brick facing on the front of the house, new windows, plaster repairs, professional cleaning and possible replacement of carpeting. It'll take some time to get all that done. It's going to be months before life returns entirely to normal, and in some ways, it'll never be the same.

I'm going to miss Kitty. She was a good cat and didn't deserve to die, especially at the hands of a psycho-hosebeast.

So there it is kiddies, the whole damn story from start to finish. Hope you chimps see some entertainment value in it, 'cause from where I'm sitting, it's all still too raw for me take any pleasure from telling it.

Cheers,

Jeff Justin

Play Mitzy For Me (Update)

Well, time flies. The Screamer's scheduled release from the nuthouse was Sunday, Father's Day. The court order holding her there expired at midnight Sunday night. When a release date falls on a weekend or holiday, the law allows a 48-hour leeway in holding the final review conference and discharging the patient. The conference went off without a hitch this morning at 10 AM. The hospital sent me a letter last week notifying me of her final review conference. As an interested party, this was my invitation to go sit in on the conference. I've been to dozens of these treatment conferences in the past, when I was working for the Mental Health Police and am very familiar with the drill. These hearings resemble parole hearings in large measure. Psychiatric personnel from the hospital convene to review the case and finalize the recommendations after hearing from all interested parties, including the patient and his or her legal advocate. A quick call to the psychiatrist running the case affirmed for me that attending in person was an outstandingly bad idea. She's still quite obsessed with me and the doctor told me that my presence at the hearing could set off a new round of aberrant behaviour, meaning, of course, that she'd need to stay with them longer. Calling ahead allowed me to give my input, without having to show up, so I was well ahead of the game.

The shrink told me their recommendation to the court was to return her to the criminal justice system, rather than to have her remain in the mental health system. While she is mentally ill, her illness doesn't prevent her from understanding the difference between right and wrong. Her illness doesn't keep her from understanding the consequences of her actions. It doesn't prevent her from knowing what's going on around her and who she is in relation to the rest of the world. Although she remains obsessed with me, it is not to the degree that her obsession would interfere with her ability to conduct her daily affairs, in their estimation. They conclude from this that she should be subject to whatever penalties the criminal justice system decides to levy upon her for her crimes. They did recommend that she remain in custody until her court date because she represents a clear danger to me. That means, of course, that she'll sit in the county lockup from today until the prosecutor's office gets a trial scheduled and in my heavily populated county, that might be a while. Last time I spoke with the prosecuting attorney handling the case, she indicated it might be late July before the case goes to trial.

The repairs to my house are all completed, my lawn and plantings have returned to some semblance of normal, the flower bed where I buried Kitty has exploded with new growth because of the 10 pounds of slow release fertilizer in there.

Oh, and I've nearly saved enough for a decent handgun, and shall issue becomes law 7/1.

Cheers

Jeff Justin

The Mitzy Saga Completed

Well, it was a long day in court, as I expected it would be. I showed up for a pre-trial meeting with the prosecuting attorney to finalize what she would be doing in the courtroom. We went over testimony and I let her coach me on how she wanted me to come across. We'd agreed that my chances were best if I showed up as Everyman. She wanted me to show that I was hurt and frightened by the stalking and attack but at the same time wishing that the defendant would receive the long-term help that she needs. She wanted to downplay the horror of the evening of the attack in my personal testimony and let the police pictures and my recordings convey the raw emotion of the event. She wanted me to maintain my cool and not give detailed answers; I already knew that from the mental health days. "Yes", "no" and "I don't know" are your friends when you're on the stand. Attorneys are trained to attack the holes that invariably open up when you ad lib. We reviewed my testimony, and she prepped me for the cross as best she could.

The Screamer looked good, despite her being in the loony bin and jail since the night of the attack. She was wearing a plain suit and her hair was nicely styled. Yeah, I'd have done her, given the chance, as long as I could have duct taped her mouth shut while doing her.

The judge assigned to the case was a female judge who's got a reputation as being tough on first timers, the PA felt that she was the best judge we could have drawn. We started about fifteen minutes late because jury selection had run long, but in the end that worked in my favour. I was on the stand for a mercifully brief time and the defence cross, although aimed at making me look like a callous womanizer, never materialized into a formidable attack. I handled the lumps the guy handed out without saying more than necessary and overall I was able to give a decent rendition of a regular guy caught in a circumstance that was out of control. The PA was a total bitch to the Screamer making her admit to each and every grisly step of her attack, and making her explain every little detail of the phone messages. The fact that it was a woman attacking a female defendant seemed to play well with the jury (7women, 5 men). By the summation, I was feeling good about our chances. The pictures and recordings seemed to have had the desired effect on the jury.

After the jury went out for deliberations, they asked for clarification on legal definitions three times. The PA told me this was a good sign in that it meant that they were conscientious and that they were making sure to get the law clear in making their decision. They were only out for about forty-five minutes, and then informed the baliff that they had reached a decision.

I could feel a knot in my stomach when the foreski^H^H^Hperson stood up to read the verdict. I could scarcely believe my ears when I heard guilty on all charges. Hoo-fucking-ray! Now it was the judge's turn. She had to provide a significant sentence in order for the guilty verdict to mean anything. Back to the knot in the stomach. This was getting to be a bit of a roller coaster. The judge futzed around for a few minutes reviewing her notes and the case file, then had the Screamer rise to receive her sentence. 4 years, less time served, plus three years probation. In real terms, this means that she'll be eligible for release in about two and a half years under the state's good behaviour guidelines. If she isn't a good girl in the pokey, she'll stay there longer, up to four years. The judge also made my PPO effective until the end of the Screamer's probation, meaning I've got almost over five and a half years before I have to worry about that detail.

Overall, I was pleased with the result of the trial, and I was glad about the sentence. I suppose.

Cheers

Jeff Justin

Two Years Later

The last I had seen of my personal tormentor, the psycho-hosebeast from Hell, she was being escorted out of the courtroom for an extended stay at the State Forensic Center. At the time, I breathed a deep sigh of relief and worked toward getting life back to normal as quickly as possible.

The calm of my effort was shattered in a brief instant about three months later. It started with a call from the Artist, the young art student I was fortunate enough to be poking at the time. Her brand new car had been vandalized with the ever-inspirational words "DIE BITCH" spray-painted across the sides and hood of her SUV. Not more than two hours later, I heard the same tale of woe from my daughter and then, later in the day, again from my step-daughter. Their cars had been attacked similarly. During the day, I did some nosing around with the detectives who had worked with me during my earlier travails, and he found out that the psycho-hosebeast had indeed been released from the Forensic Center by the psychiatric team there - there was nothing wrong with her in their esteemed professional opinion.

Yeah, and I'm a fucking saint who should be elected Pope of the muther-fukkin', altar-boy rapin' Katlick Church.

All three girls called their respective insurance agents and life was again returning to some sense of normalcy, when three days later, I got a desperate call from the Artist. Someone had broken into her rental house and trashed the interior and contents. Seriously trashed. This time her roommates were impacted, and by now I was accruing quite a cadre of young women who weren't real happy about what my dick had gotten us all into, especially since the impact was falling on their shoulders, not mine.

I called the police again, but without any concrete evidence to go on, their hands were tied. The prosecuting attorney was loath to pursue my harasser without any tangible evidence that she had reverted back to her former MO. Trying to explain that to these five young women was another story altogether. To say that they were spectacularly unhappy with me is a wee bit of an understatement.

Two days after the break-in at the Artists, my daughter's dorm room was broken into and trashed. Her laptop was stolen and most of her and her roommate's clothing was trashed with spray paint. She was quite shaken by this and she fled back to the retreat of her mother's house to escape for a while. But now her mother and her roommate were on my case too. The psycho-hosebeast was efficiently making my life a waking nightmare without coming near me. And it's a good thing that she wasn't coming near me because my paranoia was ratcheted up a good ten notches and I was carrying my .45 at all times. Believe me, I was ready to use it at the least provocation from her. But, ss much as I hated to admit it, she was having her way with me and there didn't seem to be much I could do about it.

Thanks to the cobwebs of memory and burned brain cells, the timeline gets a little hazy here, but it wasn't more than a couple of weeks later that I had to leave town on business. I was gone for 4-5 days. On my return to town, the limo service dropped me at my house in the wee hours of a Friday morning to find my house taped off with yellow crime scene tape and not a single pane of glass left intact on the main floor. My car, which had been sitting in the garage, was similarly trashed - windows smashed with a hammer, body panels dented, tyres flattened. Inside the house, every piece of furniture I owned was mashed or ripped; all my clothes were slashed and spray-painted; my computer and stereo and TV's and telephones were smashed - you get the picture. I called the polizei and found out that the damage had been reported by my neighbors two days prior, but that no one had seen anything - apparently it was done during the day, when all my neighbors were at work. Later in the day, during business hours, I talked to the detective again and impressed upon him the desperation of the situation. He talked to the prosecutors again, but still no soap. Circumstantial - no proof it was her.

I took a suite at an extended stay hotel, and got about the business of re-building my life, again. My insurance agent was decent about it, but I could tell he was getting tired of filing my claims, and that my welcome with the carriers was wearing quite thin. But, I got a new car and money for new clothes in fairly short order.

In a way I was glad that the bitch was at least focusing her attention on me again, and not the people around me who mattered to me. But that little solace didn't last long. Maybe two weeks later, I got a desperate call from one of the Artists' roommates. The Artist had been assaulted outside their house by an assailant who cracked her over the head with a blunt object from behind. Steeling myself, I hurried to the hospital where she'd been taken. She'd had the living shit kicked out of her. Her face looked like 10 lbs. of raw hamburger and she had aches and pains in places that she didn't know she had places. She was shaken to her very emotional core, and I could tell by the hunted look in her blackened eyes that she couldn't take any more of this, or me.

I realized that I had to do something. The attacks were escalating in severity, and had now become attacks on person, not just property. I called both kids and told them to not go anywhere unescorted, and preferably to hang with someone who was licensed to carry a sidearm. I made the offer to arm them, but both declined.

I explained to them that my plan was to relocate, letting the crazy bitch know I was leaving, in an effort to keep them safe from my tormentor. And that's how I started my life on the lam. On my way out of town, I called the psycho-hosebeasts' brother and told him that I was leaving the state, and asked him to communicate that to his darling sister. She had won and I was slinking out of Dodge, tail between my legs, defeated by her multi-pronged attack.

I was self-employed as a consultant, and had a client base across the whole country. Thankfully, because of that, I was able to continue my income stream largely unhampered by all of this. But I paid the price in having to live a life below the radar for the most part. A deliberate stranger using assumed names and feigned identities locally, I had little personal life and except for phone calls and the occasional surprise visits back home, I had to leave those who mattered most to me alone.

Over a 20 month period, I lived in four states, moving from each when the psycho-hosebeast caught up with me. There were lots of little scrapes and threats, but I'll skip those details - it was just more of the same shit. In spite of her following me around to these other states, she never made a direct physical threat to my person. Suffice it to say that as well as being crazy, the hosebeast was smart and resourceful. She was a persistent and effective PI who was adept at chasing down my business name and my SSN. Her obsession had rendered unfit for work, and thanks to tireless work by her attorney, she had gotten approved for some type of disability. So, the government was paying her to sit home with nothing else to do but obsess about me and my whereabouts. Every time she found me, she begged, borrowed or stole the money to come and "visit". It really wasn't much of a life.

The story ends in a rural area where I had made my final retreat. I thought it was the ideal location - off the beaten path, yet a local airport had daily commuter flights to a major airport, where I could connect to all of the destinations I needed to get to for business. I'd only been there for about three, maybe four months, when I got a message on my answering machine that sent chills down my spine. I'd been out of town and hadn't checked my home messages during a hectic day of travel. I got home late at night to find a message waiting for me. It was you-know-who, and she was talking really crazy, even for her. She left a rambling diatribe that was vaguely threatening and that used up the full ten minutes of memory in my answering machine before getting cut off.

Shit, she knew where I was. I knew I was going to have to move again.

The next morning, as I was contemplating my next move, I called the local police chief and told him my long sad tale of woe. I wanted to prepare him and his department, should I need to call upon them for support. In retrospect, I'm very glad that I did this, because I'm not sure they would have been as responsive later on as they were, had I not taken them into my confidence.

During the next couple of weeks, I got a couple more threatening messages on my answering machine and, more disturbingly, an unsigned card through the mail that said simply "I'll see you soon." That meant that she knew my address, not just my phone number. I didn't go anywhere, even the bathroom, without my gun and I can honestly say that I had reached a point where life just wasn't any fun at all.

My life was consumed by this woman and her fixation on me. The energy that looking over your shoulder 24/7 takes is enormously sapping.

Then, within a week, on a grey and dreary day, I was working at home when I got The Call. It was the hosebeast. Mind you, I hadn't spoken directly with her during most of this time. She avoided making personal contact with me, referring to make her presence felt, but not seen. It was probably a fuckup on her part that she'd caught me at home. During our very brief exchange she let it slip that she was in the local area and that she was headed my way - and she sounded pissed. She also sounded deluded, confused, and disoriented, but mostly she sounded pissed.

I immediately called my contact at the local police, and he had a couple of local boys and county sheriffs out to my house, which was on a rural stretch of road about five miles out of town, in short order. They parked their cars where my driveway joined the common driveway that was shared by my house and two neighboring houses. We didn't have to wait long before the hosebeast approached in her beat-up old car. She stopped at the end of the common drive when she saw the cops. She sat in the car for a minute or two, then climbed out and started walking toward us, ranting incoherently and loudly all the while. Physically, she was a wreck - she'd gained a lot of weight, her hair was tangled and unkempt, her clothing rumpled and ill-fitting and she wasn't wearing any shoes in spite of the cool temps where we were and the sharp, pointy gravel underfoot.

More importantly, however, she was carrying a pistol slackly in one hand. It dangled loosely at her side as she walked toward us. She carried it casually, as though it was a just another personal item like a purse, a pair of sunglasses, or a blow-dryer. It almost seemed like an afterthought that she'd picked it up. The Chief took the lead in talking to her and he warned her to drop her weapon - at least fifty times, or so it seemed. She seemed minimally aware of him, or us, and kept up her angry and rambling hate speech all the while. At his behest, she did stop walking toward us, but she wouldn't let loose of the gun. She stood in the grass and weeds by the side of the drive yelling loudly about what a shit I was and how I'd fucked up her life.

You know, I couldn't help thinking about how that was really a two-way street, but this didn't seem like the time for a debate on the matter, so I kept my thoughts to myself. Besides, the cops had confiscated my gun promptly when they arrived, so I really wasn't in a position to debate the issue on an equal footing with her at the moment.

We all stood in this rather tense standoff for what seemed like an eternity, although it was probably less than a few minutes. There we were - me and a semi-circle of LEO types facing her as though she was a performer on a stage. She stood, no more than twenty feet from the group of us and she went on with her blather. The cops, guns drawn and aimed, went on with their yelling to get her to disarm.

What broke the stalemate was the Chief taking a couple of steps in her direction and extending his hand toward her. Apparently, that little gesture galvanized her unstable mind into action. She deliberately raised her sidearm up to her head, secured a two-handed grip on it, placed it into her mouth, pursed her lips around the cold steel barrel (thankfully shutting her up at last). She paused for just the briefest of moments with the gun in her mouth, then in the same deliberate manner, she pulled the trigger. I recall seeing that she closed her eyes, clenched her jaw and winced in anticipation of the shock and pain as she moved the trigger.

You hear some people say that people who are going to kill themselves hit a moment of supreme inner peace - bullshit. She looked anything but calm in her final moments. The last look in her eyes was that of a scared deer in the headlights of an onrushing semi.

Being outside, the sound of the gun firing wasn't much, just a loud pop that echoed off the trees. The loud retort of the gun announced my freedom from the torturous Hell I'd lived in for all those months and also it announced the end of her days.

I'll never forget the sight of the back of her head exploding, scattering her brain tissue and fragments of her skull over the clover and weeds behind her. It was funny - time seemed to both stretch out and compress simultaneously. It was over in an instant, and yet it seemed as though the spray of blood bone and brain moved in super slo-mo in my mind's eye - kind of like watching the Zapruder film frame by frame. It was a red geyser of life force erupting, spurting away from her head, radiating in a neat cone behind her. Her head, arms and legs jerked spastically and disjointedly in reaction to the shot - partly physics and partly her nervous system letting go. Her lifeless body collapsed to the ground like a puppet whose strings were cut - so much dead meat at that point. And then it was over. I heard the muffled thump as her body hit the ground, then, as the sound of the gunshot faded away, for the briefest of moments it was quieter than the moon. Then there was a sudden bustle as the cops ran to her dead body, guns still drawn, uttering their expressions of shock and dismay.

I was numb. I'd seen people die before, but the circumstances were never like this. My mind was spinning with emotion, and I felt strangely disconnected from the impact of what I'd just witnessed. Typical psychological shock - I'd seen it many times before back in my days working in the mental health world.

For the next couple of hours, I walked around, watched and talked with the cops and the meat wagon attendants, but I don't remember too much about it. The memories I do have are fragmentary and disconnected - I remember seeing flies landing on the bloodstain she left behind and thinking that they were there to fatten themselves for their next breeding cycle on her spent proteins. I remember thinking how small she looked lying there and wondering how someone so small could have had such a big impact on my life. I remember how her lifeless arm flopped off to the side as they put her into the body bag, like it was just a piece of meat at a butcher shop. I remember thinking that this was someone I'd had sex with, and that my loaded cock had been in her mouth, just like the barrel of her loaded gun. I remember one of the younger cops being very distraught and visibly rattled by the event, and I remember thinking that he was probably not a good fit for the LEO job. I remember being amazed at the little twitches her body made in the moments after she died as her nervous system let go.

Then everyone was gone - there was only a bloodstain and a mist of tissue left on the plants and ground. By the next morning, even that was mostly gone thanks to the industrious forces of nature, the animals and insects that don't let anything go to waste. The psycho-hosebeast was gone and I was free.

Well, sort of free, if you know what I mean.

Cheers

Jeff Justin

The Crazy Only Get Crazier

2004-05-05T21:16:00.000-07:00

It nearly 9:30 and do I know where my evening is? Hell, no. It's disappeared into the night. I'd like to stay and comment, but I'm eating dinner.

So I Was Thinking About Keeping My Focus

2004-05-04T22:37:00.000-07:00

The past couple of weeks, I've felt it slipping - felt my perfect circle becoming just that little bit less round - felt that slight wobble in my orbit. It's been so slight that i've been easily able to ignore it, but it's there, I can tell. I'm not sure if it's just a phase of settling into my new role and my new home and all the new relationships, or whether it's more serious. I don't mean to sound as though I'm falling apart, because I'm not. I'm perfectly fine, it's just that little kernel of inner peace has shifted ever so slightly.

I want to get it back where it was. I'll do it.

Focus.

Thoughts About Monday

2004-05-03T20:25:00.000-07:00

My calendar is full at home and at work and I'm feeling thoughful but don't have any time to write about it. Let me just say that I'm watching the moonrise across the warm, clear California sky and I feel very calmed by it. The moonlight is streaming into my office and is the only other light save for the warm glow of my monitor. I wish I could capture this feeling and use it again some other time when life is all hectic and I'm pressed for enough time to go to the bathroom.

Settling In For The Long Haul

2004-05-02T19:35:00.000-07:00

I've been here for coming up on five months. I have to say that I feel very good about where I am and the choices I've made. After such a tumultuous period, it's nice to know that I can let my guard down and not have to be so cautious about every word, every action. I'm especially pleased that I've been able to trust other people again, though that's coming slowly. I still have moments during which I'm ready to bolt for the doors before I get screwed over again. But I've been good about sticking with the situations and people, and I can feel the difference.

The past couple of mornings, as I've been out running, I've found myself feeling very connected to the representation of culture and social living here in California. There's a resonance about being out here that wraps me warm and secure in it's arms. If I weren't such a confirmed cynic, I'd say that I was meant to be out here, though maybe I can be that cynic and still believe in the majick too. I'd thought so often about moving out West for the past ten years, and as I'm running through the neighborhoods in the half-light of pre-dawn, I'm so aware of the resonance that it's easy to fool me into feeling as though I've been here for years.

Leaving was as hard as anything I've done, but it had to be done and I had to be the one to do it. The phone keeps me in touch but it's without touching and that's hard.

The Sunny Side Of The Street

2004-05-01T22:00:00.000-07:00

For those who've read my stuff before, it’s no news flash that I tend to cover topics that stem from, lead to, or report about some of the less wonderful parts of life. I've noticed over the years that like a wizened old blues singer, if there's no conflict, pain, heartache, indignity, anguish, angst - I got nothin'.

Well, that's not entirely true.

When I write something happy, I've got something, it's just that when I read it back to myself, I don't like it. It’s cheerful and positive and pleasant and wonderful and happy and completely lacking in soul. It's sappy. It desperately needs something to propel it forward. It just feels like I got nothin'.

I’ve noticed the same about a lot of other people too. If there isn't some discord for them to react to, they lapse into a comatose state of contentment that is the equivalent of creative brain death. The lights on the monitors are all on, the patient is stable and in many regards normal - but there's no spark, no real life. It is as if their happiness fills them with bland niceness; as though ridding their lives of conflict turns them into smiling joy zombies - happy Frankensteins waiting for a storm to animate their hollow souls.

I think this is somewhat akin to the reason that one seldom hears good news across the media outlets. We all know that good news doesn’t sell papers, or TV advertising. Movies, tv content, books all hinge on dramatic conflict brought about by the baser human emotions. I guess I'm not alone.

I know that this lesson is so overwhelmingly ingrained in my psyche that it has coloured my very existence. I don’t feel entirely right unless there’s some sturm und drang in my life. There are those who've known me well who've accused me of intentionally creating chaos in my life in order to keep myself primed, vital. I suppose that there's an element of truth to that observation. I guess that the best I can hope for is that I keep my chaos level within boundaries that I can live with.