Stalked

“So I got a box in the mail from her the other day. Priority Mail.”

“From who? Your stalker?”

“Yup.”

“I don’t get it. I’ve had four books published and I’ve never had a stalker. You’ve published one book and you have a stalker and how many obsessive fans?”

“Who’s counting?”

Peggy laughed. “I don’t mean to laugh. It’s actually very scary.”

“Tell me about it. I’m flagging the waitress for another beer. Do you want another Merlot?”

“Yeah, sure. Did you open the box?”

“Of course I did. Only after putting it out on the balcony and kicking it a few times to make sure there were no living creatures inside of it.”

“Jesus, Trace. Maybe you should’ve just returned it?”

“And risk pissing her off? No way.”

“I thought you said she’s in Chicago, though.”

“What? You never heard of air travel?”

“What was in the box?”

Trace lit a cigarette. The trendy little eatery on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood allowed smoking on the outdoor patio. Soon, Trace knew, cigarette smoking would be banned damn near everywhere except in your own home. They were already considering it in the city of Santa Monica. Day by day, little freedoms being stripped away.

“There was all kinds of shit inside, every item hand picked to show me how much research she has done on me.”

“Fuck.”

“Remember that tiger screenplay I wrote?”

“Of course.”

“There was a tiger coffee mug, a Barnum and Bailey circus souvenir kind of thing. And then there was a book about vampires with a book mark placed in it to a picture of John Holmes as a vampire.”

“Because of the article you wrote about Holmes –”

“And because of a book review I wrote of the new edition of Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’.”

“Fuck. What else?”

“Fruit crate labels. You know how I collect those, right? I used to buy them on E Bay. So she sent fruit crate labels to demonstrate that she had tracked my E Bay purchases.”

“This is getting scary.”

Trace exhaled a thick plume of smoke. “And then there was a motel room key. The Pioneer Inn on Kini Island in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.”

“Oshkosh, Wisconsin?”

“Don’t ask me to figure all of it out, Peg, she’s just fucking nuts, okay?”

“Have you talked to the police?”

“Nothing they can do.”

“A restraining order?”

“Can’t afford the lawyer to get it done right.”

“Was there a note or anything like that in the box?”

“Nope. Nothing. I haven’t even got to the weird part.”

“There’s a weird part?”

“At the bottom of the box were all these old film reels from the 70s. Old stag films.”

“Representing your days in porno –”

“Well, it’s not exactly a secret.”

Peggy sipped her Merlot while Trace finished his cigarette.

“I think I should move,” he finally said, crushing out the cigarette on the heel of his shoe with more aggression, Peggy noted, than necessary.