Predator or Prey

Something tells me they're not cops.

This is a chapter from I Hear You Watching, my novel based on my experience with hearing voices and paranoia.

But you can jump in here! The “previously on” will get you up to speed.

Previously on I Hear You Watching…

Alex joined an adult hookup site to meet people and get over his sexual hangups. A woman named Lili contacted him on the site, and they met for a date at Alex’s apartment. Everything seemed to go relatively well until they had sex, when Alex spun out into overthinking the fact that Lili is Black and he’s white, and he spent the rest of their time together terrified of committing a faux pas.

Night.

We keep the lights off even when she gathers her purse from the couch. We say bye and kiss in my open front door. Say bye and kiss again. Finally she pushes my lips harder, then steps away.

“Bye,” I say.

She disappears down the stairs.

I don’t close the door until I hear her shoes on the sidewalk. I go to the window and peer through the vertical blinds. She walks down the sidewalk like any stranger, like the stranger she was only a few hours ago, but now an invisible thread connects us. She passes behind the neighbors’ house and is gone.

There’s a near-silent residual ring of her voice in the room, a warmth in the air, a lingering charge from my first visitor here in a long time.

It’s almost 11:30. Most other nights it would be time to go to work, but it’s the weekend and a special occasion. I can’t just sit here and let her energy dissipate, so I pack a few hits of weed in my pipe, pocket it with my lighter and keys, and leave.

Empty sidewalks. The night air is cool, but our sex feels like a covering on my skin, the layer I was missing when I stood naked in front of Lili.

She had joked that she was a virgin. She’s sarcastic. The God thing could’ve been another joke. I can imagine her laughing and saying, “I totally got you!”

A car passes, muffled music through dark windows. The pitch of the music sags as the car goes down the road. When it’s gone I take a well-rubbed notch through bushes and trees to the other side, a dusty path along the river.

The river is a wide concrete ditch with a narrow trickle of water down a gutter in the middle. A six-foot chain-link fence on either side keeps people from falling or jumping in. People jog and walk their dogs here during the day. At night I’m alone.

That would be a weird long-term joke to make, waiting until a second date to deliver the punchline. She must actually be religious.

When bad things happen she might say, “The Lord works in mysterious ways.” All responsibility lies with her Imaginary Friend and none with her. But does this displacement of blame make her a bad person, or does her aspiration to serve a Purpose make her a functional member of society, unlike me in my quagmire of strongheaded, self-imposed insignificance?

The trees and bushes by the path are eventually replaced by a high concrete wall like a courtesy screen between the neighborhood and me.

Maybe all that Purpose stuff is just a superiority trip.

Superiority? In a country where every game is rigged against her? How dare I have sex with this woman and then assume the worst about her?

I light the pipe and take a long pull. My mouth and the back of my nose fill with salty, pine-flavored smoke.

Religious or not, I’m lucky if she doesn’t hate me.

There’s muttering across the river.

That side is commercial. Parking lot lights stand tall and blue-white above the trees. Grocery store, pharmacy, Goodwill, and restaurants are all blocked from view by trees and bushes full of tents and sleeping bags, crumpled beer cans, broken bottles, and sometimes clothes hung to dry on branches like silkscreened spiderwebs. The foliage over there is too dark to see any of that now.

Between patches of streetlight I hit the pipe again.

Quiet but distinct, a voice says, “There, you saw it?”

My thumb covers the ember.

Silence.

My mouth leaks thin smoke in my wake.

Further down I turn toward the wall and pull again.

“There it goes. I saw that one.” It’s a male voice. About my age, maybe older.

My thumb pushes into the bowl, crumples the ash.

“What do you think it is?” says another.

“Probably crack,” says the first. “Or heroin.”

“You can’t smoke heroin, can you?”

“He’s walking too much for heroin. That’s crack.”

They must be across the river. I pocket the lighter and keep the pipe concealed at my side.

“Yeah, crack for sure. Look how he’s walking.”

My walk does feel different, but I’m not sure how.

“We see you.”

My chest tightens. I’m exposed in another patch of streetlight and my hand automatically lifts and brushes my nose. Casual.

“He just snorted a bump. That’s a fucking crackhead, dude.”

In the next shadow I turn toward the wall, lift the pipe to my lips and blow out the ash with a near-silent glassy hiss.

“We saw that, motherfucker.”

The back of my neck hardens, blood rumbles in my ears.

“We’ll get him at the bridge.”

A car crosses the bridge ahead. Its headlights wipe the trees but don’t reach low enough to reveal anyone.

If I turn around, the path back is flanked by chain-link and concrete for a mile and a half. No man’s land. It’s ideal for smoking weed in peace but dangerous for being chased. And halfway home there’s another bridge where they could cross to my side. Maybe before I even got there. There’s at least two of them, so if one crosses at this bridge and the other behind me, I’m trapped.

I pass a large storm drain with a shallow ditch of rocks spread from its dark mouth to the river. The opening is big enough for a person to crouch inside. Maybe someone’s there. The side of my vision burns with attention as I step across the rocks.

Concrete stairs rise to the bridge. As I climb I listen for scuffling on the other side’s staircase. If they meet me on the bridge, I won’t run. I’ve done nothing wrong. My weed prescription is at home. Smoking in public is a misdemeanor, worst-case scenario is probably a fine.

“If the crackhead comes this way, we wait until he’s here, then we jump.”

But something tells me they’re not cops.

No one is on the sidewalk at the top, I turn and walk away from them.

I won’t look back. Not yet. I’ll lull them into a false sense of security, then whip around and catch them on the sidewalk.

No sound behind me—no footsteps, no voices.

The street feels emptier than I’ve ever known. Even the car turning at the light in the distance looks empty. Orange light slithers on its black windshield.

“You think he heard us? Where’s he going?”

“He’s probably going home.”

Do they sound closer than before? No, but also not further away.

“We’re gonna find out where you live, crackhead piece of shit.”

The dark car approaches like a ghost ship. Streaks dance along its edges like St. Elmo’s fire. Not even dash lights are visible inside.

I turn and try to look everywhere at once, wishing I could catch them in a laser vision glare and watch their bodies fall to steaming pieces.

“Oooh, almost saw us! Gotta stay on your toes with this one!”

I kneel to look under parked cars. No feet.

“Ha! Peek-a-boo!”

“If he sees us, we’ll just pound him.”

I sprint across the street and toward Ventura Boulevard, where more traffic means more potential witnesses.

“What the fuck is he doing?”

“What do you mean? He’s on crack.”

I walk fast—not too fast—up Ventura, past car lots. Balloons tied to antennae bounce in the breeze like sentinel heads nodding at my presence. Slumbering strip malls, red window neon cast back into rows of empty salon chairs. Tobacco shops with curvaceous silhouettes of water pipes among rope lights flashing for no one.

In the ‘80s before I was born, Mom and Dad lived in this area, on a street called Arch Drive. It’s a small street off Ventura that connects to nothing else, just a quarter-mile-long bend—an arch—away from the boulevard, then back to it. My confidence surges. I feel like Philip Marlowe, using L.A. minutiae to outsmart my pursuers.

I pass one end of Arch Drive without looking at it. Everything in me points forward down Ventura, as if I live at the end of the boulevard, or somewhere far beyond, among the hills of ragweed and creosote.

“What the fuck, man, he’s still going!”

“He’s gotta be home soon. He didn’t walk all that way just to smoke crack.”

The far end of Arch Drive approaches. I speed up, then bolt into the small street and slip between two parked SUVs.

“Where did he go?”

The back of my neck tingles at the thought of having tricked them.

I plant my feet in line with the tires and wait. Wedged bow-legged between strangers’ cars, I’m glad everyone in this city keeps their curtains closed.

“Seriously? He was right there!”

“God damn it!”

Then it’s quiet.

I walk, and glance back as casually as I can. Only a short length of sidewalk is visible before the curve slurps it away like spaghetti.

The apartment buildings stand quiet. A car ticks as it cools.

Darkness watches from dark windows.

A large man with a sagging face walks a small dog toward me. The dog stops at the base of a palm tree and pees.

I smile at the man. His eyes meet mine and drop quickly to the dog. He shakes the leash and says, “C’mon, let’s go.” The dog scrapes its claws on the pavement and skitters past me.

Past another palm tree a voice behind me tells the man, “Watch out for that guy. He’s got a problem.”

The man says, “I wondered. What’s the problem?”

“Crackhead. We’re gonna report him.”

“Good. This goddamn city’s full of ‘em.”

My scalp tightens.

I want to turn around. I want to tell them they don’t know me, that I was just smoking some weed before bed, and that even if it were crack nobody deserves this treatment. But I’m too alone to do that. The man walking the dog was the last other person on earth, and he’s not on my side.

Dialogue rolls across a giant marquee in my mind: Aw shit, I forgot my wallet, or, I’m already late and I left the oven on, or, I got snacks for the party, but I left them on the counter! I want these mantras of normalcy to bleed into my expression and demeanor. If strangers suspect I’m evading something, they all might side against me.

Arch Drive rejoins Ventura, and I’m finally pointed homeward.

I speed-walk, but slow enough not to arouse suspicion from passing cars, remembering how my gait somehow “proved” I was smoking crack. At this point desperation has probably made it worse.

I try to get a read on my appearance by watching my reflection traverse the car dealership’s dark showroom windows. The glass pinches and warps my face, pulls it up to one side, then squishes it down onto my shoulders.

The lot balloons shake like heads, unconvinced.

The bars on Ventura are closing. That means I’ve somehow been out walking for over an hour. Time flies when you’re being followed. The late crowds swarm by the doorways, buzzing at each other. As with bees, if I don’t bother them, they won’t bother me.

I pass through them staring straight ahead.

I hear one say, “What’s his problem?”

“He’s a creep, just let him go by.”

“See how he looked at my tits? He’s a sicko for sure!”

“Who, that guy?” Familiar voice. “Total sicko. We’ve been following him a while.”

My neck is cold.

“Definitely saw him smoking crack.”

Smile. I want to smile at someone and receive a smile back.

A group of girls walks toward me. A couple are laughing. I smile, and their eyes dart sideways and then away.

From somewhere else I hear, “Oh, you like that brown sugar, huh?”

Did they think I singled out the Black woman in the group? Had I smiled only at her? It’s only seconds later and I can’t remember. But the accuser is at my back—how had they seen where I was looking? I’m walking fast, so anyone standing in front of me is quickly passed. Behind me they merge into an advancing mass of snarls and dead eyes.

“Keep walkin’, white boy! Ain’t nothin’ here for you!”

Don’t turn around. The longer I hold my smile the heavier it grows, like an anvil dangling from a chain between my teeth.

My feet throb. My calves ache. I want to wave down a taxi and tell the driver, “Please, there are guys following me. They’ve been threatening me. I’m a good person. Please, I just have to shake them and go home. My wallet is at home, but I promise I live very close and I can pay you when we get there. I’ll pay extra,” but there aren’t any green-lit taxis. The few that pass are red—protective bubbles of metal and tempered glass, other people on their way to other places faster than I can get on foot.

“Fucking crackhead pervert! Where the fuck does he live?”

Eventually I reach my personal stretch of Ventura Boulevard. My grocery store, my drugstore, restaurants, my bank… I worry arriving home will feel like a dream wherein I enter my front door but can’t close it fast enough to shut out the person at my back. My body will twist like Silly Putty, only my legs will turn while my arms and head stay put. I’ll try to reach behind me to push the door shut without touching whoever is there. My fingers might graze them. So I’ll decide to run. But my feet are turned the wrong way and the floor will give like sand in an hourglass and I’ll realize I’m not worried about the person killing or catching me; my worst fear is just having them there behind me. And I’ll know they’re already past the threshold, they’re in my home, and they will always be behind me, everywhere I can’t see, and I’ll spend the rest of eternity trying to turn around.

Three blocks away small bones shift in my feet, my knees bounce under my weight, and I do slight finger and arm exercises to keep my limbs from turning to rubber. I pivot my torso one way and then the other, practicing to whirl around and shut my door. This is not a dream.

I leave the blue-white light of Ventura for the orange light of my neighborhood.

“You better be almost home.”

“Yeah, we’re gettin’ too tired to beat you.”

I wonder how long I’d have to walk for them to give up. I could reach Bakersfield in a day or so, with them behind me, drooling, hungry. My body would give up. I’d find someplace to lie down and sleep, and then they’d do whatever they want to me.

I have to focus on getting into my apartment and locking the door. Anything they do beyond that is breaking and entering.

“This one? Nope. How ‘bout that one?”

They’re following closer than before, speaking softer, but I hear them just as well.

“Maybe this next street. No…”

I grip the lighter in my pocket. Isn’t that a self-defense move, grip onto something to avoid breaking your hand? Or jut your keys between your fingers to add spikes to your fist? Go for the eyes.

An old gumshoe trick comes to mind as I turn onto my street. First apartment building, then the second, and just before mine I flip the lighter into a hedge. It rustles and rattles. Throw the dog a bone.

Now turn on my driveway, get to the stairs and use the wrought-iron railing to swing myself around 180 degrees and I almost scream when I see nobody in the driveway or next to me because it means they’re either still on the sidewalk or right behind me. My tailbone bursts in a tingling wave that thrusts me up the stairs. Too fast to focus on going two by two I whirl my legs like wheels. Use the railing again to whip around the switchback, almost scream again when I see nobody on the stairs below—they may still be right behind me. Keys—I forgot to get them ready! Plunge hand in pocket and bring keys up like a net of chrome tuna, find the right one in the narrow search-beams of streetlight through the branches and stab at the lock as I reach the door, turn to face the door expecting somebody next to me—no, behind me—and jut my butt back at the railing to pin them before they can get an arm around my neck. The key enters the lock, I twist key and knob simultaneously, push and hear the thick paint on the door crackle as it unsticks, the breathy whoosh pulls me through the airlock, gripping the edge of the door and throwing it back, hear it slam as I whirl around, palm pressed against it as my other hand turns the deadbolt—thock—and the knob lock—click—and I’ve done it.

I keep the lights off and squat with my back against the door, listening.

“I saw him throw it.” Quieter now, through layers of wood and metal and glass. “It’s gotta be the pipe.”

My legs release and stretch out, thighs hot, calves tight, shins aching like they’ve been under metal rollers.

“Aw, it’s the fucking lighter!”

“The pipe’s not here?”

“He’s still got it on him.”

“Hey man, you’re busted! We’re gonna call the cops!”

“You can try to run again, but we know where you live, fuckin’ creep!”

True. That is now true.

Orange blades of streetlight fan through the blinds, almost touch my feet. I cross my legs away from them.

“Hello? We saw someone smoking crack by the river here… Yeah, and he ran, but we followed him home.” They say my address, followed by another pause. “Sure, thank you, officer.”

I close my eyes and it all disappears. I’m where I can’t see and no one can see me. The air outside isn’t thick with faces. There is no outside.

“They’re on their way! You’re busted, crackhead!”

I stand, go to the kitchen and fill a glass of water, then sit back against the door.

I drink the water slowly. I keep the lights off.

When I leave the doorway it’s 2:46 a.m.

The past two hours feel like endless fists unclenching in my legs.

I dig a spare lighter from my desk drawer and smoke a cigarette in my dim bedroom. My ashtray is an unrinsed jam jar. Clinging hunks of jam crackle when I push the ember into them. The air smells of smoke and burnt sugar.

On my rumpled bedsheet I find one of Lili’s pubic hairs curled like a watch spring.

What would she say about those guys? That they were sent to teach me a lesson? That I should have stood my ground? Or were they meant to learn a lesson from me by beating me up and going to jail? By running, had I somehow interfered with The Plan?

Ridiculous. Wrong place, wrong time, that’s all.

I brush my teeth, get into bed, and look at the nighttime light that’s usually blocked by the foil. They’re out there somewhere, sleeping soundly or still talking about the crazy person they followed home.

What did they smell on me, what scent of predator or prey?

Next on I Hear You Watching…

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