Hi, I'm Home Right Now, But I'm Avoiding You...

Roger Mexico has a stalker.

As I understand the situation, he'd gone out with this girl a couple of times back around December. He decided he wasn't interested in pursuing the relationship any further, and broke it off.

Her version was a little different. She told everyone it was a serious relationship, they were in love, and he was going home with her at Christmas to meet her parents.

I was given this information by a co-worker at the bar, and frankly, it floored me. Roger Mexico and I had been through a difficult month-long transition from dating to friends, and I had thought we were at a point where we could talk about something like this. Yet he hadn't even mentioned he knew her. I felt somewhat betrayed, since he'd told me we could talk about anything, but felt he needed to withhold this crucial tidbit from me.

Lengthy emails and a very tense meeting over coffee ensued. He reassured me that he had no further interest in this girl (let's call her Lara), he had told her exactly that, and she didn't seem to be getting the message. In fact, she was starting to weird him out by calling several times a day and showing up at his door unannounced.

I believed him, because I'd heard stories about Lara doing this before. I'd heard the prefix "psycho-" attached to her name on more than one occasion by more than one person. And he had been screening his calls lately.

Any possible doubts in my mind were wiped clean away when I was over at Roger Mexico's apartment one night watching movies and the phone rang around eleven times in one hour. At 2 am, mind you.

Roger Mexico *69ed about half of the calls. Sure enough, they were all from her. "Freak," he muttered.

It is now October, and she is still pursuing him. She showed up unannounced four times this week, most recently Saturday morning. Roger Mexico and I had been up quite late watching movies, and I ended up crashing at his place. I awoke a few hours later to fresh coffee and a very frustrated friend.

"Dude, she's already called twice this morning." (It was 11 am, for those of you keeping score at home.)

I sipped at my coffee and did my best Mafia goon accent. "You want I should rub her out?"

"I don't know, man. I have no idea what to do. It's getting to the point where - " He stopped midsentence.

"Where what?"

He stared out the window, eyes wider than usual. "She just pulled into my lot."

"What?"

He said nothing for a moment, but peeked out the kitchen window, trying to avoid being seen, then...

"Oh sweet Jesus it's her it's her it's her! Go go go go go!" he frantically whispered, heading for the bedroom at high speed. I followed suit.

Footsteps on the fire escape. A knock at the door. Roger Mexico silently mouthing the same phrases over and over. "I'm asleep. Go away. I'm asleep. Go away."

Another knock. "Can't she take a hint?" I whispered.

Another knock. This was not some silly "I'm avoiding you" thing. This was full blown fear. "I don't want to live my life afraid," he whispered back. "Make it stop."

We listened to the footsteps retreat down the fire escape. A car engine revved up, and someone pulled out of the parking lot. Roger Mexico peeked out of the window tentatively. "I swear I think I'm going to have to call the cops."

I sympathize with him; I had a similar situation last year (except mine didn't know where I lived, and instead sat at my bar all night with a pathetic love-sick puppy dog look on his face, then would beg me for a ride home since he didn't drive). Mine even went so far as to pull the "If you don't love me, my life won't be worth living" line.

The problem is two-fold. Both Roger Mexico and I are non-confrontational people, and tried to be gracious when dealing with our problem children. Perhaps if we had bluntly said, "You're a psychotic freak. Get out of my life!" from day one, we could have saved ourselves a lot of *69 charges.

The biggest problem, though, is by legal definition neither Psycho Lara nor my puppy dog are stalkers per se. "Menacing by stalking" is defined as "engaging in a pattern of conduct" as to "knowingly cause another to believe that the offender will cause physical harm to the other person or cause mental distress to the other person." Lara and the Puppy are just annoyances. Both parties were given the respective phone numbers by free will of their victims. No breaking and entering has been involved. No physical assaults or threats have occurred. Nothing illegal has happened. Yet. And while I doubt that Lara is capable of physical harm, watching my friend deal with this situation is painful. I only wish there was something I could do to make this easier for him. I don't enjoy watching yet another friend become a statistic for one of the cold hard realities of living in these times.

Unfortunately, it's not my battle to fight. I can offer support and suggestions, but the decision is ultimately his. I will be passing along what information I was able to uncover today on my lunch hour. After that, the ball's in his court.

Sorry this entry is such a downer...other than dealing with this fiasco, I really did have a good weekend.