You Better Watch Out

The Back Bay, Boston, October 2008

As a freshman sharing an off-campus apartment with non-students, Patti felt no peer-pressure. On this summer-like October evening, she would wear an ankle-length dark-blue cotton dress that she had found in the attic and refurbished. Plus her Nike running shoes for comfort. It was a long walk from Fairfield St. to Tremont, and she wanted to enjoy it.

She was going out on her first real date since she started college with Ollie who had annoyed her so much when they first met that she dumped ice cubes down his pants.

They would stroll down Commonwealth Avenue like a couple in a Henry James novel, when the Back Bay had been newly reclaimed from the swamp, like Holland from the sea. She savored echoes from the past. She liked to believe that what we do now will matter in the future, as what happened in the past matters now.

It occurred to her that Ollie might wear his Tom Brady football jersey. That would make it difficult for her to maintain the mindset she wanted. She called Ollie on his cellphone and told him to wear a button shirt and a sports jacket, with his jeans and sneakers.

She should be going out with her new apartment mate, Alex, instead of Ollie. It was just a week before Halloween, and Alex resembled Johnny Depp. She could have had him dress up as Captain Jack Sparrow and walk with a cautious sway to his step, prepared for threats from all directions. But tonight, she wanted to be in control. She knew exactly where she stood with Ollie, but Alex was unpredictable, both intriguing and unsettling.

Earrings? she wondered, looking in the mirror. Yes, of course. The magic ones Alex gave her. She would feel naked without them.

A week before, on the way back from BU, on Commonwealth Avenue near the intersection with Massachusetts, first Alex, then Patti had noticed that someone was following them, keeping half a block behind, but not trying to hide. Tall, wearing a dark raincoat, despite the clear sky. If this were a scene in a movie, Patti would have guessed this guy had some shady connection with Alex and wanted to intimidate him.

Alex had insisted that no one had it in for him, but Patti never knew when Alex was telling the truth. She thought of him as a computer geek with a devilish imagination. She guessed he sometimes walked on the dark side.

Alex made her promise not to tell their apartment mates Marge and Tom about the stalker because they would worry like parents, and that wouldn’t help anyone. She readily agreed, knowing that secrets bind, and she might enjoy feeling bound to him, if not too tightly.

The next day, he gave her a wireless headset in the form of earrings, that connected to a cell phone she kept in her pocket.

“Just press the speed dial to connect to me. Then you can speak to me and hear me without others suspecting, and I can hear everything that’s going on around you.”

He had the same kind of headset embedded in his Red Sox cap.

“So now you can tell me answers to questions in class,” she suggested.

“Better still, we can have phone sex anywhere, anytime,” he joked.

The gold-stud earrings went well with her short bouncy blond hair. She would have worn them often just for the look. And, new to the city, she needed the sense of security they gave her, to keep fear of the unknown at a manageable, but titillating distance.

She shouldn’t have had sex with Alex — not yet. Yes, she enjoyed hanging out with him and was attracted to him. She had been curious and impulsive that one time. But as apartment mates they saw each other every day. And the intimate way he looked at her now made her feel uncomfortable. She wasn’t ready for a relationship with anyone, not yet. She didn’t want to feel that she belonged to him or to anyone else. That’s why she had said yes to Ollie for this date. Doing so signaled that she could go out with whoever she wanted. But, at the same time, she liked the sexual tension with Alex and didn’t want that to go away. And keeping their mutual attraction secret from Marge and Tom gave a buzz of the forbidden to their continuing flirtation.

Ollie was good as eye candy, but she wasn’t attracted to football-player types; and she and Alex had joked repeatedly about the ice cube incident in her first encounter with Ollie.

Tonight, Ollie met her at her apartment, dressed as ordered. He cleaned up well. He looked shell-shocked, like he had when she agreed to go out with him. That adoring look of his made him the perfect accessory for tonight — his attention to her was like a spotlight shining on her and her alone.

This night was a celebration of herself — a teenager from small-town New Hampshire, coming of age in the big city. Her trip to Europe last summer had been a rehearsal. This was opening night.

She liked the feel of Ollie’s shoulder against her cheek. She luxuriated in his physical presence. She enjoyed the image of herself with him, turning heads as she walked down Commonwealth like a model on a runway. Some day she would look back on this night and cringe remembering how shallow she was. But right now — eighteen and gorgeous and knowing it — let the good times roll.

They crossed the Public Gardens, then the Boston Common. Once they got to the Loew’s theater complex, she ducked into the ladies’ room and, using her magic earrings, warned Alex off.

“Look, Alex. I know you’re following me. I spotted you a block away. Back off, please. I’m just going to a movie. Yes, Ollie was a jerk before. But tonight, he’s sober and polite. Cool it. Just let me be.”

Alex didn’t answer, but she could hear street traffic through the earrings. He was outside, and he didn’t deny he had been following her.

After the movie got out, when Ollie and Patti were crossing the Common again, they went through a dark spot. It was a moonless night. There were no other pedestrians in sight. The lights had been on earlier. Why would half a dozen bulbs go out at once? Patti held tight to Ollie’s arm.

Something moved off to the right.

A homeless man was stretched out on a park bench, covered with a blanket.

Patti gripped so tight that Ollie shook her off, in pain.

At that moment, a knife blade flashed between them.

Ollie and Patti both ran.

The assailant tackled Patti.

Ollie kept running.

Patti had the wind knocked out of her.

By the time she was able to get enough air in her lungs to scream, the assailant was on top of her, pinning her arms to the ground with his knees. He had the knife to her throat. She didn’t dare scream.

Through her earrings, she heard Alex’s heavy breathing as he started to run to the rescue. He said he was near Arlington Street. He could get to her in less than five minutes. She had to talk to the guy, keep him off balance, make him think rather than act.

Fortunately, the assailant seemed to be in no hurry. He seemed to be savoring the moment, enjoying her fear and his power over her.

“911?” she whispered.

“No time,” Alex answered. “If I disconnect to call them, I’ll lose my connection to you. I’ll be there quicker than I could explain things to the cops. Hang on.”

“Help,” she whispered back.

“No one’s going to help you,” the assailant assured her, rubbing the side of the blade along her throat.

“Tell him you’re a cop,” Alex coached her. “Tell him that these earrings are transponders, and the cops are listening and recording.”

“I’m wired,” she said out loud. “I’m an undercover cop. You’re under arrest.”

“Sure, and I’m Santa Claus.”

“These earrings are transponders.”

“And this knife is an atomic bomb.”

“Put your head close to an earring.”

“Certainly, my love.”

Alex shouted. “You’re under arrest! Drop that knife or I’ll order my men to fire.”

“What the hell?” he shouted, pulling his head back, as if burnt. “Is that a web cam thing? A web cam even out here?”

Alex told her, “The guy is nuts. Tell him yes. Web cams seem to spook him more than your being wired. Go with it. I’m running as fast as I can. I’m crossing Charles Street. I’m just a minute away. Talk up the web cam thing.”

“Yes, a web cam,” she insisted. “Lots of web cams. The trees, the lamp posts are full of web cams. You’re live on the Internet.”

“God! Web cams everywhere!”

Freaked, the guy ran, shouting back at her, “Go to hell you green-haired bitch!”

Alex arrived moments later, helped her to Beacon Street, and called a cab with his cell phone. Physically, she seemed fine, except for a few scratches. But emotionally she was shattered.

“He wasn’t a homeless bum,” she insisted, talking rapidly nonstop all the way home. “This guy was dressed in ordinary clothes. He didn’t smell of alcohol. His hands weren’t calloused. He’s probably some everyday office worker. He was obsessed with web cams. And he knew I had dyed my hair green earlier today. He knew me. I wasn’t just some random victim. He had seen me before. He had seen me when I had green hair. But I only had green hair in the apartment. He saw me in the apartment. He knew I’d be here in the Common coming and going from the movie — right here, right now. I talked to Ollie about the date from a cell phone in the apartment. I mentioned what movie and what time. I mentioned that since it was such a beautiful night, we could walk all the way, that I liked the look of the Common all lit up at night, that I like to walk by the wading pool. He heard all that. He was waiting for me.”

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