jean jacket. plaid hat. boots and more jeans.
every day--every single, conceivable, waking day--i see a man dressed from top to bottom in jeans and plaid. he stands on a corner, and it's right across from me. glance through my office's window and you'll catch this man starring in the lead role. he'll stand on this corner--mcdonalds behind him, walgreens to the side, and a money lending service on the other. he'll stand here and stare, watching.
always in the jean jacket. always with the plaid hat. always in boots, in jeans, in transfixion of me, staring straight at me, locking eyes with me, telling me nothing.
well i'm watching him, too. i don't know if he knows it, but these are how things stand--and he stands alright.
never has the mcdonalds delivered to him a meal, never walgreens a prescription. if he needed cash fast, he does not show it either. in fact, he does not show an interest in crossing the street or continuing down his way to the panera bread and family foodie and walmart, or to the other side where another 'mart awaits. if he goes home, he does not do so by 5:30.
and yes--oh yes, he's there bright and early by 9, dressed in his jean jacket, in his plaid hat. boots. jeans. staring.
i have not approached the man who stares. but i fear he knows me, knows that i watch him watching me through the glass. i fear this because i have seen him elsewhere--following me. i know it to be true, i do. i have gone on business trips to seattle, to dallas, to nashville and back. he's been there each and every time: in front of the mcdonalds in seattle, the walgreens in dallas, the money lender in nash. he does not go in. he does not come out. in fact, i can only guess the only store he's ever been interested in browsing would be a levi's. but regardless of where he frequents and where he loiters, the man is always there.
always in the jean jacket. always with the plaid hat. always in boots, in jeans, in transfixion of me, staring straight at me, locking eyes with me, telling me nothing.
i have just claimed to have never approached him, but this isn't entirely true. cameras mounted to the traffic lights could easily prove i've left the office and advanced towards the man's position. but--but! i merely advanced past him. yes, into the mcdonalds. and i've done so again with the others--to invoke a reaction, to hear a word escape his mouth. but i will disappoint: he did not speak. no, on all occasions he merely stared, neck slowly fixed and erect as i each and every time ferried my way across the sea of traffic. i would just as well put an ocean between us, but i fear i'd feel his eyes on me from one shore to the other all the same. and he would not be dressed for the weather, for the hot sun, for the climate--he would most certainly still stand before a beachfront mcdonalds donned in jean, satisfied, staring.
well, i'll show him. it's high time to cash in my pto, i thought to myself. and i did just that, ensuring a long vacation to a hot sun furthest away from here, far from the clutches of 'donalds and 'greens. i may miss the local family food, but i may never his presence. should the jeaned man ever visit one--chance he'd take his eyes off my direction to do so--may their stock run short and turn him away, may their producers simply have trouble for the time. oh, how i hate him! how childish i do, how scared i truly feel! but the climate awaits me, and he does not. and that's all that's to think on.
~~~
i've returned to my office. schools of fish swim outside my window, yet he is not among them. but i do not share this as a curiosity, as confusion--it was not long after i stepped into the office that gossip waded into my waters and confirmed a brutal reality: the man i had watched, the man who had watched me, had murdered the owners of family food, a feud over nothing as far as anyone knew. he had simply gone in and shot them both, the police finding him outside their restaurant in a stained crimson jean jacket.
the view outside my window has lost its color, surprisingly. turning on my television, the set certainly still shows a mcdonalds, a walgreens, a panera, a walmart all the same. in fact, it feels little has changed aside from the man's absence--my stalker now behind bars. and yet...
i can still feel his eyes on me.
i'm sure he's still watching me.
and i know exactly what he's wearing. always in the jean jacket. always with the plaid hat. always in boots, in jeans, in transfixion of me, staring straight through his bars--staring straight through me.