That One Time I Got a Stalker

Once upon a time I had a next door neighbor who was super socially awkward, and would never look at me or talk to me, so I could never introduce myself. One day, after over 6 months of zero contact, I came to my house to check my mail - I wasn’t actually living in it yet. All of a sudden, I heard a voice, “You need to fix those bricks, they bother me!” There was no one in sight so I was very confused and turning around in circles, until my neighbor’s gate flung open and he stepped out. “Oh. Hi. Um…what?” He pointed to a small one inch gap on about an 10 foot length of my house where you could see the cinder blocks instead of them being paved over like the rest of the wall. I had never noticed this because normally you can’t even see it because of all the leaves that build up in that spot. “Those bricks. I’ve lived here 20 years and they’ve always bothered me.” “Um…ok, well at this point I’m just trying to be able to live in this house, so maybe once I’m able to accomplish that, I can add this to my list. By the way, my name is Kelsey.” “I’m D. Your porch is real dirty too.” “Yep. Again, just trying to be able to move into the house, and then I’ll get it cleaned off. Talk to you later, D.”

I would guess D is probably in his 60s. He’s tall and lanky, gray hair, always with a hat on, and usually in plaid pajama pants and a dirty t-shirt, unless he’s out running, in which case I saw him wearing a pair of cut off khakis over a pair of sweatpants, and a sweatshirt. At this point I had only seen D leaving for a run, which is comical in its own right because as my other neighbor said “He has the strangest gait I’ve ever seen,” and rolling his house. Rolling his house? Yes, he literally was just holding a paint roller - no bucket or anything - and just walking around rolling each siding board.

I officially moved into my house, right before all the Covid madness started. I was in California when everything shut down, so I had a mandatory 14 day quarantine. During this time I was working on all the small things left on my house, and one of them was getting the yard in order. I was out there working a few days, and D would be out working in his yard. Every 10 minutes or so he would look up and make some comment,
“I hear once ya get it, you’ve got it forever. Ya got it?”
“Um…what?”
“Ya know, Covid.”
“Oh, nope, not that I’m aware of.”
“You should get an arborist to work on those trees.”
“Yep, they’re looking pretty scraggly.”
(10 minutes later) “Heh, I just made that up.”
“…huh?”
“Arborist. It’s not really a word.”
“Um…actually it is.”

It went on like this for a couple days. I finally decided that if I was going to be “talking” with this guy, I should at least make it count and get to know him.
“So, D, are you not working because of Covid?”
“No, actually I used to have a real stressful job. I really hated it so I realized one day that I had enough money to live the rest of my life, so I got myself fired. That was 5 years ago.”
“Oh. What was the job.”
“You know, like everyone, sheet metal worker.”
“… um…ok…what about your family?”
“My brother’s evil!”
“Oh…I’m sorry about that…what about your mom or dad?”
“My mom’s real old.”
“Ok…”

Every few minutes of this D would declare his mouth was “real dry” and just wander off. Eventually he started asking me questions. “You know Alex Jones? I watch him whenever I’m home, so all the time. He says you should be that ‘c’ word if you’re not married. You know…um…Oh! Chaste! So are ya?” He also saw me pull into my driveway from my mom’s one day and pull a bottle of wine out of the car,
“I like wine!”
“Oh, yeah, me too, I just left this at my mom’s so I was bringing it home.”
“I’ll drink it with you.”
“Oh, well…I’m not opening it now.”
“I’ll be out here waiting. Also, I really like sci-fi movies. I like them because they have cyborgs and cyborgs are hot. You look like a cyborg!”
“Um, I’m going in now, D. I’ll see you later.”
(He’s mentioned me looking like a cyborg multiple other times now.)

At this point all of our conversations had been across the chainlink fence separating our yards. Later that same day though, I was on my porch reading, and Mischa started barking. D was trying to come onto my porch, but eventually decided not to because of Mischa - who continued barking.
“You open that wine?”
“Oh, nope, just reading. I’m actually getting ready to go in now though.”
“Does it make you nervous you’re my best friend?”
“Um…it makes me something.”
“It always ends though…”

I was starting to realize why. I was no longer finding my next door neighbor quirky, he was getting downright creepy. A few days later he came over to ask me if I was a nun and if I was having sex with anyone. He also walked up while I was on the phone with a friend and told me to put it down. I told him no, and he said I should give him my phone number so he could call me. I told him no again. He kept standing there for a while before finally saying, “Ok, I’m leaving.” and slowly backing his way to his house. While this was happening, I noticed a neighbor across the street I hadn’t met yet, just staring. Once D was in his house I ran across the street, introduced myself, and she said, “I’m so sorry to stare, it’s just that I’ve lived here 17 years and I’ve literally never seen that man speak to anyone.” Yep, just me - which D had already confided in me. I told her to feel free to come rescue me if she ever saw him come up to my porch again, or at least to stay out and watch until I was safely back in my house.

There was another day I was on my porch reading, and D was getting home from a run.
“You look so pretty sitting there, just like Anita Cochran.”
“…The news anchor?”
“Yeah! You know, she was engaged once, but she had to break it off. I bet it’s hard when you’re famous like that. Anyway, I’m real tired. I’m gonna go eat some food and then take a nap. I’ll try real hard not to think of you. I don’t know if I can do it, but I’ll try.”

Then one night I was out there working on a project, looking through photos. D came up and told me to stop what I was doing. I told him no. He said I was always so busy now. Not wanting to get into it with him I just told him I was really tired and was going to be heading to bed anyway, because it was my bedtime. He didn’t believe it was my bedtime at 8pm, so I explained that I have to go to bed early because I wake up at 4am every day to teach classes at 4:30. The very next morning - a Saturday - I went to let Mischa out to go pee before my classes, and there was D, standing in the window in his garage that faces my house, just starting - at 4am. I was startled to see the light, so when he saw me notice him he scrambled to shut the light off, and then ran into the other room, didn’t turn the light on, and then just stood in the window and stared - I guess not realizing I could still see him even though he didn’t turn the light on. It was one of the creepiest moments of my life.

The next day he came to tell me all about how he hated the guy that lived in my house before me because he stalked him. When I asked how he did that, he just said that he would get his mower and mow up and down the shared fence, just staring at D. Then D concluded, “But now I’m stalking you, heh heh.”

Most recently D came over super agitated, claiming he was going to call the cops on his other neighbor because some guy kept coming to the house to see the high school aged daughter whenever the mom went to work. I told him he didn’t need to do that, so he ran back to his yard, but immediately popped back up and ran back to my porch (during all this, Mischa is continuously barking, which at this point alerts all the neighbors D is nearby, so my neighbor across the street opened her front door and gave me a thumbs-up that she was watching).
“You should come running with me.”
“No.”
“Well do you know how to skip?”
“Yes.”
“No, I mean like real skipping.” He then proceeded to do the craziest skip I’ve ever seen in my life - which should have been no surprise after seeing him run - back and forth in front of my house. “I noticed when you walk, you’re real hunched over,” (he did an impression across my yard) “and you should walk straight with your shoulders back or else someone might stab ya in the back!”
“What?”
“Yeah. And you walk with your toes in too.” (He did another impression. Which, by the way, neither of these things are true.) “You need to point them out, or else someone could trip ya!”
“Ok, I’ll try to watch that.” He ran home again, and then immediately came back.
“It’s dump day today!”
“Huh?”
“Ya know, dump day! When you dump all your food in the hatchback of your car! You interested??”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but no, I am not interested.”

When my neighbor asked why I don’t just tell him to “FUCK OFF!” I told her because I didn’t want him to come murder me in my sleep. I also explained that Alex Jones recently said that due to food shortages during Covid, he was prepared to kill and eat his neighbors, and if D was listening to Alex Jones all the time, I would rather not be on his bad side.

It’s been so hot lately that I haven’t been outside much, so haven’t seen D in a while. So long actually, that I realized the other day, he has forgotten my name - he’s called me “Casey” the last two times he’s seen me. I also moved my porch swing to the front of my shed instead of the front of my house because it’s the only spot on my property D can’t see me, and have also started parking my car in my north driveway even though it’s much narrower (yes, I have 2 driveways). I know that these are not really solutions to my problem, but I’m still kind of hoping it just goes away on its own somehow. I’ll be sure to keep you posted though.