What's the deal with rapists?
I don't know, but it seems to me that
criminals -- along with phone solicitors and Jesus freaks --
seem to come into your life at the most inconvenient moments.
Take last Saturday night, for example.
I'm messing around on the computer at about 3 a.m. and decide
to go out on the back patio and smoke a cigar. I walk into my
living room and I see this yuppie-looking guy trying to open
the sliding glass door. He was about 5'10", 180 to 200 pounds,
27 years old, pudgy with blonde hair and a blonde mustache wearing
a purple polo shirt and light blue jeans. My first thought: Do
I know this guy? My second thought: Even if I do, he shouldn't
be at my sliding-glass door!
"Motherfucker, what are you doing,"
I yelled, and ran to the door, unlocked and opened it and chased
him to a dark corner of my backyard where he lunged over the
fence like a jack rabbit. He ran real well for a pudgy guy.
I ran back into the house. "Call
911," I yelled at my girlfriend, who woke up to see what
was going down. "Why?" she asked. "Because, some
guy was trying to get inside the back door," I yelled. But
I was thinking, "Because my cigar lighter won't work, just
call the fucking cops." Then I ran out the front of the
house and around the corner, to look at the next door neighbor's
where he had fled. I could see her gate was opened. I think that's
how he got in, through her gate and over my fence. I know that's
how he left.
I looked around, but no sign of him. I
started walking back to my house and two cop cars pulled up.
Great. I was wearing a baseball cap, jeans, work boots and a
long black trench coat. If I were them, I'd be the first to suspect
me as the burglar-rapist-mass-murderer type. Can I help it if
I look the part?
"I'm with the person who called in,"
I said, pointing at the house.
Fortunately, I had given my girlfriend
a brief description. I wanted to say, "It's not me, it's
the blonde yuppie you want." To my amazement, they believed
me. They did ask for my license, but then they followed me into
the house where I reenacted the scene and gave them a detailed
description of the guy. He looked a little like the golfer they
call the "Walrus." Is Stadler his name?
Actually, he looked a lot the way my friend
Steve Cook did back in his college days. He looked like my brother's
friend, Scotty, and my girlfriend's ex-boyfriend, Greg. One of
the cops looked like his older brother. Motorola employs a lot
of people who look like him. It's a look they like.
Oh... I started smoking cigarettes again,
by the way.
The cops took down the report (I wondered
if they thought they were writing down my hallucination, since
I'm the only one who saw the attack yuppie). After they left,
my girlfriend turned to me and said, "Let me get this straight.
I had a chance to get laid tonight and YOU blew it for me?"
All right, I made that up, but the rest
is true, I swear. Since then, I sleep four hours a day -- during
the day -- and periodically patrol the neighborhood in a dark
blue Mazda between two and three in the morning. I was a paranoid
person before this incident. Now I'm a justifiably paranoid person.
Gives you impetus. My senses are fine-tuned now, especially hearing.
"Were you just taking off your make-up,"
I asked my girlfriend.
"Yes, how did you know?"
"I could hear the sound of tissue
across flesh from the other room."
Yes, every little sound -- including the
voices in my head -- send me to the back patio. The toilet, dishwasher
and paper cutter scare the FUCK out of me.
I'd really like to string this guy up.
You might wonder why I think he was a
rapist rather than a burglar. I guess it's just the way he looked
and that he was only using his hands to get in. He wasn't the
skinny junkie looking for a TV, and he didn't appear to have
any of the tools professionals employ. He looked like a guy who
had just left the clubs (it was about 2:45 or so) and was hoping
to find an open door or window. It didn't even look like he had
a well-worked-out plan. More of a backup plan, maybe. Now I know
what the guys at the bar who never get laid do.
I learned quite a bit from this experience,
though. First, I'm not afraid of ANYBODY in a polo shirt. I scoped
that out in a spit second. Polo shirt... kick his ass... polo
shirt... kick his ass. The second thing I learned is that what
I did to the rapist is what I want to do to ANYONE who drops
by unannounced, from the Sierra Clubbers to the Jehovah's Witnesses.
I want to open the door, scream "Motherfucker!" and
chase them down the street with a can of pepper spray. It's very
healing.
Besides, I don't respond well to therapy.
It's a semantic thing. Where you might see, "Bob Dolan...
Psychotherapist," I see, "Bob Dolan... Psycho The Rapist."
It's problematic.
Anyway, let me know if you see this guy.
You've got his description now and he responds to the name, "Motherfucker."
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STANDARD DISCLAIMER: This column aims to be funny. If you can read anything else into it, you're on your own. Copyright 1998 by Mike Jasper.
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