A Stalker, a Standoff, and Some Death Threats.

It’s true, my beautiful sister, we’ll call her Sheena, who is an attorney is absolutely cool (she was born that way) and is a genius (once again: born that way) and I love her tons and tons. Also: I think she’s saved my ass more than once (but we won’t get into that grisly mess right now!). This scene is dedicated to her, and I hope she LAUGHS A LOT when she remembers this event. Here it is:

Roatney Oatnonny is insane.

Well, hell, with a name like that, who can blame him?

He has always shown PDAs with me – which in his case stand for Public Displays of Agony – being mine!

So when his voice erupts on my speaker phone at work bright and early Monday morning, it is indelicately high-pitched, vulgar, and yes, in-sanest of the freakiest kind.

“But Jacy, I LOVE Youuuuuuu!”

Jesus Fucking Christ.

I pick up my phone to thwart the super-sonic dolphin-happy-hearing ranges of the three bitchy and nosy accounting clerks who work for me. I cannot let them hear.

My job is already in blowhard jeopardy as it is.

Last week Roatney Oatnonny sent a singing/juggling clown to my office, such a nutcase job to have happen to me when they already do not like me at work. And it wasn’t even my birthday so I had to make up some nonsensical excuse. Got pulled into my boss’s office about it, sure was embarrassing.

Uh, yeah, I have a stalker, I told my boss, who looked down at me under his bespectacled countenance, and snorted.

Oh really? And how did THAT happen?

Er, it’s a long story. It’s nothing I did, mind you…

Oh I’m sure! I’d like to hear that one. My boss snorted again and galumphed a chortling laugh.

I met him while I was out with my sister, Sheena. That’s how it started.

Sheena! Is she still single? I’d really like to…be single again!

Okay, well, do you mind if I return to work, we can discuss this later, Miles. I ended it without explanation.

So now my accounting clerks actually don’t notice that I'm hissing on the phone with a freakazoid because there’s always so much chaos in the accounting department, and FOR ONCE I am thankful!

Jeremiah Bravo is harassing Litliana Plutnik, the A/P clerk about screwing up his accounts payable again; Mandolynne Warbler is speaking in her loud British snooty voice – belittled harrumphs erupting – to Cheseapeake, our new-ish accounts receivable clerk. And Daisy Jo Portnal, the billing clerk, is on the phone with our senior partner, Ergle Erwood about his billing fiasco, and her voice carries like a pregnant orangutang laying blame.

“Ohmigad, Roatney.” I hiss. “You’re not listening to me. I told you several times already that I have a boyfriend. You have to stop calling me. Besides, I’m at work and I’m very busy.”

He’d first rung last week and now keeps calling me daily.

“But, Jacy, I will do anything for you.” Roatney cajoles.

“I have to go now. Okay?”

“Wait, can’t we just meet sometime and have coffee?”

“No, like I said last week, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?” Roatney pauses. “You said we could have coffee sometime. But I LOVE you.”

“I gotta go.” I place the phone in its cradle and proceed to throw up, on the inside. I am that disgusted. You know those little vomit burps that curdle your insides? My stomach decides to hurt the rest of the day.

Last week when Sheena had told me that some guy had left her a message wanting me to call him, but had not left his name, but did leave a number, why oh why had I decided to call him back from my work phone?

She said he had sounded gay. Keenan Smith? Terence Jenkins? If it was Terry, why would he call me? Why not Jazhette? Some other gay guy friend from my past? Borka Sloaden? Must be.

So when I rang the guy last week, he said his name crisply and clearly: Roatney. Pause. Oatnonny. Proudly. Firmly.

He’s CRAZY!

I cringed on the inside, but my voice was calm. This was the freak I dumped years ago! We talked and I made it nonchalant chit-chatter and low-key.

But then when he invited me to a Marilyn Manson concert I knew I had to get off the phone.

I just had to get off the phone. ASAP. That was my first instinct. Trouble brewing. Like waking the dead. Opening a can of sordid grisly slimy creepy crawly worms.

Oh. My. God.

No thank you, I told him, I have a boyfriend. That was my first mistake. Oh no, right, my first mistake was meeting him several years ago when I was with Sheena at a Halloween party.

Okay, well, he said, we could still go have coffee sometime, right? Right?

Well, I said at the time, just to get him off the fucking phone, sure...sometime. But I was not sincere. I remember hating him and not really being able to pinpoint why or the moment the lust turned to Bitter Revolution Hate. It was never really real hate but he just annoyed the holy fuck out of me. Maybe that’s close enough. Maybe it was the Ska dancing at the Sultan’s Ballroom. Maybe it was the shit in his tub when his toilet/tub didn’t work and his place was fucking freezing cold. Maybe it was that he was poor. And I so hated dating someone who was poor. That was no fun paying for everything myself. It was the biggest turn off ever. Anyway, I somehow I got him off the phone - he did tell me about his school and gave me his address and phone number and all that. Then I hung up but he rang right back and said Now I have your work number. Terror crawled up my spine and snarled, then creeped slimily back down my spine.

Holy Fuck.

Then I said that I had to go and I hung up on him.

The next day I had several I LOVE YOU messages from him on my voicemail that he’d left ranging from 9 p.m. to midnight. Yuck-oid.

The next day I had a few more I LOVE YOU and MISS YOU messages. Vomit Curdling in My Throat. Now. So disgusted.

The next day same thing I had even more I LOVE YOU insane/obsessive compulsive messages. Again. That was a Friday. That night I went to Barnie’s with Jazhette and drank heavily, so bothered by this. And right before Katrinka’s wedding. So I had some big burly macho-voiced tough looking guy who tells him via voicemail to stop calling Jacy Yates.

Well the next day he left about 3-5 crazed gonna-kill-your-boyfriend, gonna-kill-you, gonna-kill-you-and-your boyfriend messages. Then one more that said he wasn’t going to hurt me, he loved me, just going to hurt the boyfriend.

I wondered what to do so I played the messages for my sister, Sheena, who is an attorney and I played some of the sane messages for my family. Sheena said I needed to call the police and tell them. But I pondered this.

And now it is Monday and I just got off the phone with him again, it is torture just being at work. I did tell the girls not to answer my phone. I still do not want them to hear or know what is really going on other than some ex is bugging me. I do not want them to know yet about the death threats.

Last week I had the girls not answer my phone and said some ex was calling and even had the security guard escort me to my car the rest of the week. Was frightened to death of seeing him. Or just freaked out. Somewhat.

I decide to tell Miles about the whole thing for good, come clean and all that, especially about the recent weekend death threat messages saved on my voicemail and am in his office and ready to play my voicemail for him when Litliana accidentally answers my phone and buzzes us and says it is weird heavy breathing and she is really freaked out from him (apparently he’d been sniffing paint all night or something testicular-harming) then Miles says he will call him so I give him the number and Miles says his spiel about harassing an employee and the firm will file a restraining/protective order against him, etc.

Heavy breathing on his side of the receiver. Miles must be getting to him. IT’S ALL SO FUCKING CRAZY.

So now it is Tuesday and Roatney gets up early, armed, and starts shooting his AK-47 or whatever the fuck kinda gun it is at his neighbors. Police show up with teargas, dogs, trucks, etc. I’m at lunch with Sheena wondering about giving her his address so she can do a drive-by during this time, not knowing that he is doing this.

Later back at work, Litliana’s friend who works at the police station tells us that there is a 12 hr standoff at Yadmiral Court and naturally he’d given me his address the week before. So then I check the address and then I KNOW it’s HIM.

I freak out.

Sheena then calls as the entire firm is up in arms about this, watching the television and knowing this is my stalker. Sheena says he apparently called Burn Artin, a bigtime hotshot attorney who takes on high profile cases such as this, who originally ignored him at first until he found out it was as ”public display of affection” or rather, on television the 12 hour standoff with the police. PDA’s are not usually shown on television. Some crazy girls would say, Roatney, how sweet. Or: You really do care about me, Roatney. Probably the type of crazy girls displayed in a made for TV movies starring Juliette Lewis or Courtney, the wife of Kurt Cobain.

The twelve hour standoff ends as Roatney warbles to the ground in a wobbly mess of heartache and craziness, after having shot at several cops, who’ve also reciprocated by shooting back at him. Nobody is killed. It is like a miracle that he is still even alive. The cops are pissed and everyone I know is sorta half ass lauging at me, what a joke that this is a guy that I once dated. What a freak.

My boss, Miles, snorts with laughter and says that I must be really good in bed. Ha ha.

Sheena keeps me posted on updates on his case. He is once up for parole, but doesn’t quite cut that smarmy mustard.

Gee, like he really thought he could get away with shooting at his neighbor, and THEN the cops for twelve hours?

Anyway, he is put away FINALLY and a whole string of court sessions later, he is still trying to get off on insanity. Last I heard, he was saying that I used him. He was still ranting and raving on and on about me. For crying out loud!

I should not always return my phone calls.

I think he is still in jail. He says he wants to kill me and that he’ll get me someday. I’m waiting, oh yes, I have a gun and lots of pink silly string in my bedroom just for the right moment. If he comes after me in my house I’m going to squirt him silly and then quickly take aim and shoot. And I’ll be laughing the whole time.