My First Stalker (part 1)

You know how the Discovery Channel has “Shark Week?” Well I guess this is my blog's “Stalker Week.” Continuing the theme from Monday’s post, I wanna tell you about my first stalker. I promise I will post part 2 tomorrow. I have already written it, it just was getting too long.

I was 18 years old, going to college and working a part time job at St. Joseph’s Hospital. I worked in the dietary department, which was just a fancy way of saying kitchen. I was somewhat an anomaly in the department: educated, young, and somewhat bougie. My co workers generally fell in one of two categories. First, you had the older, high school dropouts. Most of the women were 50 and over, and looked like life had been hard to them. I mean instead of washing dishes and preparing food, they looked like they were picking cotton under a blazing Mississippi sun. The other group consisted of workers from a halfway house. Most of them were developmentally challenged, and had either a physical or mental handicap. Of course, there were other types who worked there too, like the poor college students like me and the career stock boy types, but they were in the minority. I’ll admit, it was a little disconcerting at first. I mean, what did a young recent high school graduate have in common with these co workers. Well, for one, we were all Black (except the department head, who was some indescribable montage of racial matter) and two we were all getting pimped for the minimum and sub minimum wage. It almost seems unreal, but I started off making $4.75 an hour to wash dishes and push around the patient food carts. It was a simple job, nothing really to it, but still, can I get a little change? The halfway house crew was in even worse shape as half their paycheck went to Chatham County for their housing and counseling. As I became more comfortable in my surroundings, I made it my mission to build a bond with my fellow co workers. Before long, I was a member of all the cliques in the dietary department. I vibed with the older ladies, the “crazy” crew, the college students, and the lifers. I effortlessly transitioned from conversations about the latest movie to conversations about the Cash 3 numbers to more banal discussions of a woman’s derriere. One of my favorite members of the "crazy" crew used to walk around all day commenting on asses and saying he was “a backyard man.” Good times, LOL. Before you knew it, T. Casanova had taken over as the unofficial president of the dietary department.

The best parts of my work day were 4:30 and 6:30. That’s when lucky T. got to push the carts of food upstairs. There were 7 floors in the hospital and 2 carts per floor. These carts were pretty big, I could manage to fit 2 in the service elevators, pushing one and pulling the other. Now you know once I got to the nurses station I had to show out. I took every opportunity to chat up the hot nurses while I was delivering the food. They were always friendly and cordial, even though they were probably 7 – 10 years older than me and not giving me any play. My favorite nurses were on the 3rd, 5th, and 7th floors. They way they filled out those scrubs…okay, sorry I got carried away. Anyway the hot nurses almost made me forget that I was a germophobe working in a pit of pestilence. The point of this digression is that I was well known around the hospital and that those nurses were HOT!!!

I had been working at the hospital for about a year and a half, when the drama went down. I was dating Lisa, one of the Aries from my trilogy. Out of sheer coincidence, Lisa’s mother and aunt also worked in the same department, so I had to be careful with my flirtatious nature. I mostly hung out with Yosetta, a girl I went to high school with at work and her younger brother Alphonso. We used to laugh and joke and play practical jokes on each other all the time. So when I found a secret admirer note on my car one night after work, I just knew it was them messing with me. The note read “T. I have been noticing you and wish I had the courage to speak to you. You are a very handsome and charming young man and I hope that I get to know you better.” It was signed Angel. Like I said, I thought it was a joke and immediately showed it to my friends, laughing hysterically. They denied having anything to do with the note, but in my mind, I knew it was them.

A couple of months went by and I had forgotten all about the secret admirer letter. Besides, I had a serious steady girlfriend and wasn’t really thinking about who could be writing me notes. Out of the blue, I received another note on my car. This time, I was intrigued. It couldn’t be Yosetta, she wouldn’t go that far for a joke. I mean I would, but she wouldn’t. That’s when I got the first inkling that this could be real. I went into full on Columbo mode, comparing people’s handwriting to my secret admirer’s penmanship. It was like CSI: Savannah in there, only without the neatly wrapped up conclusion. Yeah, I had no idea who wrote it, but I had some ideas. In my young mind, it could only be a pretty woman who was jocking me. There was Linda and Shandrena from the cafeteria. They were both sexy. Then there was the nurses upstairs. I already mentioned how hot they were. My ego swelled to gigantic proportions at the prospect of one of these beautiful ladies wanting to get at me. I don’t think I’m giving away the story by telling you now, it was NOT one of my fantasy women.

A week before my 20th birthday, I found another note on my car. This one said that she would be leaving me a gift for my birthday. From that I deduced that it had to be someone who knew me personally, not just seen me around. It was time for a stakeout. On my birthday, I had my homeboy Kareem posted up in the parking lot watching my car. (Yeah, we were dumb) Although he didn’t know all my coworkers, he could describe her to me and I would finally know who it was. Kareem spent my entire 4 hour shift watching the ride without results. Either she chickened out, or Kareem somehow blew his cover. Regardless, my birthday passed with no contact from the secret admirer. The next day however I found a wrapped present on my car with a note that said Happy Birthday. Again the note was signed Angel. I opened the gift and it was some cologne. I can’t remember what kind it was, but it was the kind that you used to get from the Mary Kay books, and now can find at the discount perfume shop in the mall. I was intrigued at what kind of person would buy me a (cheap) birthday gift but not even speak to me. Was it someone I saw everyday, maybe even had a conversation with? I would soon find out who my secret admirer was and learn a little something about stalkers in the process.