I just found out that my stalker died and I really don't know how I should be feeling.
Relieved? Elated? Safe?
He once told me if he couldn't have me, no-one would.
But that was over fifteen years ago, and even then, I didn't want him to die.
I just wanted a normal friendship.
I met T.C. when I was seventeen years old. I was a wild child with the immunity of a daddy in politics, and I was pushing every limit I could find. I fell in with a rough crowd, quickly achieving golden girl status as one of the only females around with all of my teeth and long blonde hair. They called me Goldilocks, Goldie for short.
I was also one of the only ones with a non-suspended driver's license so I frequently rode shotgun. I didn't realize why until the first time we got pulled over.
The driver was in his passenger seat and I found myself behind the steering wheel before we even came to a complete stop. I was so naive.
But while the wisdom came later in life, the heart for those in need came early.
Like the day I met T.C.
I'd gone to his house with one of the older girls I'd been hanging with. She said he got a check on the first of every month so he would have a bag of weed. All we had to do was go and be nice to him and he'd smoke some with us for free.
I was all in.
I liked him and I enjoyed our visit. Of course my main mission in life at that point was to get high so my expectations were low.
A few days later I asked my friend when we were going back to visit T.C.
"Oh, not til next month," she replied. "He only has weed for the first day then he's out til he gets his next check."
Now using guys for drugs wasn't exactly new territory for me but I felt really bad for him. Here was this 30-something year old guy who was being completely used by young women like me.
So I went to visit armed with two grocery bags.
"I've come to cook dinner for us," I told a shocked as I walked through the door.
"I don't have any smoke," he said as I made myself at home in his kitchen.
"That's okay," I said. "I didn't come for the pot. I came for a pot," I quipped as I started cooking.
We had a nice meal and I continued to visit every couple of weeks.
I had no romantic interest in him, but I did develop deep platonic feelings. I think whatever was broken inside of me recognized that something was broken deep inside him as well.
Over the next year I learned that T.C. had survived a tragic childhood. At the age of six, he witnessed his mother's murder at the hands of his father, who then turned the knife on him. The scars were brutal. Growing up in foster homes, he tormented other children and pets until he was returned, repeatedly, to social services.
At seventeen he moved out on his own, receiving a Social Security check for a multi-diagnoses mental disability. He was proud of the fact that the local Medicaid and Food Stamp Offices were so scared of him they granted him lifetime benefits, no recertification necessary.
He got his drugs and his girls when his check came in and once did time for handcuffing a prostitute to the bed for two weeks.
"I can't help it. I'm just crazy," he said. "You better be careful. I might do the same to you. I never know how I will act."
I called him out on that right away. "You don't fool me one bit, T.C." I told him. "You only act crazy so people will leave you alone. You know EXACTLY what you are doing."
That was the day he fell in love with me.
Only I didn't realize it at first.
What I DID realize was that he looked at me dumbfounded and said, "You are one smart little girl. I can't believe you are so young." I gave some flippant remark and we watched a little t.v. before I headed home. There was never anything sexual between us.
As the months went on, I started college and a part-time job at a daycare center. My visits with T.C. dwindled down and he was enraged.
Hiring a taxi to drive him to my work, he sat outside for several days in a row watching me.
He sent a mixed tape to my house ("Don't You Forget About Me" from the Breakfast Club soundtrack was featured prominently) along with a letter that said he was going to enroll in every one of my college classes and sit behind me until I talked to him.
I reluctantly told my dad what was going on.
I'm not sure exactly what happened after that, but I'm pretty sure that Dad's job as police chief and the radio silence from T.C. that followed were somehow related.
I didn't hear from him again for a couple of years.
Worried about him and having no good sense whatsoever, I went to visit.
He had nobody and I wanted to make sure he knew that I still cared, that SOMEONE in the world cared if he lived or died.
I told him all about my new boyfriend (and future husband).
He did NOT take the news well.
He started calling and following me again and I had no choice but to cut off all contact. Again.
I really didn't want to.
I didn't want to be yet another person in his life that abandoned him.
But I had no choice.
A few years later I was married and teaching fifth grade when the local tv station ran a human interest story on something my classroom was doing.
The next day a dozen roses appeared in my classroom.
He wanted me to know that he knew where to find me.
I think he received another not-so-subtle warning from the police department.
A few months later I had emergency surgery and was in my hospital room alone, hopped up on pain pills, when I had the stupid idea to call him.
That resulted in an armed guard outside my hospital room until I was discharged and me scrambling to explain how he knew where I was.
My then-husband, unbound by the letter of the law, paid him a visit.
That was the last time I ever saw or heard from him.
But not the last time I thought of him.
I hated it. I really wanted to be his friend. I really hated the thought of someone, ANYONE, living in this world with absolutely no-one who cared.
I cared.
He just couldn't know.
When I first started working with the homeless, particularly with the mentally ill, I immediately thought of T.C.
How is he? What is he doing? Is he still alive?
I tried to track him down online. I wasn't sure if I would do anything with it, but I wanted to know.
I asked my dad. "Remember that guy?"
"I think he died," my dad responded. Immediately.
I'm pretty sure he was just making sure I didn't open that can of worms, no matter what calling was now on my life.
From time to time I'd think of him, especially when I'd meet someone new on the streets who had no-one.
At least they now had ME.
And if I couldn't still be T.C.'s friend, I could be a friend to them.
Then today I got the news.
My son, now an officer for the same dept. my dad once ran, had remembered me talking about my desire to know how T.C. was doing. He'd be turning 66 next month and I still hated the thought of him celebrating each birthday alone.
My son sided with my dad in wanting to make sure I didn't stir a hornet's nest. "I know you, Mom," he'd protest. "If I find him, you're going to try to save him. You'll say you won't, but you will. I know you." He's right. I probably would have.
But he also knew I'd keep asking until I knew. I can be persistent, especially when it comes to those I care about.
So he ran a search.
T.C. died in 2004.
Alone.
There was no service, no obituary, no-one to notify.
I don't know how long he was dead before anyone noticed. My guess is the landlord went in when the rent was due and found him.
I didn't know how to react.
I wasn't surprised; I'd half-expected it despite the absence of his death anywhere online.
But I was sad.
I mourned his childhood, the one he'd have had if his mother had lived. Or the one he could've had if someone had seen past the actions of a scared, angry little boy.
I mourned his adult life, the thirty-seven years society shut him up in a rental and told him to stay away.
Most of all I mourned our friendship, one I couldn't maintain but never forgot.
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